Newspoll: Malcolm Turnbull has trajectory all wrong for victory

With a double-dissolution election just 75 days away, pressure is building on Scott Morrison’s first budget to be handed down in 15 days to revive the government’s fortunes.

Malcolm Turnbull is hurtling towards a July 2 election but his ratings and the Coalition’s support in the polls are on the wrong trajectory for victory.

If the result of today’s Newspoll, showing Labor ahead 51 per cent to 49 per cent, were repeated on July 2 with a uniform swing, the Coalition would lose about 23 seats and Turnbull would suffer the infamy of becoming one of Australia’s shortest-serving prime ministers.

But swings are never uniform and the parties will slug it out over every marginal seat where a whole host of factors will come into play.

Turnbull seized the Liberal leadership promising better economic leadership than Tony ­Abbott, but a big reason for the whack in the polls has been confusion about the government’s economic message, specifically its tax plan. The government looked at increasing the GST and then dropped the idea.

It talked about tackling excesses in negative gearing and then dropped the idea.

It floated the idea of giving the states income-tax powers then dropped the idea.

The government is now relying on the budget to solve the puzzle and outline a tax plan that Turnbull and his team can then sell.

Ministers know there will be no poll bounce until they have something to sell. The risk is the bounce will be flat.

Budgets rarely provide a big- bang boost for a government. The last was in 2001, when John Howard famously took the entire menu of options offered by Peter Cos­tello and threw cash at disgruntled voters. This first budget for a Treasurer will be the launchpad for the first election campaign of a Prime Minister.

There’s no cash to splash this time. Turnbull says there will be no “fistful of dollars”; Morrison says his mission will be to convince the nation to “live within its means”.

It is a hard road to an election, even if today’s special Newspoll question shows two-thirds of voters want to reduce spending and they say paying down debt is the favoured option ahead of tax cuts.

Today’s recall of parliament is Turnbull’s big gamble to give him the trigger to bring on an election but Labor has looked to be more ready for the fight.

Even as his stratospheric “honeymoon” ratings subside, voters continue to place faith in Turnbull, ranking him best to manage the economy, more trusted to spend responsibly, more capable on tax reform and better to deal with debt. But it is trust that is wearing thin.

GRAPHIC: Newspoll tables