Prime Minister Scott Morrison loses approval ratings in latest Newspoll

The government’s handling of the latest Covid outbreak has been reflected in the latest Newspoll, with key demographics turning their backs on the Prime Minister, writes Alan Jones.

While all the headlines seem to be around the disproportionate and, dare I say, sometimes dishonest dictates dished out to the public in relation to the coronavirus lockdown, the Newspoll of this week seems to have passed without a full understanding of its significance.

Certainly, the business community are worried about profit and the prospect of a Labor Government taxathon.

Workers beware.

You can’t have a profitable employee without a profitable employer. Businesses are staggered by the raw figures of the Newspoll.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian Picture: NCA NewsWire / Christian Gilles

The 51-49 two party preferred is, perhaps, the least significant.

But when you see the Coalition, miles behind in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia; when you see the 18 to 34-year-olds are 63-37 to Labor; the 35-49s are 54-46 to Labor; the TAFE and technically-educated cohort are 53-47 to Labor; the university-educated are 52-48 to Labor; and the languages at home, other than English, 58-42 to Labor, then, as my old man would say when he would try to urge me on, you better get a wriggle on.

In two critical states, WA and Queensland, the Prime Minister’s standing has slumped with Monday’s poll showing a swing against the Coalition in Queensland of 5.4 per cent, in WA of 8.6 per cent.

These are more than worrying signs for the Government. As with everything, there is a reason.

The Liberal leadership has stopped being Liberal.

This hasn’t just happened with coronavirus and the disillusionment with the mixed messages about things like lockdowns, vaccination and masks.

This started with the failure of the Prime Minister to get into the ring on critical issues.

Where does he stand on the Black Lives Matter protests? Where does he stand on the cancel culture? Where does he stand on net-zero carbon dioxide emissions?

The public have an overriding, almost obsessional, respect and commitment to our defence veterans.

Illustration: Terry Pontikos

The Brereton report savaged our men in Afghanistan on untested evidence yet, before it was published, the Prime Minister talked about “brutal truths”.

In a liberal democratic society, the question of truth, in relation to evidence, belongs in the courts, not out of a Prime Minister’s mouth.

Not just Liberals were further alienated to learn that the Prime Minister had apologised to the President of Afghanistan; and the Foreign Minister had written to her Afghan counterpart, “apologies for the misconduct.”

The voter, grateful for the sacrifice of our veterans, shakes his/her head and can’t identify with such political insults.

Then, without public debate or parliamentary scrutiny, the Prime Minister decided to form a National Cabinet.

It’s not only Liberal voters who say that we elected people to the Federal Parliament and we expect those people to deliberate, on our behalf, on critical issues of national importance.

All that has now been outsourced to an unelected bureaucracy which provides “advice” to a National Cabinet made of a motley crew of left-wing Premiers and bureaucrats, using fear to demoralise the voter and ignoring those democratically elected to represent us.

Cabinet Government is dead and voters are angry.

Then we get these daily scare conferences, people in NSW being told that 50,000 have been tested for coronavirus, in one day, and there are 93 “new cases”.

We are not told how old they are or their comorbidities. Why?

The voter is not stupid and doesn’t like being treated as if they are.

Of all people tested, 0.18% have tested positive. Can anyone suggest that the response to such a truth, along with the continuing alarmism, is justified?

In 2019, we had a severe flu, even when we had a vaccine for it.

As I write, there are 126 hospitalisations across Australia but, in 2019, there were 3915 hospitalisations from flu and 235 were in intensive care.

Did we have daily scare conferences, close down borders, smash businesses and terrify people with a disgraceful advertisement? Were mounted police stomping the streets with PolAir above? In 2019, in South Australia, one day alone recorded 37 deaths.

Yes, people did die from the flu when there was a vaccine.

Yet Gladys Berejiklian appears in public to argue that: “This Delta strain is a game changer. You can’t compare the way we are treating it now compared with other strains.”

But official documentation from a recent England Technical Briefing 18 shows clearly the case fatality rate for the original Alpha strain was 1.9 per cent; the case fatality rate for Delta, 0.2 per cent, on a par with the average flu.

In other words, the case fatality rate is 10 times lower for Delta than for the original strain.

Is the NSW Premier not embarrassed by these facts? Do the Premier and the Primer Minister know of this English official study?

If our Health bureaucrats don’t know, they should be sacked. If they know, but are not informing Berejiklian and Morrison, they should be sacked.

And if Berejiklian and Morrison know about these facts, and aren’t saying it, they should be sacked.

So far we have had about 22 million tests for coronavirus in this country; 0.14 per cent have tested positive.

Yet the nation is being tipped upside down, frightened into paralysis.

Now, the Prime Minister and Gladys Berejiklian, supported by Treasurer Frydenberg, announce a “support package” to address the massive economic problems created by lockdowns, ordered by government, adding to the debt to be borne, not by today’s reckless decision makers, but by our children, for years to come.

If the Prime Minister wants to reverse the polls, he should abandon the National Cabinet, end the lockdowns and the theft of our freedoms.

That is what a true Liberal would do.

The Florida Governor legislated against all restrictions in May and has banned vaccine passports. With much the same population as Australia, 22 million to our 25 million, last week Florida had 23,747 new cases, yet Governor de Santis said “to even contemplate doing any type of lockdown, honestly, its insane”.

The South Dakota Governor, 49-year-old Kristi Noem, has refused lockdown and mandating masks but rather is providing residents with information about “what is happening on the ground, in our state, the science, facts and data”.

She said “no mandates … we trusted our people, gave them all the information and told them that personal responsibility was the best answer”.

There is the answer, Prime Minister.

Follow the South Dakota Governor and issue all the available risk information to the public, give them access to all vaccines and all treatment and let individuals, not poorly informed, politicised and fear mongering bureaucrats, make the decisions.

If we continue to hide behind “the medical advice” why bother having political leaders at any press conference? Roll out the unelected Chief Medical Officers and tell us all what limited freedoms they will allow us.

Better, Prime Minister, to practice the central tenet of true liberalism.

It is called personal responsibility.