- Poll shows Peter Dutton is the preferred prime minister
- But Labor says Dutton is “unelectable”
Two rival opinion polls tell a similar story as Parliament returns for two weeks of sittings.
The election is getting tighter and Anthony Albanese needs to correct voters’ perception that he and his team are not up to the task of managing the economy in these difficult times of living.
According to Newspoll, the Labor primary vote was down to 32 per cent, compared to 39 per cent in the Coalition primary. Resolve’s poll puts the Labor primary vote at just 29 per cent, but the Coalition vote was also down slightly according to Resolve, to 37 per cent.
Both polling agencies show high levels of support for the independent group, suggesting that a hung parliament could be in the offing, perhaps with a balance of power between the Greens (and the Turks).
But the real question for the major parties is who voters will entrust with managing the economy after the next election.
Labor has work to do on this front, although no first-term government has lost a re-election bid since 1931. It trails the Coalition on the issue of economic management.
It is unusual for first-term opposition leaders to do well in the preferred prime minister rankings, but Peter Dutton leads Albo by a narrow margin, 36 to 35 per cent, according to Resolve. He is slightly behind the prime minister according to Newspoll.
Perhaps the most important point here is that nearly a third of respondents chose neither of them in both polls.
The Labor Party likes to claim that Dutton is “unelectable”, an argument echoed by many commentators. If that is the case, then so is the current prime minister, who is seeking a second term.
A poll shows Anthony Albanese (pictured) is less popular than Peter Dutton. And Labor’s economic management credentials are in the toilet.
Are the Greens running the economy? If the Labour Party becomes a minority government after the next election, the Greens’ power will increase
Not that Albo is Labour’s biggest problem. That prize goes to Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who has been criticised by the Reserve Bank for fuelling inflation with his spending, tax cuts and handouts. His economic management credentials are in the toilet.
The Resolve poll found that only 23 per cent of voters favour Labor managing the country’s finances, compared with 41 per cent who favour the Coalition – a considerable gap, and a real problem for Labor when economic management is the only option available.
Most voters believe Labour is likely to win a second term (Newspoll notes that they think it will be forced into a minority government) and Resolve, unsurprisingly, finds that 56 per cent of the public expect the economic situation to worsen over the next 12 months.
This is a dangerous situation for the Labor Party, which could be the favourite in the next election, as it has 78 seats compared to the Coalition’s 57.
But with a Treasurer who voters regard as unhelpful at his job, a Prime Minister less favourable than an unpopular opposition leader and a primary vote of around 20% according to one poll, Labour is in a bad place.
Jim Chalmers (pictured) is under attack from the Reserve Bank for fuelling inflation
Unelectable? New poll suggests otherwise for Peter Dutton
Add to this the fact that voters expect a hung parliament and that the Greens would inevitably co-govern with Labour in such a situation and it is a diabolical combination, especially when economic management is paramount.
How can Labour hope to improve its sorry position as economic manager when the Treasurer is bad at his job, the Prime Minister is unpopular and the expected result is that Labour is dependent on Green support to form a minority government?
Especially when the Reserve Bank tells us it is concerned that Labour is fuelling inflation with its spending spree.
Yes, it would be unusual for a first-term opposition with limited talent in its ranks to return to power so soon after losing office in difficult circumstances.
But if voters decide that returning to the coalition is a lesser evil compared with sticking with a party they don’t trust to manage the economy when that’s what people care about most, perhaps history will be made at the next election. We could see a government lose its first term in office for the first time in almost 100 years.
