Federal election 2016: Prime Minister triumph beckons, Galaxy poll shows
ACCORDING to Galaxy, the bold bid by Bill Shorten’s Labor to oust Malcolm Turnbull’s first-term Coalition Government will fail.
Analysis
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ACCORDING to Galaxy, the bold bid by Bill Shorten’s Labor to oust Malcolm Turnbull’s first-term Coalition Government will fail.
The nationwide Galaxy Research poll of 1768 voters, taken on Tuesday and Wednesday, has the Coalition’s primary vote at 43 per cent, and Labor’s at 36 per cent.
The two-party preferred vote, based on preferences from the 2013 election, gives the Coalition an election-winning lead of 51-49 per cent.
The poll shows the Greens are at 10 per cent and “others or independents’’ are at 11 per cent — indicating that one in five voters is planning to shun the major parties.
This mirrors political sentiments overseas — think Brexit, or the support for Donald Trump in the US.
To win, and knock off a first-term government, Labor has to pick up 21 seats (including two Liberal seats deemed Labor after a redistribution).
This seems impossible ... and yet it didn’t seem so early in this eight-week campaign.
The Turnbull Government feels older than it is, because it has had two prime ministers. And Labor has run an incredibly disciplined campaign for seven weeks, before things started to get ratty this week.
Mr Shorten has attended more events, interacted more in unscripted appearances with voters, and made himself a much bigger target than Mr Turnbull, offering big ideas such as radical changes to negative gearing.
But with a big splurge on health and education, Labor knew it was going to have to cough to bigger deficits. It waited until week five of the campaign before reversing its opposition to government cuts and admitting to an extra $16.5 billion in deficits in the short term, while promising a longer-term improvement.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’s decision to bring on the CFA dispute mid-campaign was not Shorten’s fault, though it became his problem.
The PM made himself a small target, sticking relentlessly to his theme of jobs and growth. While voters were disappointed with Turnbull and the Coalition, they weren’t lining up with the proverbial baseball bats to turf them out.
Galaxy chief David Briggs said the campaign had ended with the Coalition’s primary support at its highest point.
“The Labor Party has improved on their disastrous performance in 2013 but the increase of almost 3 percentage points to 36 per cent is insufficient to pose a serious threat to the government,’’ Mr Briggs said.
Originally published as Federal election 2016: Prime Minister triumph beckons, Galaxy poll shows
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