Opinion polls predict an election win for Labor but Bill Shorten is not taking anything for granted

WHILE opinion polls indicate Labor will take out the next federal election, Bill Shorten is not counting his chickens just yet.

LABOR is mobilising to dampen strengthening expectations it will win the election scheduled early next year as more people and organisations line up for a piece of the anticipated victory.

An increasing number of groups are already demanding measures and entitlements outside the Labor policy discipline and senior ministers are working to limit changes.

The danger is Opposition leader Bill Shorten could be swamped by promises he might or might not have made, causing uncertainty about what Labor stands for.

Further, the same senior Labor figures are not taking a win as a certainty, having seen opinion poll leads disappear on polling day in other contests.

But that lead was confirmed today by Essential Media poll which put the two-party preferred vote as 54/46 per cent favouring Labor. In effect there has been no change over the past month.

However, Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s disapproval rating rose 9 percentage points to 37 per cent since early October while 23 per cent of those surveyed said they were yet to work him out.

ScoMo, at Beefy’s Pies on the Sunshine Coast earlier today, is going out of his way to prove he’s a dinkie-di Aussie with a broad public appeal by eating meat pies, wearing baseball caps, sculling beers and posting chatty videos of himself on Twitter. Picture: Dan Peled/AAP

That don’t-know total is a central reason for the highly publicised — and much ridiculed — ScoMobile tour now underway in Queensland.

The Prime Minister still has a higher approval rating — 41 per cent — than his opponent.

Bill Shorten’s disapproval rating as Opposition leader fell marginally to 44 per cent with 18 per cent registering as don’t-knows, and 38 per cent approving.

The Morrison bus trip is a rehearsal of campaigning techniques and getting-to-know-you tactics, but the Liberals’ chief campaign weapon will be the economy.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison with the ScoMobile during the announcement of stage 3 of the Gold Coast light rail on the Gold Coast on Monday, November 5. Picture: Tim Marsden/AAP

That is the hope as it looks to the release of Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook figures — MYEFO, the Budget progress report — in December.

Should the outcomes and prospects for growth in jobs and wages be optimistic, the Government will concentrate on its economic record. If no good, it will be reduced to arguing it had more to do but Labor would be worse.

Mr Morrison has been practising his promise to spread good economic outcomes as widely as possible.

He told ABC radio in Brisbane today the Coalition would “make sure the strength of our economy and the benefits of it spread right across our economy and it reaches all Australians”.

“Not all Australians have felt that, that is absolutely true and that is why we’ll continue to work on ensuring, particularly in rural and regional areas, but in other places, that people get the benefit of that economy,” Mr Morrison said.