Losses at Saturday’s polls put pressure on PM Malcolm Turnbull

WITH forecast struggles for Labor and Bill Shorten at the Super Saturday be-elections falling flat, the pressure is instead on the leadership of PM Malcolm Turnbull, writes James Campbell.

OF all the mistakes the Liberals made with these by-elections — from giving Labor nine weeks to campaign, to talking up their chances of winning — the biggest was surely the decision to paint them as a head-to-head contest over leadership.

Two weeks ago, Malcolm Turnbull was telling people “the head-up, the contest is between me and Bill Shorten as the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader”.

For months, government ministers have been telling everyone Shorten’s unpopularity will be Labor’s undoing.

And on the published polling, the Prime Minister is indeed more popular.

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Malcolm Turnbull is considering his policy platform after failing to shake Labor’s hold in the Super Saturday by-elections. Picture: Jenny Evans

But on the evidence of Saturday, it doesn’t matter: enough people are going to vote for Shorten anyway.

Before Saturday, the talk among politicians and media was how Labor was going to struggle to win both Longman and Braddon and what it would mean for Shorten’s leadership.

Labor won both easily and Shorten is safe.

This week, the talk will be all about what the government can do — if anything — to turn this around in the 10 months before the next election.

The performance of Australia’s pollsters over the past few weeks has ranged from “underwhelming” to “can we please have our money back?”

One senior Labor strategist said yesterday “seat by seat polling is dead”, calling this the “big take-out” from Saturday.

“Internally, we have struggled to get internal readings for over two years and formed the view that they are no longer reliable.”

You can see what he means.

Last Monday’s YouGov Galaxy poll in Longman had Labor at 37 per cent, the LNP at 34 per cent and One Nation at 18 per cent. Reachtel put Labor at 35.6 per cent, the LNP at 37.9 per cent and One Nation at 13.5 per cent. Saturday morning’s Newspoll had the ALP at 40 per cent, the LNP at 36 per cent and One Nation at 14 per cent.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is sitting pretty after wins in the Super Saturday by-elections. Picture: Liam Kidston

At the time of writing, on the AEC website, Labor had 40 per cent, the LNP, 29.5 per cent and One Nation 15.9 per cent.

Interestingly, the one prediction all these polls got right was that Labor’s primary vote would be higher than the 35.4 per cent it got in 2016.

Observing this on Friday, an old ALP hand asked why people were talking about defeat when “all the polls have Labor’s primary vote up from 2016”. It was a good question.

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