Newspoll: Coalition on a high but Albanese claws back voter trust

The Coalition has ended the year with a commanding lead over Labor, but there’s hope for Anthony Albanese.

The final Newspoll of the year, conducted exclusively for The Australian, shows the Coalition on an improved two-party-preferred vote of 52-48. Picture: Getty

Scott Morrison has weathered the political storm of the past two weeks with the Coalition ending the year with a commanding lead over Labor and a lift in popular support as more voters endorsed the Prime Minister’s vision for the country ahead of Anthony ­Albanese.

The lift for the government comes as the Opposition Leader shows signs of bridging the voter trust gap left by Bill Shorten but so far failing to return the party to a more competitive footing since its election defeat.

The final Newspoll of the year, conducted exclusively for The Australian, shows the Coalition on an improved two-party-preferred vote of 52-48, leaving the government in a strengthened position leading into Christmas since its surprise May 18 victory.

The poll marks a two-point turnaround in the past fortnight on the back of a one-point lift in popular support for the Coalition to 42 per cent while Labor’s primary vote remained unchanged at 33 per cent.

The December poll shows popular support for the Coalition now marginally higher than it was at the election with Labor’s base support largely unchanged. It also shows Mr Morrison consolidating his lead over Mr Albanese as the preferred prime minister.

It comes as Labor MPs ­descended into civil war at a weekend “ideas” conference in Sydney, dominated by divisions over the party’s climate change and coal policies. The bitter dispute erupted as Mr Albanese prepared to return to regional Queensland this week on an extended listening tour with the party having acknowledged that its marginalisation of mining communities had been a large factor in its election loss.

The improvement in the polls for the Coalition comes on the back of a politically heated parliamentary fortnight with the government losing a crucial vote in the parliament after Pauline Hanson pulled support for the ­Coalition’s union-busting Ensuring Integrity legislation. While the government succeeded in passing its controversial repeal of the Medivac laws, the Prime Minister was also forced to continue his defence of cabinet minister Angus Taylor, who is facing a police investigation into the so called “forged document” scandal.

In spite of the political pressure of the past fortnight, Mr Morrison’s personal ratings lifted with a two-point rise in his satisfaction ratings to 45 per cent and a four-point drop on those dissatisfied with him, leading to a six-point turnaround in his approval ratings.

Mr Albanese enjoyed a similar improvement in his own numbers.

Click here to view the full Newspoll results

A breakdown of attributes of both leaders shows, however, that the contest has tightened under Mr Albanese’s leadership. While Mr Morrison was regarded as being a stronger and more decisive leader than Mr ­Albanese, voters believed he was also more arrogant, a theme the opposition has recently sharpened as one of its key political attack lines.

On this measure, 58 per cent of people described the Prime Minister as arrogant compared with 40 per cent assigning this attribute to Mr Albanese.

Both leaders were regarded as being more or less equally trustworthy, which reverses the trend between Mr Morrison and Mr Shorten where the gap was seven points in favour of Mr Morrison. Mr Albanese also levelled the playing field on likeability, with Mr Morrison previously holding a large margin over Mr Shorten.

On the measures of being in touch with voters and understanding the major issues, there was little daylight between the leaders.

But Mr Albanese was regarded as being more caring for people, while Mr Morrison was regarded as being more experienced.

On the two significant measures of leadership, Mr Morrison holds a lead over Mr Albanese as a strong and decisive leader with 60 per cent endorsing this view of Mr Morrison compared with 51 per cent for the Opposition Leader.

Despite continuing criticism that Mr Morrison had no policy agenda, 60 per cent of voters believed he had a vision for the country compared with 54 per cent saying the same of Mr Albanese.

The results show Mr Albanese being more favoured than Mr Shorten on most fronts except when it came to being in touch with voters and having a vision for the country.

The poll showed One Nation’s vote unchanged on 5 per cent, still higher than its election result of 3.1 per cent.