After the failed Indigenous voice to parliament referendum, Anthony Albanese must be careful

The warning signs are there for Albanese: voter satisfaction has collapsed from where it was. Picture: NCA NewsWire

The backlash from the failure of the voice referendum is having the worst impact in the shortest time of any prime minister on Anthony Albanese, with the PM’s voter satisfaction falling 15 percentage points from 57 per cent to 42 per cent during the referendum campaign.

Voter dissatisfaction with Albanese rose 14 percentage points from 38 to 52 percent leaving him with a net satisfaction rate — the difference between satisfaction and dissatisfaction of minus 10. This is his worst as PM.

This is not the end for Albanese by any means but he has to take care that, like Rudd, it is not the beginning of the end.

After a long political honeymoon in the polls — second only to Rudd — Albanese dipped into minus territory for the first time during the referendum campaign but recovered.

Since the result of the referendum, voter satisfaction with Albanese has plummeted and his record for the six month period is worse than Rudd’s.

During the six-month failed Parliamentary campaign to get Labor’s carbon reduction plan legislated voter satisfaction with Rudd as prime minister fell 13 points.

Albanese is now in a worse position on voter satisfaction than Rudd was at the end of the emissions trading scheme failure and the ALP vote is beginning to fall.

In early 2010 Rudd’s satisfaction with voters suffered further and fell from 50 percent satisfaction in January to just 39 in March and then 36 per cent in June 2010 when he was removed as Labor Leader.

Rudd had come from the highest levels of voter satisfaction in Newspoll history at 71 percent after his election to 36 percent in two and a half years but the biggest fall was in the 12 months from July 2009 to June 2010.

Voter satisfaction is the essentially the least of the measures in Newspoll after primary vote, preferred prime minister and two-party preferred figures but, it can have an impact on MPs and prime minister’s leadership.

Interestingly one-time leadership aspirant Tanya Plibersek delivered a strong speech attacking Peter Dutton’s leadership on the weekend and fervently defended Albanese’s performance as leader.

The Coalition leader’s position in Newspoll has improved since the failed referendum and its clear Plibersek can see the need to diminish Dutton and adorn Albanese.

Other prime ministers — notably John Howard — have suffered big falls in voter satisfaction but have recovered and gone on to serve long terms as leader.

The danger for Albanese is that Rudd’s decline was accelerated by a big policy failure which he had nominated as a key and essential objective and the fall compounded by a lack of attention to matters such illegal boat arrivals which were a paramount concern for the public.

Indeed, Rudd’s decline in voter support was sharpest and most damaging in March 2010 after he had failed to deal swiftly and efficiently with a boat carrying 78 Sri Lankan asylums seekers in Indonesia.

The warning signs are there for Albanese: voter satisfaction has collapsed from where it was; the issue is starting to shift on to the Labor vote and; the public’s dismayed by his diversion from the prime concern of inflation and the cost of living.

Rudd’s losing voter satisfaction in few months was a two-step process and Albanese, like others leaders, can recover lost voter support and restore leadership confidence but he can’t afford a second failure.