Turnbull 48, Dutton 35

A look at the incomplete picture of opinion polling from Super Saturday to yesterday’s spill.

This time four weeks ago, Malcolm Turnbull enjoyed surging approval ratings and a slow but persistent improvement in voting intention that had put the Coalition within striking distance on the BludgerTrack two-party poll trend. The story of his journey from there to here begins with the Super Saturday by-elections, a fact that future historians may find a little puzzling. Objectively speaking, the results in the two seats where the Coalition took on Labor were disappointing rather than disastrous: in Braddon they held their ground, which in most circumstances would be regarded as a pretty solid result, while the swing of 3.7% in Longman was well in line with the by-election norm.

One part of the problem for Turnbull was that expectations had not been duly managed — not least by Peter Dutton, who apparently put it to a radio interviewer shortly before polling day that the Liberal National Party had Longman in the bag. Instead, Longman produced the one genuine surprise of Super Saturday, in the LNP’s failure to crack 30% on the primary vote – a result surprisingly few thought to attribute to the troubled campaign of Trevor Ruthenberg. The lesson drawn by a critical mass of the state’s marginal seat MPs was that they would not survive the next election unless a solution was found to One Nation, which could not be accomplished with Malcolm Turnbull as leader. Since most of the support the party has lost to One Nation will be coming back as preferences, the argument presumably goes that One Nation’s strength is also driving voters to Labor, as it seemed to do in Peter Beattie’s heyday.

The first polls conducted after Super Saturday told of only minor damage to the Coalition on voting intention. The Newspoll and Essential Research polls conducted just under a fortnight ago both had the Coalition down two on the primary vote, but Newspoll had most of it returning through the filter of a strengthened One Nation, leaving Labor’s two-party lead unchanged at 51-49, while Essential ticked a point in Labor’s favour to 52-48. However, the real difference lay in Turnbull’s personal ratings: Essential continued to show roughly equal approval and disapproval, while Newspoll had his net rating going from minus 6% to minus 19%.

The most recent poll, from Ipsos, concurred with Newspoll in finding Turnbull in freefall: his net approval rating (always unusually positive from this pollster) went from positive 17 to minus 2. However, the poll also provided the first strong indication of the rot extending to voting intention, on which the Labor lead surged from 51-49 to 55-45. Given the pace of events last week, it’s important to bear in mind that the field work period was Wednesday to Saturday. Turnbull’s latest energy policy formulation was made known overnight on Saturday and endorsed by the party room on Tuesday; talk of resignations and floor-crossing dominated political reporting over the next few days; and Turnbull’s damaging backdown on a legislated emissions target came late on Friday. The latter, at least, would clearly have been too late to have had any real impact.

Prior to Super Saturday, the leadership showdown the media-polling complex was gearing up for was not Turnbull versus Dutton, but Shorten versus Albanese: Newspoll and YouGov Galaxy by-election polls stirred the pot with voting intention questions for a hypothetical Albanese leadership, and duly recorded stronger results for Albanese than Shorten. No such exercise has yet been conducted involving Malcolm Turnbull, whether against Peter Dutton or any other challenger, a fact that may have had an impact on how the leadership crisis has played out to this point. The omission will presumably be rectified over the coming days.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,421 comments on “Turnbull 48, Dutton 35”

Comments Page 25 of 29
1 … 24 25 26 … 29

  2. shellbell says Wednesday, August 22, 2018 at 8:30 pm

    Why doesn’t Bordertown feature on any Aussie travel shows?

    Have you been there? If so you’ll know why.

  3. News 24 is showing exciting live pictures of the outside of a building with people walking out every now and then.

    Is it just me, or is – in spite of all the breathless speculation – nothing much actually happening?

  8. Andrew Wilkie leaving Parliament tonight: “The country’s had a gutful of the antics in this place. I don’t think they really care who’s running it as long as it’s run competently.# #libspill

    8:31 PM – Aug 22, 2018

  9. The convention that the PM needs to be in the responsible house is well established.

    It is established by the fact that they keep doing it.

    A GG is extremely unlikely to commission as PM someone with no intention to leave the Senate.

    I don’t see why this would be the case. Clearly the case of someone in the Senate becoming PM is not an issue; yes, there was presumably a stated intention of moving to the lower house but again I don’t see why the GG would have an issue even without that.

    Westminster itself had PMs from the House of Lords until they stopped doing that (and, IMO, that was as much to do with the non-elected nature of the House of Lords as much as any practical issues).

    Confidence in the House for the government is not about the PM per se, it’s about a fairly abstract ‘package deal’ of who will form government and how the ministry will be drawn up.

  10. Uhlmann….

    Former assistant minister @JamesMcGrathLNP has told me that he has signed the petition asking the Prime Minister to spill the leadership. So there is one vote. PM’s people say if the rebels have the numbers let’s see the petition. @9NewsAUS #auspol

  12. Julie Bishop has seen, and piled on some of, the crap that a woman gets when she becomes Prime Minister or State Premier in this pathetic country. I am sure she does not want to undergo what she helped make PM Julia Gillard endure while in office.

    So I hope Bishop has a rush of blood to the head and puts her hand up, and wins.

    Revenge, though wicked, can be very satisfying, like chocolate cake with whipped cream.

    I wonder what PMJG is thinking, and drinking.

  13. If a bunch of bovver boys have tried to stamped the party into dumping a PM on false pretences this will create even more ill-will. The tears in this party are starting to look irreparable.

  15. Has Phil Coorey joined the PMO? Quite indistinguishable from a Press Secretary these days.

    At any rate, he is the go to man for the Turnbull camp while The Australian represents Team Dutton.

  16. Phillip Coorey
    ‏
    Verified account

    @PhillipCoorey
    17m17 minutes ago
    More
    Lib MP says Whips office has had four complaints for female MPs saying they felt intimidated when asked to sign the petition. They didn’t sign. One Turnbull supporter says Dutton camp trying to whip up a crisis. #libspill #corblimeyillavealf

  18. https://www.pollbludger.net/2018/08/22/turnbull-48-dutton-35/comment-page-24/#comment-2876375

    It is not just the bigger pool to choose leaders from, it is also that bigger states get more votes in the leadership ballots and with both of the largest parties still having state based factions and sub-factions and thus state based support networks for candidacies. The effect of this is however less slightly pronounced in the ALP, where they have had 2 Queensland and 1 WA PM. One of the major effects of the Country/National party has been reducing the chances of a non-ALP PM (excluding temporary PMs) from Queensland by cutting the number of Queensland MPs in the largest non-ALP partyroom.

  19. News24 has stopped showing live pics of people leaving a building in order to concentrate on the vital spectacle of people sitting in a studio and making stuff up.

  20. “nath says:
    Wednesday, August 22, 2018 at 8:33 pm
    potential arbitrage situation there with ladbrokes”

    I think what William pointed out was that earlier the odds favoured Malcolm going by the end of the week but currently it’s 50-50.

  21. While I understand someone arguing the GG could say no to a PM who wants to stay in the Senate, I don’t think there’s any basis for saying that it’s unlikely that the GG would say yes. There’s no precedent or anything backing that up.

  23. Lib MP says Whips office has had four complaints for female MPs saying they felt intimidated when asked to sign the petition.

    I’m shocked – who knew there were so many female Lib MPs?

  24. Hypothesis: Greg Hunt is setting himself up for the wash-up

    Either:
    a) Hunt gets to be Deputy Leader under a disastrous Dutton PMship leading to a catastrophic defeat which Dutton cannot survive as leader, and may not even survive in parliament, or
    b) Hunt takes a hit as Turnbull limps on to a slightly less catastrophic defeat at which Dutton is considerably more likely to be out of parliament.

    In any case, Hunt wins some admiration from the trogs, while being clearly acceptable to the mods, and thus the best compromise candidate for New Leader…

    Thoughts?

  26. IF Bishop was made PM It would only take a couple of weeks that the libs would be advising she was in need of a bum lift. Shades of J. Gillard

  27. Greensborough Growler @ #1214 Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018 – 8:45 pm

    Phillip Coorey
    ‏
    Verified account

    @PhillipCoorey
    17m17 minutes ago
    More
    Lib MP says Whips office has had four complaints for female MPs saying they felt intimidated when asked to sign the petition. They didn’t sign. One Turnbull supporter says Dutton camp trying to whip up a crisis. #libspill #corblimeyillavealf

    Probably this guy:

  29. Both Dutton and Putin come from a cruel police background but Dutton doesn’t have the intelligence or cunning to get to the top and stay there

  30. Confessions says:
    Wednesday, August 22, 2018 at 7:58 pm
    Asha:

    Plus it’s always the way to throw a woman under the bus when the men make a mess of things.

    ____________________

    You denigrate and belittle men on a regular basis.

    Why is that?

  31. Bongiorno with a pithy comment..

    I am told by Liberal sources Turnbull angered many of his moderate supporters by refusing to accept ministerial resignations from the right. One said Keating would have told them to F off knowing he was shoring up his 48 from Tuesday

  37. Steve777 says:
    Wednesday, August 22, 2018 at 8:11 pm
    John Gorton was a Senator when elected PM. The Liberals found him a safe seat in the House. The Constitution allows 3 months’ grace.

    ____________

    I thought that the constitution did not mention the Prime Minister.

  38. sprocket_ @ #1229 Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018 – 8:56 pm

    Bongiorno with a pithy comment..

    I am told by Liberal sources Turnbull angered many of his moderate supporters by refusing to accept ministerial resignations from the right. One said Keating would have told them to F off knowing he was shoring up his 48 from Tuesday

    Which is when ratsak usually chimes in with this as appropriate:

  42. Here’s one lady not too happy with the petition.

    Jane Prentice, a Queensland Liberal National MP, said a petition does exist. Her latest estimate was that there were nine signatures. That was a couple of hours ago.

    ” I understand there’s a petition. I understand that a couple of hours ago there were nine signatures”

    What does she think of the petition?

    “I think people should stop thinking about themselves and start thinking about the people of Australia.”

    Prentice is a Turnbull supporter.

  44. AB11

    It reminds me of when Dolly Downer led a delegation to,see Howard in 2007 to tell him he had lost the support of his colleagues, and should step aside for Costello.

    Howard told them they could shove the idea up their arse, and get out of his office. Which they did.

  46. Good tweet:

    Sally McManus
    ‏Verified account @sallymcmanus
    12m12 minutes ago

    Sally McManus Retweeted Phillip Coorey

    Time to join a union

    RE: Female complaint.

  47. Liberal MP Jane Prentice: “My constituents are absolutely fed up with us talking about ourselves and internal machinations. They’ve had it up to here and they say ‘you guys need to get a reality check’.” #libspill

  48. Morgan poll:
    Turnbull 52%
    Shorten 44.5%
    Difference: 7.5%
    According to Kevin Bonham:
    “the Preferred Prime Minister score shows an average lead of 16 points to the incumbent.”

    Hence Shorten is much closer to Turnbull as preferred PM as expected from the average lead in the preferred PM polls.

Comments Page 25 of 29
1 … 24 25 26 … 29

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *