Newspoll: Next election couldn’t be tighter despite the PM’s woes

Barnaby Joyce, Scott Morrison and Governor-General David Hurley at the swearing-in ceremony of Joyce as Deputy PM. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

There are three simple take-outs from the latest Newspoll which Prime Minister Scott Morrison won’t be displeased about.

The first is that despite deep levels of frustration voters aren’t yet buying Labor’s argument that Morrison is to blame for Covid outbreaks in Victoria or NSW or for the lockdowns they have caused.

Nor is the pace of the vaccine rollout, and the overly cautious decision by the regulators to throw a spanner in the works around AstraZeneca, biting as much electorally as even the government may have expected.

The third and most apparent is that voters by and large aren’t overly concerned about who the deputy prime minister is. Even if it’s Barnaby Joyce.

As The Australian’s National Editor Dennis Shanahan wrote at the weekend: “For decades it has been clear the person leading the Liberals has a much greater effect on Nationals voters than the Nationals leader has on Liberal voters.”

With the Coalition primary vote remaining unchanged, despite the shenanigans, the new Nationals leader is not in a position to argue that his triumphant return has been embraced by the base in a way that would justify making extraordinary demands.

Equally, it could be argued that Joyce’s resurrection hasn’t damaged the Coalition brand either – a win-win for Morrison.

As perverse as it may seem, Morrison probably couldn’t have picked a better week for the Coalition’s primary vote to remain unchanged.

But he won’t want it to stay that way for long with the federal election now due in less than 12 months.

The latest poll confirms a trend that has been apparent for the best part of a year.

The two-party preferred vote has remained in a narrow bandwidth of four points since February – averaging out at 49.25 per cent for the Coalition and 49.75 per cent for Labor.

The contest could barely be tighter, and so far neither side could claim a tactical advantage that had delivered a lasting electoral benefit.

Newspoll shows a stability in the party vote which suggests Labor remains in the race while Morrison retains his key advantage with strong approval ratings as leader.