Newspoll: Scott Morrison given political uppercut on bushfires, but no knockout blow

The latest Newspoll suggests it is Morrison who has been punished personally rather than the government as a whole.

The Prime Minister has been given a bruising political uppercut over his handling of the bushfire crisis.

He may think it unreasonable after being smacked around for the past four weeks, but he won’t be that surprised.

What may have been regarded initially as Twitter-generated outrage over his Hawaiian holiday has cut through to the mainstream.

Scott Morrison has himself ­acknowledged that at least some of it was self-inflicted.

The question is to the potential longer-term political damage.

The latest Newspoll suggests it is Morrison who has been punished personally rather than the government as a whole. While his personal numbers may have fallen through the floor, this will be the one encouraging take-out for the Prime Minister.

The Coalition’s primary vote has fallen just two points to 40 per cent since the last poll was conducted at the start of December, which was how much it rose between the last poll and the one prior to that.

In any other context it would be regarded as a minimal shift. The resulting two-party-preferred vote of 51-49 with the Coalition behind also could have been far graver.

The latest Newspoll results.

This has been driven by a lift in primary support for Labor from 33 per cent to 36 per cent.

Whether this can or will be sustained is another question, as it would appear not to be the result of anything special Labor has done.

On the headline numbers, the political situation is completely recoverable for the Coalition.

Eventually, issues of concern will begin to swing back to the nuts and bolts — cost of living and the economy.

In the meantime, the PM has to walk a tightrope after opening the door to a broader policy response to climate change.

For the Coalition, this issue has always been a case of managing two constituencies.

Morrison knows the linkages being made between climate change and fires are at a more heightened level now.

There will be a temptation for some to read climate change into the latest poll numbers. This would have been a reasonable assumption if the Coalition’s primary vote had followed the same path as Morrison’s own numbers.

Nevertheless, Morrison has sought to address the issue and ­acknowledge the amplified ­awareness. By confining further action to “resilience” rather than emissions targets he was careful not to unintentionally signal to the conservative flank of the party room that he was about to reposition.

The other unexpected task that Morrison has, which he didn’t before Christmas, is that he now has to rebuild his leadership.

There is little doubt that the PM’s challenge going into 2020 is to demonstrate and reassure voters that his is a government in control of things.