Newspoll: Scott Morrison rides high on rollout as Anthony Albanese takes a hit
Morrison extends his lead as preferred PM; Albanese records his worst approval ratings since becoming Labor leader.
Popular support for Scott Morrison has strengthened ahead of Monday’s rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine as he stares down techgiant Facebook over its news ban on Australia but continues to face criticism of his handling of an alleged rape in Parliament House.
An exclusive Newspoll conducted for The Australian shows the Liberal leader extending his lead as preferred prime minister and bolstering his approval ratings despite the scandal of the past week threatening to derail the government’s agenda.
The fallout from the alleged 2019 rape of ministerial staffer Brittany Higgins, and accusations of a government cover-up which has dominated political discussion, have not been reflected in the poll, with the Coalition’s primary vote remaining unchanged at 42 per cent.
Anthony Albanese, however, having weathered weeks of criticism from senior Labor figures over his performance, suffered a significant fall in support, having recorded among his worst approval ratings since becoming Opposition Leader in 2019. His fall in support came despite a one-point lift for the party to 37 per cent, which is Labor’s equal-best result in more than a year.
The latest Newspoll showed no movement overall in the headline numbers in the past three weeks, during which the vaccine rollout and Victorian lockdown have also dominated national headlines.
The two-party-preferred split — calculated after an allocation of preference flows based on the last election — remains unchanged at 50-50. The poll shows approval of Mr Morrison’s performance as leader improved a point to 64 per cent, solidifying his record for one of the longest maintained periods of approval for a prime minister.
Those claiming to be dissatisfied with his performance fell a point to 32 per cent, giving the Prime Minister an approval rating of plus 32 per cent.
Mr Albanese dropped three points in satisfaction levels since the previous poll to 38 per cent. Those claiming to be dissatisfied rose to 45 per cent, resulting in a net approval rating of negative seven.
This is one of the worst results for Mr Albanese since taking over as leader from Bill Shorten in the wake of the 2019 election defeat.
The margin also widened in the head-to-head contest between the two leaders, with the highest approval rating for Mr Morrison since becoming Prime Minister. Mr Morrison rose four points to 61 per cent among those who believed he would make a better prime minister if an election were called. Mr Albanese’s stocks fell three points to 26 per cent, which is the lowest ranking for the Opposition Leader since August last year.
Popular support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation remained stable at 3 per cent, in line with the 2019 election result, while support for other minor parties fell a point to 8 per cent.
This compares to an election result that saw almost 12 per cent of the vote go to minor parties, other than the Greens and PHON, or independents. The Greens remained unchanged at 10 per cent. The Newspoll was conducted between February 17 and 20 and surveyed 1504 voters online across mainland capital cities and the regions.
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