Glass half-full or not, Malcolm Turnbull faces premature pressure

Is Malcolm Turnbull a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty sort of a fella? It’s a pertinent question now that he has clocked up exactly 15 consecutive Newspolls trailing Labor on the two-party vote — half way to the 30 consecutive polls he used as the reason Tony Abbott needed to be replaced as prime minister.

If Turnbull takes a glass-half-full outlook on life, he’ll relish the chance to use the next 15 polls to lift his standing with voters. There is still plenty of time to turn things around. The election isn’t due until mid-2019 and even if Newspoll consistently comes out badly every fortnight for the next 15 sets of results, Turnbull won’t clock over to 30 consecutive failures until early next year.

If, however, Turnbull takes a glass-half-empty view of this week’s results, his political mortality will be front of mind. The 47 to 53 per cent deficit on the two-party vote appears baked into the results. An inevitability is developing that the Coalition can’t overhaul Labor no matter what legislation it passes or how it conducts its strategy. Tony Abbott continues to speak out, and the impression of instability inevitably puts downward pressure on the polls.

Adding to this depressing glass-half-empty response to Newspoll are the personal numbers. Turnbull’s net satisfaction rating went down fractionally (to minus 24) and Bill Shorten’s albeit similarly woeful rating rose (to minus 20). Turnbull’s once-healthy lead on the better PM rating has been cut to just eight points.

Momentum is an important ingredient in modern politics, and the government has little of it. Coalition MPs and senators are starting to resemble the ranks of Labor during the Gillard years, a time when lost hope for the forthcoming election became a self-fulfilling prophecy. But hard heads know that with the election so far off on the horizon, writing Turnbull and the government off is premature.

Premature or not, the pressure on Turnbull must be immense.

When the parliament resumes next month, we’ve now learnt that a private member’s bill will be brought forward by Liberal West Australian senator Dean Smith on same-sex marriage.

This issue, coupled with the government’s response to the Finkel report, risks splitting the party. Conservatives — a small band within the faction, to be sure — seem prepared to split the party if they don’t get their way on these twin issues. We’ll soon find out whether they are isolated on the fringes of the partyroom or representative of a silent majority that won’t stay silent forever.

Peter van Onselen is a professor at the University of Western Australia and presenter at ­
Sky News.