By-elections now ultra critical for Bill Shorten

Bill Shorten has taken a big credibility hit and so has his class war. All of a sudden his fate rests on five by-elections.

Bill Shorten delivers his Budget in Reply speech to the Parliament in the House of Representatives in Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Gary Ramage

Bill Shorten has taken a significant credibility hit this past week.

So has the class war.

And all of a sudden the collective outcome of five looming by-elections, triggered by the Opposition Leader’s ill-judged handling of the sleeper citizenship crisis in his party, has gone from being very important to ultracritical for the Labor leader. Not only has the Coalition locked in gains over the past month to stay in credible electoral contention following the budget, but Malcolm Turnbull’s approval ratings have improved dramatically.

This will be of considerable concern to Shorten, as well as to Labor Party campaign officials starting to plan for the Super Saturday mini-election that in all likelihood will be held sometime in early July.

Shorten’s immediate concern will be for his leadership. The loss of just one seat could prove fatal considering the tightening of the national polls more broadly and the poor personal ratings for the Labor leader.

For Shorten’s caucus colleagues, there will be growing disquiet that the polling indicators are finally starting to point the right way for the Coalition and the wrong way for them.

While it would be premature to assume anything with an electorate so fickle, and with a core constituency of the Liberal Party still baying for blood, there has been a credible trend towards the government since the Barnaby Joyce melodrama washed out of the electoral cycle.

Three things have occurred. Turnbull has been less noticeable. He has presided over possibly the longest period without a major self-inflicted political crisis. And the government has also managed, perhaps for the first time, to stay on message for more than 48 hours as reflected in its prosecution of a budget based on a tax plan that has been well received.

Two polls at 49/51 will be encouraging for the party boffins, even if some MPs will be dis­appointed that there was no poll bounce from the budget, considering they just spent $140 billion, bearing in mind there have been eight post-budget polls since 2003 that have gone backwards and four that have stayed the same. Paradoxically, the only three that enjoyed a small bounce at all were under Labor.

So if John Howard and Peter Costello couldn’t get one with the cash they threw around, it would be bold to suggest a government as on the nose as this one has been for so long, could muster one.