Don’t hurry to the polls, prime minister, it looks grim

Anthony Albanese is using the power of his office to dominate a fake election campaign before the real one begins – but all the gains are going to Peter Dutton.

The prime minister has made a rational decision to use the advantage of incumbency for as long as he can, most starkly with his $8.5 billion pledge for Medicare on Sunday.

But the latest Resolve Political Monitor is a shocker for Labor and shows that its policy assaults have not been enough to turn the tables on the opposition leader.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at Labor’s “Strengthening Medicare” announcement in Launceston on Sunday. Credit: Brodie Weeding

Nobody in the government should want to race to polling day on these numbers, so there is a good case for Albanese to aim for an election in May.

The government is campaigning the old-fashioned way by giving the prime minister a platform with major speeches on important policies with big spending. Over the past five weeks alone, Albanese has promised $2 billion for the aluminium industry, $2.4 billion for steelmaking in Whyalla, $1.7 billion for hospitals, a bail-out for Rex Airlines and the health funding on Sunday.

Dutton blasts through these traditional tactics with his complaint about the cost of living and his calculation that people have stopped listening to the assurances from Canberra. The latest survey shows he is onto something.

The Labor primary vote, at 25 per cent, is the lowest it has been in almost four years of this survey – and far below the 32.6 per cent result that gave the party a narrow victory at the last election.

The two-party outcome shows Dutton has emerged as the clear favourite when voters are asked how they would allocate preferences. On this question, the Coalition trounces Labor by 55 to 45 per cent.

These are grim results for the government compared to some other polls. Labor’s internal polling has the two major parties on 50 per cent each, say those who see the numbers. The Newspoll last week had the Coalition ahead by 51 to 49 per cent. The latest Freshwater poll in The Australian Financial Review has the Coalition leading by 52 to 48 per cent.

The Resolve Political Monitor has a lower primary vote for Labor than most other polls, but all polls use different methods. Some allow respondents to be uncommitted and remove them from the count, but Resolve does not do this because it asks all respondents to state their support as they would on a ballot paper at an election. The last Resolve survey before the May 2022 election had Labor on a primary vote of 31 per cent – lower than others, but closer than others to the final outcome.

These outcomes are not forecasts. Voters have weeks to change their minds. When the primary votes in this survey are applied to the way preferences flowed at the last election, the Coalition leads by 52 to 48 per cent – in line with other surveys.

So the most alarming outcome for Labor in this survey is a warning sign, not a prediction.

The caveats in this polling are important. Firstly, there is no such thing as a uniform swing that covers the country. While this survey finds the Coalition has the upper hand in two-party terms, everything comes down to seat-by-seat contests.

Secondly, 34 per cent of voters are uncommitted about who they will back – about the same as the result in April last year.

Thirdly, these results come with a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points, which means the contest will be tighter than some of the numbers make it look.

These findings offer a reality check for those who think Labor must go to the election within weeks and that April 12 is the logical date. The results show the government is yet to gain a boost from all its policy work since the start of this year – and it needs more time.

There is a case for a March 25 budget, as scheduled by Treasurer Jim Chalmers, to give the government time to turn things around. But this is not just about the politics. Labor has used the past few weeks to reveal specific policies – including previously unthinkable state ownership of an airline and a steelworks – but it is yet to bring all this together in a broader economic platform. This is what a budget is meant to be.

Dutton attacked on this very point on Sunday. “I think the prime minister is running from a budget because he doesn’t have a good story to tell,” he said.

Albanese and Chalmers do not need to have a budget to set out their fiscal and economic agenda – an economic statement could serve a similar purpose in the opening days of the campaign. But this Resolve Political Monitor sends a clear signal that the government is on course for defeat unless it stages a dramatic turnaround. If Labor wants that turnaround, it will also want more time.

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