Despite voters believing the leadership challenge was “very bad” for the government and Julia Gillard and her ministers performed poorly in handling it, Labor’s primary vote has stayed the same, according to new polling from Essential Research.
Thirty eight per cent of voters believed the leadership stoush was “very bad” and another 24% thought it was bad for the government, while 47% said it made them less likely to vote for Labor. Forty nine per cent of voters thought Julia Gillard had performed poorly during the spill and 52% of voters thought her ministers had performed poorly — the Gillard camp was notable for its savage attacks on Kevin Rudd, led by Treasurer Wayne Swan.
But despite that, Labor’s primary vote remains at 32% and the Coalition on 49%. With the Greens dropping a point to 10%, the 2PP is the same as last week, 56-44%.
Interestingly, Labor voters responded very differently on whether the turmoil of the past fortnight would make them more or less likely to vote Labor: 33% said it would make them more likely to, and only 21% less likely. Sixty four per cent of Liberal voters said it made them less likely to, and 38% of Greens voters, compared to 18% of Greens voters who were more likely to.
On Kevin Rudd’s future, voters are almost evenly divided: 30% of voters think Rudd should now resign from parliament compared to 29% who think he should challenge again and 28% who think he should remain on the backbench and not challenge. Rudd has committed not to challenge Gillard again this term and defend her from any other assaults.
It’s also interesting that the turmoil has had only a small effect on the number of voters who want an election called. Since mid-2011, the number of voters wanting Parliament to run its full term has been steadily increasing and in January stood at 48% to 41% who wanted an election. That has shifted to 46% wanting Parliament to run a full term and 44% wanting an election.
Despite the visceral nature of the leadership contest, in which cabinet confidentiality was waived as part of a process of attacking Kevin Rudd’s leadership style, the immediate fallout for Labor appears limited: the party’s parlous position has not worsened. The government will now hope for a leadership tension-free period in which to turn the spotlight onto Tony Abbott and focus on his lack of economic credibility in the lead-up to May’s budget.
Voters also thought the media had performed poorly during the spill, with 14% of voters rating their performance as good, and 43% rating it poor. Abbott’s performance was rated slightly better than Gillard’s, with 25% saying good and 40% saying poor. Rudd was deemed to have performed best, with 33% of voters rating his performance as good and 34% poor.
The process also elicited some differences between voters about the basis on which parties should choose leaders. Fifty six per cent of voters thought parties should pick whomever has the most support from voters, compared to 30% who thought MPs should pick the person they thought best to lead the party. But that didn’t apply to Greens voters: 49% of Greens voters thought leaders should the person MPs thought best to lead the party should be selected, and only 40% thought it should the person favoured by voters.
And despite misconceptions around whether voters elect the Prime Minister, there was most support for the current system of party MPs choosing national party leaders, 36%, compared to 31% support for a primary system. The British system of party members choosing a leader had little support, on 11%.
The Essential sample size was 1042.
@BK, ho hum, just another 54:26 2PP split – this is likely to the stay the way it is, if there continues to be relentless daily negative JG media, confecting turmoil around the leader over alleged petty misdemeanours. I’d really be interested to know if the 2pp vote would stay that way if JG was genuinely given ‘clear air’ by the media. The only way that’s going to happen is if you start focussing on policy, which is not what the Tories want you to do. Break away from the pack and start doing it, BK. We can’t have a democratic system in Australia, which has people looking no further than the skin of a politician to see if they are good looking enough, young enough, intelligent enough, ruthless enough, polished and refined enough, whether they are right wing enough to focus on the interests of a tiny rich minority etc
This last issue about Carr’s job offer was so much ‘in an and out of the cat’s a—‘, it wasn’t funny’.
We have to look at policy and the national interest now because both sides always look after the very rich, always have and always will – that’s taken as a given. The difference between the two sides is just about who gets to control that greed a little bit more.
By the say BK , I don’t think you are sexist – you rightly called out on that gratuitously rude News journalist at JG’s Adelaide press conference, as being “appalling’.
I’ve just been grumpy with you on some occasions for peddling the Lib strategy about JG being criticised no matter what she does, which ends up being distracting. For example, the Libs would have criticised her for not getting Carr on board by saying she is weak and not in control of her party. Now, they are criticising her for getting Carr on board by saying she ignored the rest of her ministry for the foreign affairs job. You see the MSM strategy? She’s not supposed to win either way. And this has been going for far too long. Don’t get manipulated. By all means drink with Shanahan, Hartcher and Coorey after a hard day in Caberra (not too much!) but establish and maintain boundaries, please.
Cheers, Karen
@BK sorry typo – I write quickly – its meant to be 54:46 2pp split.
Karen
Posted Monday, 5 March 2012 at 3:13 pm | Permalink
@BK, ho hum, just another 54:26 2PP split – this is likely to the stay the way it is, if there continues to be relentless daily negative JG media, confecting turmoil around the leader over alleged petty misdemeanours. I’d really be interested to know if the 2pp vote would stay that way if JG was genuinely given ‘clear air’ by the media. The only way that’s going to happen is if you start focussing on policy, which is not what the Tories want you to do.
I wonder how Abbott and the dolts he leads would fare if they were subjected to the same vicious campgain that the ALP and Julia has had to put up with for the past two years esp from News Limited and the Australian?
Also when will the ABC stop using news from News Ltd as being FACTS and do their own research work? One wonders why these public service hacks get paid.
All this pole dancing?
One thing I want to know is – when are we going to get a pole asking us how
many would like to see Barnaby Joyce leading the federal Coal-ition?
All those conservatives thought Rudd should be PM – I reckon there’d
be a lot of us that would love to see “Cousin Jethro” at that wheel.
@Eric – exactly – the Libs would go into free fall if they were subjected to this kind of scrutiny – not only do they have a disagreeable, myopic, concrete thinker (read a small mind) for a leader, but their policies aren’t funded and don’t serve the broader national interest,only narrow sectional ones – don’t you just love it how any policy that does serve broader community interests is automatically branded as ‘waste’.
The ALP and Greens are fast becoming the party of the community, micro /and small business, plus the environment. Whereas Libs are all about the biggest of the big, which at the moment is Energy and Mining – no wonder Gina, Clive et al are pushing their Lib party megaphones, it would appear for now, convincingly down the electorate’s collective throat. You get enough white, working class voters suckered in by the megaphones and there will be a change of govt, even though our current Government in Canberra is doing more for them through their community based policies. They wouldn’t know it though because the media don’t carry it, or if they carry it, they don’t push it.
In the interests of balance though, I have to say that what State Labour did in Qld and NSW about unregulated CSG mining (ie no environmental impact assessment studies) is just appalling. And Tony Bourke sitting on his hands with respect to Gladstone Harbour is unbelievable. This CSG scourge is wrecking prime and beautiful agricultural land and poisoning water – strange, indeed to see a smiling Alan Jones leading the Greens vanguard in one of many protests that are going on up in the Hunter at the moment. This is an issue close to my heart. I think the community should engage in a two-pronged attack: (1) support the Lock the Gates campaign up North which is an abreaction to the Govts failure to enforce proper environment protections and (2) to be ready to sue (through class-actions) the Govts/companies for the damage that is being caused. Slater and Gordon and firms like that should be considered, if State/Fed govts don’t act.