Peter Dutton’s achievement as Opposition Leader can be gauged by a single measure that more voters than not believe that the Albanese government deserves to be booted out of office after just one term.
Many of those same voters may have easily come to that conclusion themselves considering the collapse in their living standards over the past three years and a string of self-inflicted policy failures.
Suffice to say, there is not a lot of love for the Albanese government. That much is clear.
A 34 per cent primary vote for Labor is hardly a ringing endorsement. It is an indictment on Labor’s performance in government, underwritten by an insolvency of trust.
Only 39 per cent of voters believe Labor deserves to be re-elected after having served only a single term since it was last in office a decade ago.
This is an improvement on the 34 per cent who held that view in February. And it is an important one as it would suggest a mood for change has been softening.
But the fact that 48 per cent of voters don’t think they deserve to be re-elected, with the rest reserving their judgment, reveals the depths of despair voters have come to about the choice on offer.
What the opposition has clearly failed to do is the second, essential part of the job; this was to convince enough voters the Coalition had the remedies needed and that it was ready to be handed back the reins.
A primary vote of 35 per cent should be ringing alarm bells. And this is reflected in the almost two-thirds of voters who have little or no confidence that a Dutton led Liberal-Nationals outfit is ready to govern.
This is not only an indictment of Dutton but the rest of the team.
It is a depressing state of political affairs, but it’s not one confined to a Coalition failure.
Anthony Albanese has earnt his way back into contention with the same voters that Dutton appears to have alienated.
Labor’s Medicare campaign, as mendicant as it may be, the too easy exploitation of Dutton’s anti-work from home agenda, and the Prime Minister’s discipline through the campaign have all contributed.
Dutton was always going to be more vulnerable to a backlash if Labor was deemed to be doing better, especially as the Trump hysteria diminished.
The latest Newspoll, a week out from the election, draws a simple conclusion: a contest of mediocrity beckons.
The combined primary vote support for both major parties remains at a near record low of 69 per cent, the record being set in May 2022 at 68.3 per cent.
And if the 52-48 per cent two-party-preferred vote is repeated on polling day, mediocrity may well be what is delivered.
On the Newspoll numbers as they stand today, a minority Labor government is still not only conceivable but erring on the side of likely.
The fact Australians appear to have moved decisively early in the campaign, and largely maintained their verdict, suggests it would take something remarkable to shift them again this late in the campaign.
This argues in the face of the suggestion that voters are soft and will make up their mind late.
Dutton will throw everything at this campaign in the final week. And the dynamic could shift with a tightening of the polls in the Coalition’s favour in the final days.
That would still require a significant majority of the 50 per cent of voters who haven’t voted by then to decide on the day that they just can’t stomach another three years of Albanese.
And that would require something significant to turn in Dutton’s favour.
The Liberal leader’s satisfaction ratings continue to head in the wrong direction. He would be the first opposition leader with a net negative satisfaction rating of minus 24 to win an election.
The Coalition has made up no ground over the course of the campaign, despite reasonable debate performances and arguably strong policy positions on key issues.
Albanese, however, has run a disciplined campaign. So far, it has been largely error-free.
The latest Newspoll survey to measure the electability of both parties reflects other recent Newspoll analysis of the underlying decay in Coalition primary vote among women.
Female voters are considerably less convinced a Dutton-led Coalition was ready to govern than are men. This is presumably an assessment of policy but also a strongly held view of Dutton.
The lack of movement in the core Newspoll numbers over the past week, however, needs to be considered in the context of the week they reflect.
It is perhaps not surprising that they haven’t moved considering for most of the past week, the nation was on leave.
Dutton may have lacked traction because few were watching or listening. And this precedes his next challenge.
With the Australian Electoral Commission predicting that half the nation may well have voted by Friday, this leaves Dutton this week fighting over a shrinking pond of votes.
Of course, something is only unprecedented until it happens. There are still weak spots for Labor in metropolitan Melbourne where the swings are bigger than accounted for in the national polls.
This could still change the ultimate equation.
Liberal Party operatives continue to brief out that in the target seats, the polls are a lot tighter and more favourable to the Coalition. At the same time, they acknowledge that One Nation support is also considerably higher. This is now the wildcard for Dutton.
It would be courageous to make assumptions about what this could produce, considering the voter churn that appears to be a key factor of this election.
But when the Coalition’s primary vote is at 35 per cent nationally, which is just below its last election result, the ascent to Mount Everest is looking more and more like a crawl to the summit of Mount Improbable.
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