Newspoll: Faith in Morrison withstands the storm

Support for major parties remains unchanged as Labor maintains a convincing lead, despite a fall in Anthony Albanese’s approval.

Scott Morrison attends mass at the Lebanese Maronite Catholic Church at Westbourne Park, Adelaide, on Sunday. Picture: Adam Taylor

Popular support for the major parties remains unchanged following a chaotic week of parliament and rebellion within Morrison government ranks over its failed religious freedom Bill, with Labor maintaining its convincing lead over the Coalition despite a fall in approval for opposition leader Anthony Albanese.

The Greens, however, have suffered its sharpest decline in almost a decade, with the minor left-wing party falling to its lowest primary vote since September 2012.

An exclusive Newspoll conducted for The Australian shows the Coalition primary vote remains on a post-election record low of 34 per cent with an election now due within three months.

Labor has maintained its primary vote peak of 41 per cent.

This continues to be the largest margin between the two parties since August 2018, in the wake of the Liberal leadership spill and former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s resignation.

The Newspoll follows a politically damaging week of parliament for the government, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison forced to shelve his promised religious freedom Bill after five rebel moderate Liberal MPs crossed the floor to side with Labor and crossbenchers.

Senior Coalition sources last night admitted that they had expected the Newspoll result to be worse, claiming it had been one of the shoddiest parliamentary weeks it had experienced since the leadership spill of 2018.

The most significant shift in the latest survey was a collapse in support for the Greens, which has begun campaigning for a hung parliament at the May election in which it claims it could swing the balance of power. It has suffered a three-point slide in popular support, falling from 11 per cent to eight per cent.

Before 2012, the last time it recorded levels this low was in March 2009.

The decline in the Greens’ share of the national vote came amid a corresponding lift in support for other minor parties and independents, including Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party, to a record high of 14 per cent.

Support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation remained steady at 3 per cent.

Anthony Albanese.

With the slide in support for the Greens and swing toward other minor parties, which represents rightwing or libertarian protest votes as well as hard core leftist parties, the gap after the allocation of preferences tightened from 56/44 two weeks ago to 55/45 – reducing slightly Labor’s previous 12-point margin to a 10-point lead.

Mr Albanese’s net approval ratings fell six points, driving him back into negative territory, after an attempt by the government to raise negative doubts about his record on taxes and national security.

Satisfaction with Mr Albanese’s leadership fell three points to 40 per cent, while those dissatisfied with him rose three points to 46 per cent. This produced a net negative approval rating of minus six, with 14 per cent of voters yet to make up their minds about the opposition leader.

Mr Morrison’s satisfaction rating rose a point to 40 per cent. Those dissatisfied with his performance fell two points, leaving him on a slightly improved net approval rating of minus 16.

The level of discontent with Mr Morrison remains near those he experienced in February 2020 following the summer bushfire crisis, before he skyrocketed to record approval ratings during the height of the pandemic’s first wave. In the head-to-head contest, Mr Albanese lost ground, with a three-point fall in his standing to 38 per cent compared to Mr Morrison on 43 per cent, and whose support as the preferred prime minister remained unchanged on the previous poll of two weeks ago.

The two-party preferred result represents a 6.5 per cent swing against the government on the 2019 election, which if replicated as the next election would result in a loss of 22 seats for the Coalition based on an unlikely uniform swing across all seats.

The poll was conducted between February 9 and 12 and surveyed 1526 voters nationally.