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.
“Jim Molan, a Dutton backer, on Sky News just now: “As far as I’m concerned things are going according to plan.””
Just like Baghdad in late 2003, hey Jimbo. Good times …
sprocket_ says:
Wednesday, August 22, 2018 at 9:35 pm
So if DuttMentum becomes a DuttFizzer, what are we left with? A fractured party openly at war with itself, staring at an election within 9 months.
Bring on the opinion polls
There should be an election at the first opportunity.
Morgan Primaries
I’m pulling out my best maths on a spreadsheet with the Morgan numbers to try and work out what LNP-ALP-GRN-OTH primary votes would result in their figures.
And having a hard time – does anyone want to give me some starting numbers
For instance I am trying 35/35/10/20 and you get PPM Turnbull 49.6 to Shorten 46.8.
Wait – just realised there is another dataset below that with Dutton-Shorten, should help.
Our great LNP will go on to win the next election by a landslide and a Peter Dutton will be a good PM
Andrew_Earlwood @ #915 Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018 – 9:39 pm
Quadbikes reply
Sharri Markson reminds me of Shanai Twain in her pomp
Baghdad 2003 – They went to plan until about April 10 2003.
If Mal survives this week does he reboot the way he should have when he first became PM.. get rid of the right rump & produce traditional Liberal policies.
Death or glory !
Antony Green has updated his must read primer
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-22/the-when-and-how-of-calling-the-next-federal-election/10153686
Wonder when, if ever, Dutton will realise he has been used by Abbott and his Sydney shock jock backers.
So the Liberals botch their energy policy, their tax cuts and now their leadership coup. A bunch of headless chooks would be a paradigm of excellence in organisation by comparison.
7News Yahoo7
Verified account @Y7News
5m5 minutes ago
Liberal MPs want Malcolm Turnbull to face second leadership spill tomorrow. #7News
briefly @ #1291 Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018 – 9:32 pm
We’re barely into day 2. Keep calm and wait for the next thing.
Turnbull should have had Howard as his guest this week at Parliament, given him a dinner and showered him with gifts and medals. His gravitas might have kept the ferals from biting everyone.
A few more voices from Liberal MPs leaving parliament.
Moderate Trent Zimmerman says he is confident Turnbull will remain leader. He says there has been a lot of “Vladimir Putin fake news” happening about the spill.
Stuart Robert says the “great thing about democracy is that everyone gets to stand up”. Robert says he believes another vote is imminent.
I suspect in time we’ll probably see another one. We’ll wait and see the next party room meeting is in two weeks time.
Or tomorrow perhaps? Robert responds:
We’ll wait and see, won’t we?
The coup has hit the shallows….nothing doing …not yet, anyway.
shellbell @ #1310 Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018 – 9:45 pm
As Marlon Brando once said:
“He coulda been a contender and now he’s just a bum!”
Morgan Primaries update on sort-of diophantine equations (as in assuming integer input)
closest one I’m getting so far is LNP 38, ALP 35, GRN 5, OTH 22 (seems strange)
Which gives TPP ALP 52.2 to 47.8 (assuming 0.8 GRN and 0.6 OTH to ALP)
a r says:
Wednesday, August 22, 2018 at 9:47 pm
briefly @ #1291 Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018 – 9:32 pm
The coup is faltering.
We’re barely into day 2. Keep calm and wait for the next thing.
The Coupsters were talking up their chances tonight, and clearly they over-reached. If the SG comes back with a recommendation that Dutton be referred to the HC, and Turnbull moves to do that, all hell will likely break loose.
There is a statue to Hawke at Bordertown
I do not relate to Cormann and “stateless”
I seem to recall the NATO Headquarters being in Belgium
So why is someone originally from Belgium “stateless”?
What were the circumstances of Cormann to render him “stateless” and emigrating to Australia?
RR….it’s Morgan…will always look wrong….
ANTONBRUCKNER11@9:30pm
Will Darth Vader take out Emporer while going down in this blockbuster?
This really does feel like a usurpation….a seizure….very disorientating feeling…..that events have been calculated…that there is an ambush going on….this is not an uprising so much as a plot.
“Wonder when, if ever, Dutton will realise he has been used by Abbott and his Sydney shock jock backers.”
You can see Dutton trying to put 2 + 2 together every time he tries to talk about lowering immigration numbers.
First he doesn’t want to lower numbers, then its something about infrastructure spending, then its keeping high immigration as long as they all go to regional areas.
Basically, he just doesn’t get it
Anyhoo, ‘wotcher GG, did you ever run for council again?
David Speers….
The Prime Minister has left the building. Neither he nor the whip has seen any letter/petition calling for a meeting/spill.
Ben Eltham
Verified account @beneltham
9m9 minutes ago
I can see why the ABC cancelled Tonightly now. There’s really no need for a political satire show
A bit of caution about s 44 and Dutts – para (v) disqualifies anyone who “has any direct or indirect pecuniary interest in any agreement with the Public Service of the Commonwealth”. There seems to be no clear agreement about the scope of “agreement” – do you have to have bargained for the payments (as Bob Day did) or is it enough that you just make an application for something that is available to any applicant as long as you fulfil the conditions? There are vague hints in Day’s case that the latter would not disqualify you – but they’re only hints because Day had begged and pleaded for the Commonwealth to take the lease. We don’t seem to have the bit of Walker’s opinion where he discusses that. And we don’t seem to know the nature of Dutts’s “agreement” – though I suppose it’s the same as that made by any childcare agency. I also suppose the parameters are probably spelled out in an Act or regs or departmental guidelines and a bit of research would turn them up – but at least at the moment I can’t be bothered.
“Which gives TPP ALP 52.2 to 47.8 (assuming 0.8 GRN and 0.6 OTH to ALP)”
Or 51-49 if ‘others’ split 50-50.
Anyway, GRN 5 and OTH 22 doesn’t look credible.
briefly
Yes – I think no matter what when I plug in various possibilities the TPP comes out be around 52-48 or maybe 53-47, but the Primaries will look strange (maybe why they didn’t release them).
Rocket Rocket @ #1324 Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018 – 10:03 pm
Which is nuckin’ futs. The clown car with the Liberal Party inside is exploding before everyone’s eyes AND they still give them their support to get them to 47-48!?!
Rocket,
You could do it using a Linear Program, with constraints +- 0.25, say, on the percentages they give for the various ‘properties’. Effectively a set of simultaneous ‘almost’ equations, with ranges for the values of the various properties. Make the objective function ‘price’ the same for all components. Don’t need an optimum, just a feasible solution.
I’m in the middle of one for a milk processor, so will not spend the time.
nath
An excellent plan. But would Howard have gone for the bait ?
Rocket, I agree that it looks that the primaries were not believable, and that is the reason they haven’t released them.
Easy, C@t.
This is all speculation.
Like imagining the outcome of a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle with 499 pieces missing.
The thing that I can’t get my head around is that there has been zero popular clamour for Peter Dutton to be our next Prime Minister. He is being foist upon us by the hard Conservative Right of the Liberal Party/LNP. At least there was generalised public affection for Malcolm Turnbull when he rolled Tony Abbott. There’s a gaping hole where public recognition and affection should be for Peter Dutton. He thus has zero legitimacy.
Steve777 – plugging in William’s Bludgertrack 38/35.7/10.2/16.1, I get
PPM Turnbull 50.7 v Shorten 45.6 (not far off 52 v 44.5)
PPM Dutton 36.2 v Shorten 61.6 (not far off 36.5 v 59)
So yes the primaries are probably similar, but probably need a higher LNP number to get there.
40/35/9/16 gives the best answer using integers. Would still be Labor ahead on TPP.
shellbell says:
Wednesday, August 22, 2018 at 9:45 pm
Wonder when, if ever, Dutton will realise he has been used by Abbott and his Sydney shock jock backers.
Dutton may well be using them. He has evidently given nothing to Abbott (that we know about).
Fulvio Sammut @ #1329 Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018 – 10:09 pm
Okay, reasonable proposition. But you have to admit that Newspoll will still likely have a 2PP for the Coalition with a 4 in front of it.
“7News Yahoo7
Verified account @Y7News
5m5 minutes ago
Liberal MPs want Malcolm Turnbull to face second leadership spill tomorrow. #7News”
The problem is they don’t say how many MPs want another ballot.
Yabba – yes a much more complex problem also if you factor in “neither/ can’t say”
Not worth the effort as I imagine they will eventually release the Primaries, but need a high LNP primary to get these numbers – interesting decision not to release them though. An LNP 40 combined with this bad PPM for Dutton may well have had a bigger impact.
Tomorow’s SMH
In fairness you could say the same about Gillard even though she took over from a hopeless bureaucrat who was failing as leader even if she didn’t prosecute that line for whatever reason.
I think the difference with the Libs this time around is that the need for change is driven by ideology, therefore it’s no wonder they’re making a complete hash of it.
At least the people of Dickson have a handle of what Dutton is all about…….
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Fess – I think the fallout from this whichever way it goes will be worse than past changes precisely because of that. It’s not about Dutton it really is framed in the ideology of the far right of the Liberal Party (though Abbott would probably be happy to have Bishop as PM as long as Turnbull loses the job).
I’m still tipping PM Abbott by mid-morning tomorrow. As it could be slightly embarrassing to swear in a Prime Minister who then was found to be ineligible to be in Parliament!
Confession – It was amazing how quickly Rudd’s decline occurred… it was a matter of a few months… he had lost party support before the golden lustre started coming off. Then it was very quick to the kill.
This is quick but it sure is ugly. This looks more like the Ruddstration in 2013 where half of cabinet refused to serve after the spill.
Confessions @ #1337 Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018 – 10:17 pm
The difference wrt Julia Gillard was that it was widely accepted before the overthrow of Rudd occurred that she had been going through his In tray, as he was increasingly paralysed by indecision, and making the decisions on his behalf, so she was the logical successor. As you’ll see at the bottom of the SMH front page for tomorrow, the voters in Dickson who know him describe Dutton as ‘not the sharpest tool in the shed’. Dutton is a tool of the Abbott claque and Julia Gillard was a more than worthy successor to Rudd.
poroti, I think Howard would be appalled by what he is seeing, It’s one thing tearing down LOTO’s but its gotten out of hand. Will every PM from now on be forced to kowtow to the likes of Craig Kelly, pamper and flatter insignificants so that they don’t try to tear them down.
For Liberals, it’s always about Ideology.
‘The thing that I can’t get my head around is that there has been zero popular clamour for Peter Dutton to be our next Prime Minister. ‘
Dutton has the physical attraction of a peeled potato and the policy depth of the peelings.
I dunno. I can see someone like a Hunt, JBishop or even Dutton left carrying the can to an election loss. But Abbott has given every indication he’s yearned for his return to the leadership to blow it by jumping the shark and resuming the leadership as the party heads towards an election defeat.