Confidence-boosting number for Labor leader

The worst thing Labor could do is read too much into the latest Newspoll.

The worst thing Labor could do is read too much into the latest Newspoll. But it would be equally rash of the Coalition to dismiss it.

Polls are rarely a reflection of what the opposition says rather than a response to what the government has or hasn’t done.

It would be an absurdity to think that the release of Labor’s election post-mortem would have actually increased its primary vote by two points.

That would require a belief that Labor talking about itself and its self-identity crisis actually helps.

The best outcome for Anthony Albanese was for the electorate to pay no attention to it at all.

And it appears that is exactly what has happened.

This poll, like most, is about the government.

But there are no stand-out contributing factors to singularly explain the marking down of Morrison’s team this week.

More broadly, however, there is concern among some senior Liberals, at least, that the government needs to start giving the community a stronger sense of where it is taking them, particularly in response to the weaker economic outlook and what the government’s plan is to address it.

Labor has finally picked up on this and is applying the pressure.

A telling feature of the polls since July has also been a steady rise in Pauline Hanson’s One Nation vote. It has now drifted back up to 7 per cent, from 3.1 per cent at the election.

You would have to assume this is mostly in Queensland, and primarily the easily-needled LNP base.

This has probably more to do with the drought and very little to nothing to do with Albanese.

That being said, the poll numbers provide Albanese with a strengthened platform, especially in the wake of the withering Emerson-Weatherill review.

The improved personal numbers and Labor’s slightly healthier primary vote will be a confidence booster for the Labor leader who would have been planning on a far worse set of numbers.