Newspoll: Parties level pegging but Morrison slides
Coalition draws level with Labor on a two-party-preferred basis for first time since February, but PM’s popularity plunges.
The Coalition has recovered electoral ground to draw level with Labor on a two-party-preferred basis for the first time since February with an election due in less than 12 months.
But popular support for Scott Morrison has fallen sharply in the wake of Victoria’s latest Covid-19 lockdown amid a blame game over vaccine rollouts and bickering over responsibility for quarantine.
An exclusive Newspoll conducted for The Australian shows the two major parties deadlocked 50-50 on a two-party-preferred basis. This marks a two-point turnaround in favour of the Coalition on the last poll, which was commissioned to test the immediate reaction to the May 11 budget. The result has been determined by small changes in minor-party support and the subsequent flow of preferences, with the absence of any change in primary votes for either the Coalition or Labor.
The Coalition has trailed Labor on this measure since the Brittany Higgins rape allegations and the emergence of sexual assault claims against then attorney-general Christian Porter in February and March.
While the May budget provided a circuit breaker to the political crisis the government was plunged into over the broader issues of the treatment of women in politics it has yet to deliver an electoral dividend, despite being one of the best received in more than a decade.
The Coalition’s primary vote of 41 per cent remains unchanged since April but is still on par with its election victory result of 41.4 per cent in May 2019.
Labor’s primary vote of 36 is unchanged on the last poll, three points down on the high-water mark of 39 per cent recorded in mid-March when the government was under siege, but almost three points ahead of its last election result.
The only movement in the fundamental party vote in the latest poll conducted between June 2 and June 5 was a one-point fall for the Greens to 11 per cent and a similar rise for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation to 3 per cent.
The most notable change in the latest survey was a steep rise in voter dissatisfaction with Mr Morrison’s performance as Prime Minister following the political brawl sparked by the Andrews government’s claim that the commonwealth was to blame for the latest breakout in Victoria, which forced a 14-day lockdown.
Approval for Mr Morrison has fallen four points in the past three weeks to 54 per cent. Those dissatisfied with his performance rose five points to 43 per cent.
This has reduced his net positive approval rating of plus 20 last month to a net positive approval rating this time of plus 11, his lowest net result since March 2020.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese suffered a fall in net approval as well, with a one-point fall in approval to 38 per cent and a one-point rise in dissatisfaction to 47 per cent, producing a net negative result of minus nine.
In the head-to-head contest of preferred prime minister, Mr Morrison fell two points to 53 per cent while Mr Albanese rose two points to 32 per cent. This returns the contest to similar territory of mid-March.
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