Yes we Dan: Andrews on track for third term

Victorian Labor is set to win with an increased majority at next year’s poll, according to the first major Newspoll since the 2018 ‘Danslide’.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is on track for a third term in the state’s top job. Picture: Getty Images

Daniel Andrews is on track to win a third term as Victorian premier with an increased majority with 12 months to go to next year’s state election, according to the first major Newspoll since the 2018 “Danslide” that reduced the Coalition to 27 of 88 lower house seats.

In a period when Victoria faced six Covid lockdowns covering 262 days, the ALP’s primary vote has increased from 42.9 per cent at the 2018 Victorian election to 44 per cent, while the Coalition’s primary vote support also has increased from 35.2 per cent in 2018 to 36 per cent in the latest poll.

The Greens marginally have increased their primary vote to 11 per cent from 10.7 per cent at the 2018 election, while support for “others’’ has dropped to 9 per cent from 11.2 per cent.

On a two-party-preferred basis, Mr Andrews’ ALP leads the Coalition 58 per cent to 42 per cent compared with the 2018 2PP election result of 57.3 per cent to 42.7 per cent.

Graphic: The Australian

The poll shows repeated stay at home orders that made Melbourne the most locked-down city in the world have failed to diminished support for the government. Mr Andrews’ approval rating has declined but still remains strongly positive, and most of those surveyed believed the government had handled the pandemic well.

The 2PP result puts the Coalition – which holds a notional 26 seats after a recent redistribution – on track to lose seven seats, taking the opposition numbers in the Legislative Assembly to 20.

The poll of 1029 Victorian voters took place between November 11 and 17, in a week when former ALP powerbroker Adem Somyurek made damning allegations about the Premier at the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, and over a weekend when tens of thousands of Victorians protested against the Andrews government’s controversial pandemic bill.

The poll also coincided with the aftermath of Liberal MP Tim Smith’s resignation from Matthew Guy’s frontbench following his drunken car crash, and news that five sitting Liberal MPs are facing preselection challenges amid deep factional divisions within the party.

Mr Andrews leads Mr Guy as preferred premier, 54 per cent to 33, with 13 per cent uncommitted. The polarising nature of the Premier’s leadership appears to be reflected in his personal satisfaction rating, with 56 per cent of voters satisfied, 42 per cent dissatisfied, and only 2 per cent uncommitted.

Matthew Guy. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling

The same proportion of voters – 42 per cent – were dissatisfied with Mr Guy’s performance, but only 34 per cent were satisfied with the Liberal leader and 24 per cent were uncommitted – two months after a leadership spill in which Mr Guy regained the job of opposition leader from Michael O’Brien.

The Premier’s satisfaction rating has fallen from a high of 75 per cent satisfied, 17 per cent dissatisfied and 8 per cent uncommitted in April last year, when Victorians were emerging optimistically from their first Covid lockdown.

It is also below its September 2020 level taken when Victoria was beginning to emerge from its second wave of coronavirus. Then 62 per cent of those polled were satisfied with the Premier’s leadership, 35 per cent were dissatisfied and 3 per cent were uncommitted.

Despite Melbourne’s status as the most locked-down city, 60 per cent of those polled said Mr Andrews had “done well” in handling Covid, including 21 per cent who said he had done “consistently well” and 39 per cent who said he “done most things well but there are some things he could have done better”.

Thirty-nine per cent said he had done “poorly”, including 20 per cent who said he had “done some things well but he’s done many things poorly”, and 19 per cent who said he had done “consistently poorly”. Only 1 per cent did not have an opinion.

The Premier’s handling of Covid rated well among women, those aged 18 to 34, and Labor and Greens voters, with regional voters giving him a marginally better rating than those in Melbourne.

Eight-eight per cent of Labor and 78 per cent of Greens voters said the Premier had handled the pandemic well, compared with 28 per cent of Coalition voters.

Asked this week to reflect on the mood of Victorians as the state reopens, Mr Andrews said he believed they were proud to have “stuck together”.

“There are some extremists out there that are putting just intolerable views … but this is not a state of division,” he said.

“We are united in our belief in science and we are united in our belief in the power of doing something yourself for yourself and everyone else. The acts of kindness, the acts of compassion … supporting each other, getting vaccinated for me and my family, but for families I will never meet, that’s special.

“So my assessment of the mood is that people are – yes they’ve been through a lot, and there is healing to be done and there’s pain to be acknowledged, but I think people are looking forward with a just sense of optimism and confidence to a summer that’s just going to be fantastic.”