NSW abortion debate hurts federal Coalition

Prime Minister Scott Morrison (right) with NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

Scott Morrison can thank Gladys Berejiklian for the federal government’s poll slump this week.

For the past three weeks, the NSW Premier and her colleagues have been engaged in wholesale brand destruction over their botched handling of the abortion debate.

Instinct would tell you that the abysmal failure of the NSW Liberals to deal with the issue sensibly has impacted the party’s conservative support base in the largest state.

Monday’s Newspoll, published in The Australian , the second since the May 18 election, shows a considerable decline in the two-party-preferred vote for the Coalition since the last poll conducted at the end of July. It went from 53-47 to 51-49 in the space of three weeks. Were the federal Libs surprised? You bet.

The federal government has done little to offend anyone since the election, with the exception perhaps of some Pacific island leaders.

And New Zealand.

On the contrary, Morrison has had a considerably successful start to the term.

But a breakdown of the national sample provides the possible answer. The largest drop in the Coalition vote nationally over the past three weeks has occurred in NSW.

While the sample size of any one state in a national poll of 1642 voters is too small to make assumptions with absolute confidence, the issue that has dominated the political landscape in NSW has been the abortion decriminalisation bill.

Given that NSW represents almost one in three voters, a poor performance in NSW can drag down the Coalition vote considerably at a national level.

On this basis, it would be fair to conclude that the handling of the debate by the Berejiklian government has at least been a contributing factor to the poor result for the Morrison government, if not the driving factor.

A recent poll commissioned by the Australian Christian Lobby suggested that about one in four Coalition voters would have been less likely to vote for the Liberal or Nationals parties at the last state election had they been aware the Berejiklian government would pass the abortion legislation.

The ACL commissioned poll findings suggest that the abortion debate has indeed played a part in the decline in Coalition support more generally.

The ACL, which clearly has a vested interest in the outcome of the debate, suggested 28 per cent of Coalition voters said they would have been less likely to vote for the Berejiklian/Barilaro government had they known about the Premier’s support for this abortion bill.

A further 32.7 per cent of Nationals voters also said they would have “been less likely to vote for the Coalition had they known about the Premier’s support for the bill”.

The argument over whether state issues can affect the party at a federal level is a highly contested one, but Morrison should not be too concerned that this week’s Newspoll represents a fundamental problem with his government or leadership.

The primary vote remains at a healthy 42 per cent.

Yet he would have justifiable cause for concern about the behaviour of his NSW counterparts, who appear to be serial offenders when it comes to self-destruction.