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”

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  2. 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.

    It looks amazingly incompetent. Half the partyroom leaking likes to journo ‘sources’ about the other half who sit there wondering WTF?

    Amateur hour.

  3. C@t:

    Labor was well placed in that when they had to make the change from an incompetent leader they had a deputy in place who had the policy nous and authority within the partyroom to carry the party’s agenda forward into legislation.

    I can’t see a Julia Gillard amongst the Liberal ranks. Perhaps if the party spent less time demonising women and cultural minorities they might have a chance at a future leader with the policy smarts and intelligence to rise above the old school bully boy fray.

  6. Jack Aranda, the clause in S44(v) does say “ANY agreement with the Public Service of the Commonwealth……” So scope of the agreement may not be relevant.
    I shall be very interested in how the SG sees it, although his track record is not that flash.

  10. From Tony Abbott, RE: Dutton high court issue.

    Hugh Riminton
    ‏Verified account @hughriminton
    26m26 minutes ago

    Hugh Riminton Retweeted Kieran Gilbert

    Mr @TonyAbbottMHR , we had no contact with the PM’s office or any ministerial office (except #PeterDutton ‘s) before we went with this story on Monday. But we did talk to a lot of academics and lawyers. And we trawled through dozens of documents over many weeks.

  12. Donald J. Trump
    ‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump
    4m4 minutes ago

    If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!

  16. So..where we are now is that there is a not insignificant chance that Malcolm survives a spill tomorrow and Dutton is toast. Further confusion and kaos to ensue with the civil war going underground again for a while.

    Or Malcolm gets rolled by another contender that is not really to the RWFW’s satisfaction. Further confusion and kaos to ensue with the civil war going underground again for a while.

    There is just no good outcome for the Libs from this, but what is the least worst??

  23. Diogenes @ #1235 Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018 – 9:03 pm

    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.

    Prentice could well opt to sit on the cross bench. She has nothing to lose. Unlike the rest of the Libs in Qld she will not care what they think.

  25. If Turnbull and Prentice refused to support Dutton, Turnbull could likely advise the Governor-General that no government could be formed and a new election needed to be called at once, with Turnbull as caretaker PM (and probably Prentice in cabinet as few remaining Coalition parliamentarians would serve under a deposed Turnbull).

  26. Hay Fulvio – I hadda come back, watching Turnbull call for a spill yesterday was just too much like his Oz Car call for Rudd to resign back in 2009.

    Turnbull’s capacity for mis-judgment was bound to assert itself again sometime or another

  27. I agree with those who feel this is all starting to get somewhat creepy.

    Rupert Murdoch comes to Australia for a visit and soon after all hell breaks loose.

    His newspapers clearly support one side in this equation over the other.

    When soundly defeated in a fair vote the would-be usurpers just continue to agitate, again with the backing of Murdoch.

    As for the rest of the media, they are behaving like schoolkids in the playground, shouting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” at the brawlers.

    The feeling is that this is all being run for the benefit of a small group of insiders – media barons, ambulance chasing reporters, op-ed writers, politicians in the pay of rich business donors, all deprived of relevance as their spheres of influence shrink – and not at all for the benefit of the nation, it’s people or its voters. They are willing dupes, all of them.

    In a very real sense yes, it is a coup we are witnessing, a form of collective political madness that has virtually nothing to do with anything more important than the egos and venalities of its participants.

    Molan said tonight that “everything is going to plan”. WHAT bloody plan? WHOSE plan? Molan’s only been in parliament for five minutes and already he’s hatching plots and plans that have all the subtlety and finesse of a raid by the Keystone Kops, and about as much chance of a successful outcome.

    Something’s going radically wrong with Australian politics. It’s ugly and it’s getting scarier by the day.

  29. imacca
    The least worst case for the coalition from here would be an election at the earliest possible time. No matter who is Prime Minister tomorrow,or next week, or any time till an election is called they have no legislative agenda, no policy that they havent already trashed, and no way to come up with any new ones, they have nothing to campaign on besides “how bad will Labor be?” Answer – no where in the same universe as bad as this lot.

  30. Do we have any advance on 12 signatures on the petition?

    Molan – “I’ve signed the petition but I don’t know where this pseudo-crisis is coming from.”

    Really excellent representative in our Parliament!

  32. The ABC news aggressively spoiling for Turnbull

    You’d think that the place is completely padded out by the kind of people of privileged backrounds with economic and socially liberal dispositions and are thus unable to do their job properly

  34. Yes this really does feel like a leadership coup too far. It’s just farcical! What are these clowns in federal parliament doing other than plotting against each other. What happened to actually governing and doing something for the country they are supposed to be serving. And when did all our politicians become so spineless and in the case of the Coalition, so terrified of what a couple of radio shock jocks in Sydney think! It’s pathetic!!

  35. Madcyril

    “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly”

    They are clearly not following the Macbeth script.

    Reminds me of the film “Dog Day Afternoon” which I think was based on a real bank robbery which was a complete disaster and ended up as a siege, a media circus, and of course a failure.

  38. I have a dream. A second party room meeting is called. Dutton fails to overthrow Turnbull. Dutton resigns from the parliament. Labor wins the by election. I have a dream.

  40. Peter Stanton says:
    Wednesday, August 22, 2018 at 11:30 pm
    I have a dream. A second party room meeting is called. Dutton fails to overthrow Turnbull. Dutton resigns from the parliament. Labor wins the by election. I have a dream.

    It’s an increasingly safe bet that whenever the next election is called, whether a by election in a marginal or a general election, Labor will win.

    Why would anyone want to vote for the LNP? They are incapable of government. This is the top order issue in national politics.

  42. “Why would anyone want to vote for the LNP? They are incapable of government. This is the top order issue in national politics.”

    For the rusted ons, it’s not a matter of competence. It wouldn’t matter if Labor were re-enacting the Keystone Cops like this lot, I would still vote Labor, either directly or via preferences, because the alternative is unacceptable. Lots if Liberal voters would feel similarly.

  43. Just speculation on my part, but it’s curious that this challenge to Turnbull should arise now.

    The Coalition’s stocks in the polls have been rising, albeit ever so slowly, over the last several months, despite the litany of stuff ups, and even more insidious things like Reefgate, to the point that, if they continued on that tangent, they would be competitive again reasonably shortly.

    I’m concluding that the challenge has been brought now by the far right, to get in before Turnbull becomes electable again, when a challenge would no longer be justifiable or feasible.

    The background story is one of revenge and desperation, not the Liberal Party’s fortunes or the National interest, not that Turnbull remaining PM would advance the latter.

  44. The brainiacs at 2GBinc have been saying for a long time that destroying Turnbull even if that means Shorten becomes PM for a term is a better outcome than Turnbull remaining PM.

    The problem with this strategy is that Shorten will likely remain PM for longer than one term.

    For smart people they shure are short on logic.

  45. The first time they knocked off Turnbull, Minchin was organising things. This time they don’t have Minchin.

    Abbott and Hockey thought governing would be easy because it had seemed easy to them under Howard. I don’t think they really understood how much Howard controlled and ran things. They never realised that they were the B team.

    And now the B team are trying to emulate Minchin. The problem for them is that they’re still the B team. They don’t really know what they’re doing so they’re just copying what others have done before.

    The thing is they might succeed. But that won’t be due to any competence on their behalf. If they win it will be because they have a large base of conservatives in the parliamentary party, Turnbull is almost as incompetent as they are, and the CPG and Canberra beltway belief that the first result was close enough to make Turnbull a dead man walking.

  47. I can see some failed coup supporters defecting to Bernardi’s Conservatives soon – losing the parliamentary majority for the Libs. Could be a rough ride for the LNP…

  49. This doesn’t feel like 2013 redux, more like a really ham-fisted 2010. This is driven not by policy, but it’s amazing that the right in a centre-right party in power play the same self-pitying “persecuted” games they do in the general sphere … listen to CFW’s bullshit interview.

    There are obviously those who voted for Dutton for him, but there are more who are voting against Trumble. But this is being driven by people who loathe Turnbull and no longer see him as useful, even if the coalition could conceivably win.

    Much like Rudd’s removal was driven more by a personal dislike of him, when he wasn’t considered an asset any more. Labor was recovering just before the challenge and had leads similar to what the ALP currently does (IPSOS aside).

    Tl;dr – they hate Turnbull, this is the best chance to take him out prior to an election they a) don’t want to lose b) don’t want Mal to win.

  50. It’s going to fascinating to see how this plays out in pre-selections for the Liberals in both the House and the Senate. 🙂

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