Newspoll: Malcolm Turnbull didn’t budget on such failure

The headline Newspoll figure is the Coalition’s two-party-preferred support dropping back to 47 per cent compared with Labor’s 53 per cent and delivering Turnbull his 12th consecutive loss to Labor. Picture: AAP

Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison concocted the 2017 budget unashamedly as a political document. It has failed.

With barely a nod to real economic issues, the Prime Minister and Treasurer ditched decades of Liberal precepts and principles with the aim of lifting Coalition two-party-­preferred support in today’s Newspoll. The headline figure is the Coalition’s two-party-preferred support dropping back to 47 per cent compared with Labor’s 53 per cent and delivering Turnbull his 12th consecutive loss to Labor — almost halfway to the death sentence “30 losing Newspolls” he delivered Tony Abbott.

The size of the gamble, the further alienation of the Liberals’ traditional base and proof that those parking their votes with One ­Nation or other independents are no longer listening makes the judgment of failure ­inescapable.

The reality of the first post-budget political survey is that nothing has really changed for months: the Coalition’s primary vote was unchanged on 36 per cent, Labor’s up one point to 36 per cent, the Greens on 10 per cent, One Nation on 9 per cent and “others” on 9 per cent. The political impasse created by the conflicting demands of unpalatable economic discipline versus damaging populist “fairness” continues.

One in three voters is refusing to support the major parties; neither the Coalition nor Labor has enough primary vote support to win an election outright; the Greens, One Nation and all the others are the refuge for the dis­affected from all sides; the tug of war between economic conser­vatives and populism is at an exhausting standstill; and one in four voters can’t bring themselves to choose between Turnbull and Bill Shorten as prime minister.

Never before have both major parties been so rejected, and never before have two contenders for prime minister been so little liked.

Sadly for the Coalition, if it hadn’t been for the budget this Newspoll result would have been unremarkable except for the continuing lag in two-party-preferred. Indeed, it is Turnbull’s best personal result this year as Shorten continues to trail.

But the prime objective — too openly acknowledged without any attempt to downplay expectations — to lift the two-party-preferred result, even just to start to get back to near 50-50, has failed. It is cold comfort that Turnbull is still out-polling Shorten when the PM continues to fail the Newspoll benchmark he created.