Bennelong defeat avoided, now Turnbull faces real test

Malcolm Turnbull’s greatest victory at the weekend was in avoiding a potentially catastrophic defeat.

There is no doubt that the less than 5 per cent swing in the Bennelong by-election was a better result than expected and a worse one than Bill Shorten had been hoping for.

The Coalition was rescued from going into minority government, the Opposition Leader’s bubble was painfully deflated and Labor’s Medicare scare campaign tactics failed to fool the electorate a second time.

But the jubilation of retaining a blue-ribbon Liberal seat in a by-election triggered by the citizenship shambles must be tempered with the sobering reality of the national polling figures. There will be some in the government who will argue that it has done well to maintain the status quo in the final Newspoll as the curtains are drawn on an otherwise calamitous year with an unchanged two-party-preferred vote of 53-47 — the 53 being Labor.

But it is the status quo that is the problem. It is a critically bad place for the government to be.

What the Bennelong result will temporarily cloak is the reality that the fundamental issues facing the government haven’t materially changed.

Labor still maintains its winning position — a convincing position that it has commanded since the beginning of the year.

The gap between Shorten and Turnbull as preferred prime minister is still narrow and, more importantly, the Coalition’s primary vote remains perilously stuck at about 36 per cent.

On these figures, the government is going nowhere other than into opposition.

And Turnbull is yet another poll closer to 30 losses on the trot.

There is no denying that Turnbull, however, has been successful in refloating a boat that had been keel-up heading into the final two sitting weeks of parliament.

The government has averted a crisis over dual citizenship and won two by-elections convincingly in the aftermath. Turnbull has also finally swept same-sex marriage off the table, although perhaps only by delaying another internal fight after leaving the issue of religious protections unresolved.

These are significant political victories in a year beset by political disasters. And much of the downside heading into next year will belong to Shorten when Labor’s turn comes to be put through the High Court ringer.

The challenge, however, rests mainly with Turnbull and whether he can not only reinvent himself but also revive an agenda that has relevance to the issues facing most Australians.

This is going to be extremely difficult based on the trend since the last election.

The electoral decline inherent in the collapse of the Coalition primary vote now appears entrenched, with the disappointment in Turnbull appearing to be locked in.