Coalition close to point of no return

The people are cranky and the government is being blamed for it.

Only a dramatic turn of events is likely to rescue the government and address what appear to be embedded structural problems for the Coalition.

These problems are as deep as they are widespread and are reflected across every state and in key Coalition demographics.

There is little evidence that the government has attempted to address this fundamental problem in any significant way. What it has tried obviously hasn’t worked.

Any hope that 2018 will be a banner year for Malcolm Turnbull, rather than a repeat of the horror year of 2017, rests with his ability and willingness to make meaningful change.

The quarterly analysis of Newspoll, the final instalment of the year, bears this out. The Coalition ends the year in worse shape than it began, trailing Labor on a two-party-preferred split of 54/46.

This will be deeply vexing for Turnbull, who would rightly believe he finished the year well having dealt with same-sex marriage, survived the citizenship crisis by winning two by-elections while claiming the scalp of a Labor senator in controversial circumstances.

None of this has made the slightest bit of difference.

The loss of primary votes in Queensland and NSW is critical. Between them, the two states hold 87 of the 150 seats in the country.

While things are still dire in Western Australia, on the pure numbers, NSW and Queensland would produce a bigger loss on a much smaller swing. And if the apparent internal analysis by the LNP is right, suggesting that the preference flow from One Nation at the Queensland election was at best 50/50 in some seats, then the problems are even more profound.

The latest numbers reveal two disturbing trends for Turnbull. For the first time, Labor is ahead of the Coalition when it comes to voting males. Support among the over 50s is also down 10 points since the July 2016 election.

Nothing could provide more evidence that the Coalition base has jumped overboard and that the theory Turnbull should be chasing a younger demographic is a deeply flawed one.

This is being played out no more intensely than in the regions. Labor’s gains here are significant and would be confounding for the Nationals.

Having started with a 14 per cent deficit at the last election, Labor has lifted six points to be one point ahead of the Coalition.

While Shorten is deeply unpopular more generally, he is only three points behind Turnbull as preferred prime minister in the regions defined as non-capital cities.

The fact that blokes in the country are pissed off shouldn’t be a great surprise. This is where the loss of economic activity in the post mining boom era is felt most keenly. But the size and dimension of the disaffection would be a considerable worry for the government.

The people are cranky and the government, occupied for the past three months with same-sex marriage and determining the genealogy of every MP, is being blamed for it.