Odds shorten on Labor to take out next election

Bill Shorten in Question Time. Picture; Kym Smith.

Bill Shorten is the man most likely to be elected prime minister at the next election: Australia faces a Shorten-led Labor government within eight months.

Coalition hopes of destroying the Opposition Leader or of Labor facing a debilitating and destructive leadership battle are forlorn. Coalitionists need to recognise Shorten is secure and Labor will not implode.

Shorten’s chances at the next election are greater than those of Liberal incumbent Malcolm Turnbull and, perhaps more importantly, Labor leadership aspirant Anthony Albanese.

The latest Newspoll has virtually guaranteed Shorten will not face an internal challenge before the election and has confirmed Labor’s clear favouritism to win a poll that must be called by April.

Despite poor personal polling, judgment errors, being behind in key by-election campaigns, sliding Labor primary support, facing a messy leadership brawl and badly trailing Turnbull as preferred prime minister, Shorten has survived and prospered.

It is impossible to say what will happen at the next election but after months of attacks and mistakes, Shorten has proved resilient, blessed by a government of political ineptitude.

Albanese has realistically sheathed his sword of ambition as senior colleagues acknowledge there was a real threat of a challenge to Shorten three weeks ago, should Labor have lost the Longman or Braddon by-elections.

The final buttress for Shorten came in The Australian’s Newspoll survey published yesterday in which Turnbull’s personal satisfaction rating plunged six percentage points, his dissatisfaction shot up seven percentage points and his clear dominance in the much-vaunted preferred prime minister contest was eroded.

Turnbull faces the challenge now, not Shorten; he must make dramatic policy changes if he is to reconnect with a lost electorate.

Turnbull and Shorten are the most unpopular leadership offering in Newspoll’s 30-year history, both having similar negative approval ratings.

The gap on preferred prime minister closed overnight from 19 points to 12.

Voters have for 38 Newspolls in a row and at three contested by-elections shown they prefer Labor or an independent over the Coalition, as the ALP retains a two-party-preferred vote in Newspoll of 51-49 per cent.

What must be galling for the more popular Albanese is that Labor’s primary vote last weekend dropped two points to 35 per cent — the lowest this year and a four-point decline since March as well as the same level as at the 2016 election.

Previously, opposition leaders with better numbers than Shorten have lost their jobs, but the by-election results and the Newspoll demonstrate that as bad as Labor’s position is, the Coalition’s is worse.

Labor’s primary vote of 35 per cent is lower than the Coalition’s 37 per cent but the latter needs a higher primary vote than the ALP to win an election — about 42 per cent compared with 40 per cent — and conservatives alienated by a “soft left” Liberal Party are finding other places to vote and not returning preferences.

Labor’s campaign against Turnbull has been disciplined and effective while the Coalition has been inconsistent, hysterical at times and wasteful of golden opportunities.