At a time when it would have had pencilled in an upswing on the back of the G20, the latest round of polling will have come as a bitter disappointment to the Abbott government.
The worst of a bad bunch was this week’s Newspoll, which found the Coalition slumping to a 55%-45% deficit on two-party preferred — right back where it was in the aftermath of the May budget.
It was a sign of the alarm within conservative circles that Andrew Bolt felt moved to compose a 1000-word, 19-point action plan setting out where the government was going wrong and what it needed to do to rectify it.
In considering such reactions, it always pays to be alert to the hyperbole that characteristically accompanies poll movements, which are very often within the margin of error or are shown over long range to have been statistical anomalies.
Newspoll in particular is characterised by a certain volatility relative to comparable pollsters, and there seems little doubt that this particular poll overshot the mark.
But that’s not to say that the result appeared out of thin air, or that it shouldn’t be of concern to the government that a quality pollster should be showing it in such deep strife.
Taking a step back from the week-to-week polling noise, the BludgerTrack poll aggregate featured on my blog The Poll Bludger suggests that the government is presently entering a fifth phase in its polling fortunes, which might progressively be identified as the honeymoon, the reversal, the collapse, the recovery and the relapse.
The honeymoon was a pale thing by the standards of earlier federal governments, but it at least lived up to its name to the extent that the Coalition held the lead for the first and so far only time since it came to office.
The reversal came in November, for which the catalyst was the government’s abandonment of the Gonski reforms and the backflip that rapidly followed. No doubt to its own surprise, Labor at this point established a slight but durable lead just three months after it was resoundingly ejected from office.
The collapse was a clear consequence of the May budget, and for a time left the Coalition with polling numbers of a kind Julia Gillard had known all too well. Labor’s aggregated poll lead at this time was in the order of 54%-46%, and Prime Minister Tony Abbott spent a period of about a month consistently suffering disapproval ratings in the order of 60%.
The recovery in fact played out over two distinct phases, a point that comes through more clearly in Abbott’s own approval ratings than the voting intention numbers.
The first reflected Tony Abbott’s robust response to the MH17 disaster, which at least initially struck the right note with most of the electorate. The second was the flurry of concern about domestic terrorism that attended the Islamic State offensive in Iraq, the raids in Sydney and Brisbane on September 18, and the subsequent bolstering of anti-terrorism laws.
The causes of the subsequent relapse are not quite so easy to diagnose. Certainly the US-China greenhouse emissions agreement has left the government looking flat-footed and spoilt its G20 party, but the poll aggregation clearly indicates that the shift back to Labor had in fact been in train since late September.
The most likely explanation is that the recovery, the second phase of it especially, did not have much substance behind it to begin with. The reversion of the agenda to domestic concerns — for which catalysts were provided by the fuel excise increase and talk of revisiting the goods and services tax — might have been all that was needed to let the air out of the balloon, as I suggested might be the case at around the time the swing back to Labor began.
Of course, the government can always console itself with the thought that mid-term opinion polls are of little predictive value, and that the better part of two years remains to right the ship.
However, that’s of little comfort to Victorian Premier Denis Napthine, who finds the federal government adding ever more weight to his saddlebags as he prepares to face the voters in Victoria next Saturday.
Despite some signs of a narrowing from the limited public polling that has emerged over the past week, indications remain that Victoria will indeed be back under Labor control in a little over a week’s time.
If that is indeed how things plays out, the intensity of the recriminations directed at the federal Liberals by their state counterparts will be something to behold.
You can’t blame the US-China Deal for the “relapse” in the polls. Abbott showed the world what we already knew: he is useless as PM, a petty minded nasty ignorant little man living in his own reality. It’s bad enough that he’s an embarrassment at home, but it embarrasses us when he is an international embarrassment.
I find your optimism for the future of the Abbott commendable but misplaced. Much of the recovery has been the effort of Julie Bishop as Chair of the Security Council and her efforts to bring Putin to heel as well as her leadership on the issue of global terrorism. This is her last week so another stage for Abbott to grandstand from is ended. As is Abbott’s normal practise he is quick to piggy back on Bishop with rushed visits to here and everywhere to get maximum photoops of Abbott the diplomat.
The G20 and the signing of the FTA’s was to be the icing on the cake at the G20 but it went horribly wrong. Abbott himself continued to play the clown over Global Warming as Obama crashed the agenda with his own US/China deal and his call to arms over the degredation of the Great Barrrier reef.
Abbott is ambushed and stranded and the pressuse mounts with even the UK Conservatives comming out and attacking Abbott’s intransigence causing him to flip flop under pressure.
Another Rudd — they have the same personality weaknesses – typical narcissists. The revoke of the FOFA regulations shows again a lazy approach to passing legislation in the uncertain and volatile Senate where arrogance has now turned to embarrasment.
In a Bad Week the defunding of the ABC has the social media in melt down as lies become non lies by having other lies substituted as truths in form of rehearsed and parrotted 3 word phrases which as turned out whenever the government is in trouble.
Bolt has a point — the mandate argument ( which did not work) caused a lazy approach to the development and implemetation of policy.
The 3 word slogans were acheieved but based on compromise not hard debated conviction in both the parliament and with the electorate. In the case of “stop the boats” thuggery is a better description.
The electorate are not stupid and the lack of transpaerency, the back room deals, the pleas to the business community, all show a defeated administration in desperation and in fear of its demise.
Abbott has neither the will of the ticker to turn it around — Bolt’s stated fear — a reshuffle will cause angst as the Minsitry spend most of their time repairing or defending an inept Abbott and an incompetent Hockey to be demoted.
Abbott would have to dump Hockey and after the FoFa debacle he has to demote Cormann – Robb is being found out as he has traded away any bnefits to Australia in the FTA’s, Macfarland is gridlocked on the RET, and Joyce is likely to replace Truss at the Nationals.
So a minor reshuffle would bring a totally new and inexperienced front bench– dangerous as Labor are regaining confidence and are beginning to show signs that they want to regain government in 2016.
Governments and leaders like Howard have recovered from a poll situation like this — but Abbott does not have the ticker or the intellect or the capacity to lead.
If Napthine looses in a landslide then the dye is cast — Abbott must go.
Julie Bishop – you may consider being doing a Julia Gillard in the first days of the new sitting in March as without a change of leadership Bolt’s “doomsday” may become a reality come 2016.
It started in November 2013 when Abbott decided that going silent was some form of political genius.
I seem to recall Anna Bligh getting a poll bounce from her handling of the Qld floods. It was a sugar hit, of course, as the ALP were smashed at the next election.
Abbott’s profiting (and seeking to profit) from the tragedy of MH17, including the threat against Putin that wasn’t followed through, and the patently exaggerated terrorist threat may well be in the same category.
tfw – While I would agree with many of your comments, I regret you found it necessary to place Kevin Rudd in the same category as the rAbbott.
I must have been following a different PM Rudd than yourself. Abbott has had NO significant ‘wins’ since he was elected – in fact if anything, the country has gone backwards!
PM Rudd had many successes during his time in office, was highly intelligent, very articulate and a well respected diplomat on the world stage. Abbott can only dream of ever attaining the popularity of this man.
Rudd was not perfect, but every trivial incident he was involved in, was blown out of all proportion by the MSM in Oz, particularly the Murdoch press. So much so, that the man’s reputation was terminally damaged, because so many people believed all that cr+p.
Including you, it would seem!