Abbott poll position still uncertain

Recent polls suggest Abbott has successfully papered over those cracks in credibility and not all in his party room are convinced the paper will hold. It’s the next weeks and months that will be critical.

“He’s not out of the woods yet,” was a common view of backbenchers worried about their seats.

As far as Trade Minister Andrew Robb is concerned, they are too pessimistic. He says he didn’t need a poll to know the budget hit the mark.

An analysis of the Newspoll shows Joe Hockey’s outing on the second Tuesday in May went a long way to impress the restive base vote.

Among people over 50, those earning more than $90,000, and men, he has many admirers. But not enough to put the Coalition back in the winners’ circle just yet. Labor saw a jump in its position to a two-party lead of 53 to 47 per cent.

The Fairfax-Ipsos poll, true to its history of volatility, has a 50-50 line ball result.

Poling analyst Andrew Catsaras says the aggregate of the four polls has Labor in front, 52-48.

A closer look at Newspoll shows the biggest chunk of people, 40 per cent, have shrugged their shoulders. The task is now to inspire more confidence in them.

That will be no easy job. It’s one thing to offer middle- and upper-income families a generous package of subsidised child care, it’s another to pay for it with $3.5 billion coming from cuts in payments to lower-income families.

It is not only Labor and the Greens who won’t buy it in the Senate. Six of the eight crossbench senators are still to be convinced.

A separate campaign against the cuts is being run inside the party room by LNP senator Matt Canavan from Queensland and Zed Seselja, a conservative Liberal from the ACT. They claim they already have 15 colleagues on side.

It certainly won’t all be plain sailing for captain Abbott.

Then there’s the little matter of the budget’s growth forecasts holding. Let alone the credible path back to surplus.

Another deficit blow out would be more than embarrassing.

Economists aren’t the only ones sceptical. It’s being cited by some Libs as a reason Mr Abbott may want an election before next year’s budget passes judgement on this year’s concoction.