It’s a primary vote record as Shorten exploits division

Tanya Plibersek and Bill Shorten at a Labor caucus meeting in Canberra yesterday.

Malcolm Turnbull has now led the Coalition for its longest, lowest period of primary vote support in Newspoll history.

Since February, the Coalition’s primary vote has been over 36 per cent just once, 37 per cent in March, and below it three times. Don’t worry about the artificial deadline the Prime Minister set himself of 30 losing Newspolls — based on two-party-preferred results, the Turnbull government has already racked up the most sustained run of poor primary vote results for the Coalition in Newspoll history.

This is the Coalition’s largest and most fundamental problem, not the high-pitched static created by the same-sex marriage rebellion but the rolling bass of Coalition voter discontent that makes itself heard through the poll support for One Nation and Liberal defector Cory Bernardi.

Bill Shorten exploits the Liberal moderates’ rebellion against their erstwhile champion and accuses Turnbull of “a complete lack of leadership” as Liberal conservatives try to find a way through for their leader being forced to concentrate on same-sex marriage when far more important issues should be addressed.

Malcolm Turnbull. Picture Colin Murty

Turnbull’s dismal run is worse than John Howard’s nadir in 2001 after he introduced the GST and was labelled “mean and tricky”. The Coalition’s worst primary vote under Howard was 35 per cent in March 2001 but was dragged back up to 38 per cent within six weeks and was at a winnable 43 per cent by June.

Never under Tony Abbott’s leadership was there such a deep and sustained slump — even after the fateful 2014 budget of “broken promises”.

There is no doubt Turnbull is reaping the harvest of voter disaffection with the major parties and Shorten’s primary vote record for Labor is consistently too low for the ALP to win in its own right.

Turnbull is preferred personally over the Opposition Leader but it is no silver lining for the Coalition because it must bring back primary voters to its fold because the Coalition needs a higher primary vote to win an election — 42 per cent — than Labor’s 40 per cent because Greens’ preferences are more reliably passed on to the ALP.

The unprecedented locking in of a dismal Coalition primary vote demands to be addressed actively and immediately without reliance on theories about One Nation’s second-preference calculations or the fantasy that the election is “two years away”.

Howard acted immediately in 2001 to lure back lost Coalition voters when One Nation was at 7 per cent in Newspoll and cut it back to 3 per cent in October. One Nation’s primary support in Newspoll was 8 per cent last weekend.

But One Nation is only the polling manifestation of Coalition disillusion. Turnbull has to appeal to specific alienated groups, such as the parents of children at Catholic schools, self-funded retirees, superannuants, supporters of traditional marriage and householders facing energy bill hikes, and appeal soon, just as Howard did in 2001.

Otherwise the Coalition’s losing primary vote of 36 per cent will be locked in even more solidly than it is now, and it won’t matter when the election is held.