Turnbull surges in the polls

The Age reports that

Labor’s primary vote has plunged to just 30 per cent as voters flood back to a rejuvenated Coalition government under Malcolm Turnbull’s new leadership style one month after he replaced the unpopular Tony Abbott as Prime Minister. 

In what appears to be a clear vindication of that bruising leadership switch, Mr Turnbull has more than tripled Bill Shorten’s popularity as preferred prime minister at 67 per cent to Mr Shorten’s 21 – a dive of 24 points for the Opposition Leader since August, when he was up against Mr Abbott.

The hugely popular Malcolm Turnbull

There are some caveats to the current poll.

The first is that Shorten’s popularity is travelling well behind that of  his party  (21% approval rating to 47% on a two-party preferred basis). That means that a lot of people who would vote for Labor or the Greens don’t want Bill as  Prime Minister. But we already knew this.

Shorten was elected because he had a majority in the parliament party. Anthony Albanese had a majority amongst Labor Party voters.  It probably a commentary on the inward looking nature of our political system that this kind of result can come about.  When you count the absolute numbers, Albanese had far more support than Shorten and the consequences of that decision are now being played out in the polls.

Things are only going to get worse. The Royal Commission will inflict some damage on the opposition leader, if not on the Labor Party.  With Shorten prepared to tough it out, it looks like electoral death by thousand cuts for the Labor Party.

Bill Shorten was never a good idea as Leader of the Opposition now he is turning into a liability

The other interesting aspect of Turnbull’s surge in the polls is that he hasn’t really done anything in a legislative or policy sense.  He’s been charming, he’s been reasonable, he’s been Malcolm. And that seemed to be  an extremely successful strategy.

We can only hope that this very powerful showing in the polls will strengthen his position against a right wing of his party and lead to changes on issues such as gay marriage, refugee policy, terrorism policy, renewable energy policy, environmental policy and reconciliation.