Newspoll: Coalition on slide as voters turn to Pauline Hanson

The Coalition has taken a battering amid tensions between Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott | NEWSPOLL

Malcolm Turnbull with Joko Widodo yesterday.

The Coalition has taken a battering from voters amid deepening tensions between Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott, with the government trailing Labor by 45 to 55 per cent in two-party terms as the Prime Minister suffers another blow to his personal standing.

The latest Newspoll, taken exclusivel­y for The Australian, revea­ls ­a slump in the Coalition’s primary vote to 34 per cent, five points lower than in the weeks before­ Mr Turnbull toppled Mr Abbott as prime minister.

Disaffected voters have driven Pauline Hanson’s One Nation to 10 per cent of the primary vote, more than doubling that party’s support since November, as its leader seeks to echo Donald Trump’s appeal to conservatives.

After days of dispute over Mr Abbott’s call for a shift in government direction and a political fight over a Fair Work Commission decisi­on to cut Sunday and public holiday penalty rates, more voters have deserted the Coalition in favour of Labor and One Nation.

Labor’s commanding lead in two-party terms is its strongest resul­t since the outbreak of Coal­ition disunity in early 2015, when Mr Abbott faced a spill motion in the Liberal partyroom but Mr Turnbull declined to launch an outright challenge.

Mr Turnbull retains his lead over Bill Shorten as preferred prime minister but is being marked down personally, with voter satisfaction with his perform­ance tumbling from 33 to 29 per cent since the previous Newspoll, three weeks ago.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann vented his frustration with Mr Abbott yesterday, saying his public call for a change in the government’s direction was “deliberately destruct­ive” and “com­plete­ly unhelpfu­l” to the Coalition’s cause. “I can’t see any scenario in which Tony Abbott would return to the leadership,” Senator Cormann said.

Labor’s Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen accused the government of repeating the infighting seen between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, instead of dealing with the cut to wages from the penalty rates decision.

“The key point there is we learnt our lessons,’’ Mr Bowen said. “They didn’t learn our lessons. This is a movie that has been played out before. They simply are replaying the movie.’’

At 34 per cent, the government’s primary vote is down eight points since the July 2 election and is now on a dangerous path ­towards the results Labor experienced during the power struggle between Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard, which led to the party’s defeat at the 2013 election with a primary vote of just 33.3 per cent.

Yet the Newspoll survey of 1682 voters taken from Thursday to Sunday shows Mr Shorten is struggling to win over many of the voters turning away from the Coal­ition, with the Labor primary vote increasing less than three points since the election, including a small improvement from 36 to 37 per cent in recent weeks.

The fragmentation on the conservative side of politics is revealed in the surge of support for One Nation­: its primary vote of 10 per cent now matches the support for the Greens on the progressive side of politics.

Senator Hanson has strengthened her hold on voters over a period when she backed US President Donald Trump’s travel bans on seven Muslim countries, warned against the government’s plan to increase paid parental leave and blasted Australia Post chief Ahmed Fahour over his $5.6 million salary.

Based on preference flows at the last election, the two-party vote would deliver a landslide for Labor and increase its seats in parliament from 69 to 85 or more.

This is the eighth consecutive Newspoll where the Coalition has trailed Labor and the worst result for Mr Turnbull since he sought the leadership in September 2015, when he warned his colleagues that the government had lost 30 Newspolls in a row and that voters had “made up their mind” about Mr Abbott’s leadership.

The Prime Minister’s net satisfaction rating — the difference between those who are satisfied and those who are dissatisfied with his performance — has deteriorated from -21 points to -30 points since the last poll, taken on February 2-5.

While Mr Turnbull rallied Coalition ministers and backbenchers to his side by denouncing the Opposition Leader as a “simpering sycophant” and a “hypocrite” in parliament on February 8, there is no sign of a similar cheer from voters.

Mr Turnbull’s satisfaction rating of 29 per cent is now one point below that of Mr Abbott at the time of the leadership spill, although Mr Abbott had a weaker net satisfaction rating of -33 points in the Newspoll released one week before he was replaced.

The Prime Minister’s net satisfaction rating has swung from 18 points when he took the Liberal Party leadership to -30 over the weekend.

Mr Shorten’s rating of -26 per cent in the latest Newspoll shows a significant deterioration from his rating of -15 points late last year.