Newspoll delivers a political wake-up call to Scott Morrison

Scott Morrison at Sydney airport on Monday. Picture: Seven News

The latest Newspoll will serve as a wake-up call that while the ­national interest demands good government, Scott Morrison must start paying attention to the politics.

And it is the premiers who are currently defining the contest, rather than the Prime Minister.

They are dominating their local media markets, stoking jingoistic provincialism and using Morrison as the lightning rod for blame when things turn bad.

This is most evident in Victoria, where Daniel Andrews controls the political narrative and has turned blame-shifting into an ­art form.

Andrews’ approval ratings are still in the 60s, despite his having presided over the most draconian and enduring lockdowns of any state. They may be down on the peak high of 75 per cent in April 2020 but they have remained steady for the best part of a year.

Morrison, on the other hand, has plunged from near equal highs of 72 per cent to just 41 per cent, giving him a net-negative approval ratings of minus 16 per cent, compared with Andrews’ positive rating of plus 29.

The story isn’t quite as bad in NSW but it isn’t good – and it has similar overtones following Liberal Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s attempts to replicate the Andrews blame game by redirecting blame for mismanagement on the part of her government to the ­com­monwealth’s vaccine program. Berejiklian has seen her numbers fall from a high of a 69 per cent ­approval rating in April 2020 to 56 per cent in the latest survey. Yet Morrison has fallen further – from 67 per cent to 46 per cent.

In his home state, his net approval ratings are minus three.

It’s an entirely different story in Queensland, however, and one that will offer Morrison at least some encouragement.

Up there, people think he is doing an equally good job of managing the crisis as their Premier Annas­tacia Palaszczuk.

And he would appear to be equally as popular as Palaszczuk – with a 56 per cent approval rating compared with the Labor Premier’s 57 per cent.

This gives him a net-positive approval rating of plus 15 – in the same ball park as Palaszczuk, who is on plus 19.

Three states, three different lived experiences, three divergent political challenges for the Prime Minister.

What the latest Newspoll clearly shows is that despite the push for liberation, a majority of voters are not quite there yet.

More are still more fearful of governments moving too quickly to lift restrictions and risk the spread of the virus than they are concerned about moving too slowly for the sake of the economy and, presumably, their own mental health.

This is hardly surprising, with the premiers now driving renewed community anxiety with daily warnings about how many cases and deaths will occur once the ­restrictions are lifted under the national plan.

But with an election now just six to eight months away, the federal Coalition will need to develop a political strategy to deal with dominant Labor premiers.