Friday, February 16, 2018

Latest Polls – Labor's commending lead

Two new opinion polls show Labor is closing out the turbulent political year with a commanding lead over the Turnbull government, while one of the surveys underscores the profound fatigue of Australian voters with Canberra’s lethal coup culture.

Both the Newspoll and the Fairfax-Ipsos poll have Labor ahead of the Coalition on the two party preferred measure, 53% to the Coalition’s 47%. Last week’s Guardian Essential poll had Labor ahead 54% to 46%.

As federal parliament enters what is expected to be the final sitting week for the year, the Ipsos poll also recorded 71% support for the idea that prime ministers should be allowed to govern for a full term, rather than being turfed out in leadership contests prior to elections.

Over the past decade, the Labor party switched leaders from Kevin Rudd to Julia Gillard then back to Rudd, and the Liberal party switched from Brendan Nelson to Malcolm Turnbull to Tony Abbott then back to Turnbull.

Labor managed victory in its own right in 2007 before being pitched into minority government at the next election, while the Coalition won the 2013 election outright before Turnbull scraped back into government at the last election with a one-seat majority in the lower house.

The build-up to the final sitting week for 2017 has seen a burst of febrile speculation about Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership, fuelled in part by the fact the Coalition has trailed in the opinion polls all year, but the prime minister on Sunday said he was confident he would remain in the top job.

“I have every confidence, every confidence, that I will lead the Coalition to the next election in 2019 and we will win it, because we are putting in place the policies that will deliver for the Australian people,” the prime minister told Sky News in an interview.

The Fairfax-Ipsos poll contained questions about preferred leaders for the Liberal party and the survey had the foreign minister Julie Bishop ranked ahead of Turnbull as the most popular choice, with 32% support compared to Turnbull’s 29%.

The former prime minister Tony Abbott polled at 14%, favoured conservative choice Peter Dutton at 5% and the treasurer, Scott Morrison, at 4%.

Turnbull ranked ahead of Bishop among Coalition voters, and the Newspoll recorded improvements in his net satisfaction rating and in his standing as preferred prime minister.

The latest Guardian Essential poll will be published on Tuesday morning.

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