There’s a Galaxy and a Nielsen poll out this morning, both of which show Labor with a 55-45 lead on 2PP, and Kevin Rudd on better numbers than he enjoyed a year ago – and these are some of the last polls (Essential Research follows tonight) before the first anniversary of Labor’s election.
This is quite interesting:
Coalition attacks on almost every aspect of the Government’s response to the crisis have had no impact.
Possum on Malcolm Turnbull:
These ratings trends differ slightly from Newspoll (conveniently seen over at the Polling Charts page) with Nielsen suggesting that Turnbull is failing to convince those that were initially undecided about his leadership to the point of slowly alienating them, while Newspoll is continuing to show slight growth in Turnbull’s satisfaction.
Intuitively, I suspect Nielsen is right about Turnbull. We might be a better barometer here than might be expected, unrepresentative sample that we no doubt are. If you cast your mind back to the reaction of LP commenters when Malcolm became opposition leader, a lot of us were prepared to cautiously welcome his election, having in mind his performance in the past and his social progressivism.
In the pontificating stakes, Clinton Porteous writes:
However, there are warning signs for the Prime Minister if economic woes continue.
Because of the plethora of polls these days and the multiplication of different and differently worded questions, I doubt there’s any time series data showing a correlation between “economic woes” and government support, though I’d be grateful if anyone could point me to anything in the political science literature. What I think can be demonstrated is that a posture of constant (and high profile) negativism is rarely a plus with Australian voters. I suspect Malcolm Turnbull is himself responsible for alienating support and goodwill he might have had.
I wonder when the political class will wake up to the fact that the media’s darling isn’t the electorate’s. If they do, Brendan Nelson has conveniently announced he’ll still be around in 2010.
Elsewhere: The Poll Bludger, Party Games.
I posted this in the wrong thread:
.. what is up with Brendan Nelson:
I am struggling to think of a more confused and contradictory position. I one breath he comes over all emo about climate change and still thinks 5c/L petrol tax cut is a good idea. Doofus.
As observed by many posters here in the last couple of months, Mr Turnbull trips over himself in the rush to the doorstop or the radio interview. In rushing, he seems to switch messages too swiftly. That may be as damaging as being negative.
Mr Rudd has put on his serious face and attempted to shore up the faltering economy. Voters will wait to see how things turn out in 2009. In difficult times, perhaps many voters are reassured we have a brainy nerd in charge, instead of a flashy barrister. Wasn’t Malcolm a Merchant Banker? Aren’t the Bankers to blame for (at least some of) the instability??
Turnbull is clearly being poorly advised. I think his initial response to the economic crisis in offering bipartisan support for the government’s initiatives was wise, however his subsequent ongoing criticism is poor form. There is a palpable lack of alternative strategies being proposed from Liberal HQ. Instead, they’re focusing all their efforts on some “he said, she said” phone call that the Australian public couldn’t care less about. No wonder at Blogocrats the question is being asked – what does Malcolm Turnbull stand for?
aiden,
If a carbon tax or trading system for carbon credits were introduced it should be possible to more correctly price carbon emissions. Given the current very high taxes on petrol (compared to, say, coal) if such a scheme was revenue neutral then it would imply a drop in the price of petrol.
The positions may only be contradictory if your real aim is just to increase the prices of everything, not put in place a genuine carbon reduction scheme.
“Given the current very high taxes on petrol (compared to, say, coal) if such a scheme was revenue neutral then it would imply a drop in the price of petrol.”
No, since we want to reduce emissions from both transport and stationary energy it implies that both petrol and electricity prices should go up, but with electricity prices going up more.
Revenue neutrality can be had by cutting income taxes.
I still reckon you’re being too hard on old Malcolm. He’ll do alright if the dinosaurs in the Party give him enough time to find his feet.
He has brought it all on himself, kymbos.
He had a great opportunity to lead the party out of the bog that Howard had left it in. There was quite a bit of goodwill out there for him and he might have lead with new progressive policy. Instead he has blown it and you cannot blame the troops who were there to be guided out of the neo-con wilderness.
Further,the economy is in a pretty delicate state at the moment and he has gone for the cheap political shot at the expense of any dignity that he may have had. He has failed to understand that all this constant carping, while loved by the MSM, is indirectly an assault on the voters who made a choice for a change.
I agree joe2. Turnbull couldn’t help but go for the political knee-jerk cheap shot at the expense of having some longer term political insight.
Talk about self-destruct. What a wasted opportunity to become a relevant and progressive force. Instead the Liberals have just resorted to their typical nit-picking and name calling. Whoever is advising them needs to be taken out to pasture..
Count me among those who hoped Turnbull would be a leader rather than a puppet who shows every sign that people are fighting to grab the strings. If he’d come out with an alternative vision and argued for it then I’d be more optimistic, but as it is he just seems more like Pauline Hanson every day.
Maybe Turnbull’s stupid enough to believe the Canberra press gallery and their seemingly infinite capacity for self delusion. Typical of course is Michael Brissenden, who when faced with the latest poll results that don’t coincide with the accepted view, said of Rudd:
‘He seems to be doing something right as far as the voters are concerned‘.
Those stupid voters, they just don’t have the high level understanding of the commentariate.