Abbott honeymoon over before it began

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THE Newspoll published in The Australian yesterday included good and bad news for the Coalition.

The good news is that the woefully low polling of the Malcolm Turnbull era has, at least temporarily, been put in the past and the Coalition can begin building its competitiveness before the election, expected later this year.

New leader Tony Abbott has greatly improved the Coalition leader's better prime minister rating from Turnbull's 14 per cent support to 25 per cent. And the all-important net satisfaction rating - the number of voters satisfied with a leader's performance minus those who are dissatisfied - shows that the public has not written off the Opposition Leader. In the wake of Turnbull's OzCar disaster, that is more than the Liberals are used to.

Perhaps the most positive news for the Coalition in the net satisfaction figures is that Kevin Rudd's rating of 18, although still high, is the lowest it has been when compared with an opposition leader since he became Prime Minister. That suggests Rudd's honeymoon of more than three years may finally be ending.

The bad news is that while Abbott's net satisfaction rating is positive at five, compared with Turnbull's last rating of minus 14, Abbott's start is worse than that of either Brendan Nelson in the first post-election Newspoll (17 net satisfaction) or Turnbull's first results as leader (25 net satisfaction).

Depending on whether one is feeling charitable towards the new Opposition Leader, the explanation for his worse-than-usual start in the ratings can go one of two ways.

It could be because he is a known quantity who voters by and large don't think has rehabilitated himself enough from a series of blunders as a minister during the final term of the Howard government.

Or it could be that he has taken over the leadership of a party that had been a rabble for months with a former leader who tried to inflict maximum political damage on his way out, which is not Abbott's fault.

The true explanation probably draws on both factors in roughly equal measure.

One thing, however, is certain: Abbott has not benefited from a honeymoon as a new leader and he will need to work hard and stay disciplined to maintain results that make him barely competitive.