Shorten and Turnbull overtake Abbott in negative satisfaction records: Newspoll

Bill Shorten and Malcolm Turnbull have overtaken Tony Abbott by racking up more days with negative satisfaction ratings than he did.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. Picture: Kym Smith

Bill Shorten and Malcolm Turnbull have overtaken Tony ­Abbott by racking up more days with negative satisfaction ratings in their roles as Opposition Leader and Prime Ministerthan Mr Abbott did in either position.

While Labor ends the year in a commanding position over the government at 53 to 47 per cent in two-party-preferred terms, an analysis of Newspoll results shows Mr Shorten is one of the most enduringly unpopular ­opposition leaders.

The figures also show that Australians have been largely dissatisfied with the quality of their political leaders since early 2010 when Kevin Rudd abandoned an emissions trading scheme and a new era of political instability was ushered in following his ousting.

Since Mr Turnbull took over as Prime Minister, Mr Shorten has spent more than 820 days lagging behind in the better prime minister stakes — the longest stint of any opposition leader by more than 140 days.

GRAPHIC: Comparing the leaders

As of this month, Mr Shorten also overtook Mr Abbott as the opposition leader with the second-longest run of negative net satisfaction ratings at 1032 days over 58 polls since February 2015.

Only John Howard had a more sustained slump when he was first opposition leader, rec­ording 1256 days of negative satisfaction ratings between November 1985 and May 1989, when he was eventually dumped for Andrew Peacock.

Mr Shorten’s satisfaction rating has reached a lower trough than either Mr Abbott’s or Mr Howard’s, peaking at minus 38 points in December 2015 — three months after Mr Turnbull took office. This compares with Mr Howard’s worst result of minus 35 points in September 1988 and minus 36 points for Mr Abbott in November 2012.

When he ousted Mr Abbott for the leadership in September 2015, Mr Turnbull pointed to 30 successive Newspoll losses for the Coalition party as one of the key justifications for his move.

Yet Mr Turnbull has already surpassed Mr Abbott on one key measure by eclipsing his record as the Liberal prime minister to have notched up the most number of days with a negative net satisfaction rating. Newspoll shows Mr Turnbull notched up 640 days in negative territory between March 2016 and this month over 36 Newspolls.

The result is a touch worse than the performance of Mr Abbott, who recorded a negative net satisfaction rating for 639 days between December 2013 and September 2015 when he lost the top job. Only Paul Keating and Julia Gillard endured longer runs with negative satisfaction ratings, with Mr Keating topping the list with 1504 days in negative territory between 1992 and 1996 compared with Ms Gillard with 842 days between March 2011 and June 2013.

The Newspoll analysis shows that from 1989, the Hawke/Keating years were spent almost entirely in combined negative net satisfaction — a measure that also accounts for the satisfaction ratings of the Liberal leader. Mr Keating’s elevation to prime minister entrenched the slump with the dissatisfaction of Australians with their political leaders bottoming out in September 1993 — just six months after an election at a time when the Labor government was proposing a series of indirect taxation increases.

In September 1993, Newspoll showed a combined negative net satisfaction rating of minus 76 points (including a rating of minus 19 points for then opposition leader John Hewson and minus 57 points for Mr Keating).

By contrast, Australians were most satisfied with their political leaders when Mr Howard and Kim Beazley were facing off after the Coalition won government from Labor after 13 years in power in 1996.

In May of that year, the combined net satisfaction rating was recorded at 83 points (including a rating of 53 points for Mr Howard and 30 points for Mr Beazley).

That kicked off a long period over which combined net satisfaction was positive — a trend that lasted until the political infighting within ALP ranks derailed the Rudd government in early 2010.

The lowest combined net satisfaction over the past seven years was a rating of minus 64 in February 2010 — repeated again in July that year — when political hos­tilities deepened between Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard.