Australia’s refugee problem has attracted global attention. This from the New York Times.
Turnbull does a Downer on popularity
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When it comes to unsuccessful Opposition Leaders, some burn their way through public goodwill slowly, while others like Peacock, never really had any goodwill to begin with — but in the modern history of federal leaders of the Opposition, there have been only two that have burnt their public approval like phosphorus. Forget the comparisons of Turnbull being like Nelson or Latham — no, we have to go all the way back to Alexander Downer to find a situation in any way comparable to that which the Coalition now finds itself in. While the problem of political support always comes back to vote estimates — they are essentially the only polling metric that really counts — the satisfaction/approval ratings of a leader have an uncanny knack of becoming a threshold test for short term electoral success. Forget “Preferred Prime Minister” — it’s a meaningless beauty contest that rides on the coat tails of the vote estimates, the action is with the satisfaction ratings.Once an Opposition leader has more people disapproving of their performance than approving, warning bells start to sound. However once an Opposition leader has significantly more people disapproving of their performance than approving, their vote — and their electoral fortunes — are generally set in concrete. If we look at the net satisfaction ratings of every leader of the Opposition over the last two decades at the ninth month of their leadership (or in the case of Downer, the 8th since he couldn’t make nine) — Turnbull finds himself in auspicious company.
Compared to Turnbull, after nine months of leadership Nelson looked positively popular, Crean was doing well and Latham was a superstar. Only Downer and Peacock experienced such public disapproval after such a short period of time. Not only has an opposition leader never won an election with large negative net satisfaction ratings, but the polling on the vote estimates rarely improves after that large negative split has occurred — certainly not in any significant manner over the last 20 years worth of Newspoll. If we track the net satisfaction ratings of recent failed opposition leaders over the months of their leadership, a typical pattern emerges.
Once a leader has their net satisfaction ratings drop to a certain level, they never recover, to the point where the leadership itself starts to pull the party vote down. Whether that bottoming out is achieved in nine months or 20 matters naught, for once it has occurred, recovery has never been witnessed. The only thing that differs with these leaders is the length of time it took for their party to remove them — but remove them they did. Turnbull on a net satisfaction rating of negative 33, where 58% of the voting public disapprove of the way he’s doing his job compared to only 17% approval, has reached the level where recovery is pretty much impossible. It might move a few percent over the next few months one way or the other, but a proper recovery is little more than a fantasy. The question left to answer is whether the Coalition will leave Turnbull hanging for a period of time like the ALP did to Crean, or whether they’ll be humane, cut him down relatively quickly and give a new leader the time needed to prepare for the next election. |
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25 Comments
The question is who will replace Turnbull? Turnbull’s failing is total lack of judgement.
Well actually Nelson appears to be recovering somewhat on your graph - maybe he could have recovered further if he was left in position. Who knows?
He certainly appears to be preferable to Malcolm Turnbull, still that’s for the Coalition, God help them.
Possum,
These are the same Liberals who could not bring themselves to cut old Howard loose. They won’t have the guts to do what needs doing. They will wait for Turnbull to resign - on election night.
Phyllida Ives: “Turnbull’s failing is total lack of judgement”. I can assure you lack of judgement in itself may make people get the irrits, be dismissive, or even to be defensive. But it takes a lot more effort on the part of the parliamentarian to get him/herself cordially loathed by the electorate. It takes terminal arrogance, bullying,
abominable rudeness, a grinding belief that he/she is absolutely, amazingly, pre-ordained to be born for the job. The spectral but atrocious aura emanating like a viscous fog which says “Why don’t these morons realize that I am the one who knows best?” The voice that resonates like a fermenting plum: whose owner fondly imagines that if he repeats a well-rehearsed story often enough the stupid peasants might finally understand the rightness of what he’s saying.
To become this offensive bespeaks years and years of training. Lack of judgement has little to do with it.
I remember Alexander Downer… He was incredibly popular by default because of how badly Keating was loathing… of course until he opened his mouth. The more people knew him, the more they disliked him, while all the while he could have just shut up and rode the wave of anti-keating sentiment to the election that Howard did
Venise, hear! hear! He’s an arrogant bully, who’s puffed up by a sense of his own importance. Fancy living with him! There’s one thing in trying to embarrass an oponent, or accuse them of misleading parliament, but to engage in ‘questionable behaviour’ to bring it about is just plain criminal. To remove a PM or Treasurer via trumped up or contrived ‘evidence’ shouldn’t be explained away at all. He should go - NOW! I don’t want to see or hear from him again. My faith in the people of the country has risen - or at least those who participated in the polls. Coupled with this is the Opposition’s return to Howard’s shameful stance on those wretched people seeking asylum is unforgivable. He’s too gutless to stand up to those excuses for humans, who advocate cruel and inhuman punishment for traumatized people. I’d say to Turnbull, ‘here’s your hat, what’s your hurry’?
And just like Downer Turnbull has become a stalking horse. He will remain leader thru the inevitable loss at the next election then be toppled by whoever has the numbers in the aftermath…
The Prime Minister is a mate of Mr John Grant, a Brisbane car dealer. For some years Mr Grant has given the Prime Minister the free use of a ute which Mr Rudd uses as his ‘mobile electorate office’.
Mr Grant was one of a large number of car dealers who were concerned that, due to the credit crunch, they may not be able to obtain ongoing finance for their businesses.
To deal with this problem, the Rudd Government has established ‘OzCar’ to provide a $550 million credit facility for car financiers that is 100 percent guaranteed by the Australian Government.
However, unlike every other car dealer:
Mr Grant personally spoke with the Treasurer;
Updates on his case were faxed directly to the Treasurer’s home in Brisbane;
Mr Grant’s mobile phone number was given to the CEO of Ford Credit at the very same meeting as Ford Credit was seeking access to the OzCar funds– along with words to the effect that “he’s an acquaintance of the Prime Minister”;
Despite having a policy of not writing finance for Kia dealers like Mr Grant, Ford Credit promptly rang Mr Grant on his mobile phone to see if they could help.
Why is it a scandal for the Government?
When asked In Parliament why the Prime Minister’s mate got this special treatment, the Treasurer claimed that Mr Grant was treated “just like everybody else”.
Quite clearly he wasn’t.
For all Turnbull knew he was sitting on top of damning evidence. He was doing what the Opposition is supposed to - QUESTION THE GOVERNMENT. The only evidence of any wrong doing is on the party of the government.
I think Turnbull is like Peacock - never had any goodwill to start with but as Phyllida says - who are they going to replace him with? It seems that the Libs are playing the good old race card in order to deflect attention from the Ozcar debale (I heard some Liberal MP mention this morning about the number of boat people entering Australia since Labor got in power) so perhaps they could get Ruddock as their new leader!!
Jacks, Jacks - Grant never was, and never will, be eligible for assistance under Ozcar. The program is for the major vehicle financiers like Ford Credit or the Holden equivalent. If Grant (or any dealer) was to receive assistance, it would have been at the discretion of the major financiers not Rudd, not Ozcar. Grant was knocked back by Ford Credit, so Grant got zilch, zero, sfa. Swan took a bit too much interest in Grant’s case compared with other dealers (who did get some assistance from Swan) but that’s not a hanging offence. Don’t let the facts get in the way of prejudice!
I forgot to mention Turnbull. He could be in big trouble with the law depending on how much Grech sings to save his own backside. If Turnbull (and Abetz and Hockey) are found to have been involved in cooking up the fake email, charges will follow. Notwithstanding that, the Libs cannot win the next election (to be held in early December, I guess) so Turnbull will be allowed to stay, to lose that election and to be replaced by a new leader who may have a chance in 2013.
Jacks, you don’t even begin to appreciate how half-cocked and amateurish the whole thing was. There are too many instances of this to enumerate them all here so I’ll restrict myself to one example. Once Rudd stated that, after a thorough search, the email could not be found in the PMO system it was obviously incumbent on Turnbull to absolutely ensure that he had the genuine article.
The cocksure dope obviously failed to do any such check. This is all the more amazing as he has indulged in plenty of skulduggery in his time and should have been fully aware of the possible pitfalls.
I thought I read recently that JW Howard had a very negative satisfaction rating when opposition leader the first time around. I guess this was pre Newspoll. Is this correct? BTW I am not an oposition supporter.
Turnball and abetz/hockey/grech should all be sacked and lose their large tax-payer part of their golden hand shake, after being found guilty of cause. Turnball has form and this is not a person who should be PM of Australia. I think australians are sick of lawyers and barristers running the country and talking to us in a slow calculated way, we are not in court. In china, mal and friends would have be marched out to a brick wall for target practice. Shame ,we are in australia. We could have sold tickets and got rid of the debt of the country.
David: Well said. He even branch-stacked the electorate of Wentworth to gain his seat. All his life he has been getting away with whatever he so wishes. There was a good article in New Matilda, last week, written by Ben Eltham. He brings up a couple of nasty legal scams which Turnbull got away with. The man has no moral parameters of any kind. His whole existence has been by himself, for himself and up himself.
He-if elected-will be the Liberal Party’s nemesis, and Australia’s shame.
Keda,
Howard Mk 1 was Oppo leader when Newspoll started, so I couldn’t trace his satisfaction timeline from the beginning. I have done a chart before of Howard’s leadership that overlapped with Newspoll (along with all the other leaders) if you’re interested:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/02/16/historical-satisfaction-ratings-of-opposition-leaders/
I turned on the TV last Friday (19th) and I saw Turnbull in all his arrogant glory calling for the PM and the Treasurer to resign. My first thought was that somehow he has convinced himself that he is going to be Prime Minister before the year is out. Wow, he must be so deluded. He probably thought that he was going to initiate another constitutional crisis and get the GG to act and make him PM. LOL. Not that the Rudd lot are going to be much better but at least they are not as racist or as nasty.
JACKS - Funny how you also forgot to mention that neither Grant nor anybody else has to date received one cent. You also ‘forgot’ to mention the fact, that the main ‘evidence’ Turnbull had was a fake. You didn’t ask how or by whom this happened? You conveniently didn’t question or put ‘screws’ on Turnbull to tell who his source/s is/are? Is it because you think that coalition members have the divine right to rule; aren’t covered by the same rules that they demand of others, or are you just using the oldest trick in the book - move the discussion on to what suits your stance? Whatever the reasons, you’re now in the same category as Turnbull - you have no integrity, no intelligence, no conviction of what’s right and just, and certainly no remorse or even feel embarrassed enough to demand a truthful answer to many questions. In short, you’re also guilty - of being an accessory AFTER the fact!
Isn’t it amazing, that after the lies, the allegations (that have not been denied by either Turnbull or Abetz, or anyone else for that matter) the Opposition, in their sublime arrogance now want Wayne Swan to reveal why the email originated from the Treasury office? After moving for a judicial inquiry, the Coalition members in the Senate failed to vote in favour of Turnbull’s motion in the House of Reps. I understand, that this is almost a record in the Senate. The question needs to be asked; Is it just for ‘ordinary’ reasons that the Coalition in the Senate didn’t vote for a motion from their Leader? I find this quite amazing.
I want to know how the email was ‘found’ to emanate from Treasury. I want Turnbull and Abetz to answer some pretty basic questions under oath. I want to wait for the AFP and the Auditor General’s reports re their investigations. I want to know if Gelch is going to be charged, and with what - then, if he feels his freedom is in jeopardy, he’ll ‘sing like a canary’! Great!
Nick Minchin: “It’s good experience.” Perhaps that is what kindergarten teachers say, with a soothing tone, when one of their charges wets their pants.
I wonder how many more “good experiences” Malcolm is going to be blessed with? And will his handlers ever dare let the little adventurer out of the playpen again?
Why is it that media opinion writers fail to mention that Turnbull is prepared to bankroll the 2010 Liberal election campaign? The party is broke and without his money they would struggle to promote themselves. That is why he will remain leader. He has basically rented the Liberal Party for a couple of years to see if can deliver him what he so desperately craves.
Cloak and dagger??
Lets fire this up! Its seem obvious that Rudd and his fellow chums have nothing to answer for regarding utegate. Its obviously a error in judgment by Turnbull and he’s just a usless bum.
Right?????
Strange occurances. A similar thing just happened in state politics to SA’s opposition leader Martin Hamilton Smith. He also received a fabricated email which was subsequently released and has also seriously undermined his leadership.
When this went down a few weeks back. I was quite surprised at how aggressively the labor party struck back. There was a barrage of media and Martin was made to look like a dill. It’s only my opinion, but it all seemed very staged.
Maybe Labor thought another bogus email would work on Turnbull too. He also seemed to be standing like a deer in the headlights while labor mowed him down!
If it was a setup, wow!! Awesome tactic!!!!!
NB: This is only speculation.
Liz45 , then can we burn them at the stake and remove all demons.
Venise I am amazed you are not at the blog ‘Turnbull: why the Liberals should keep him’
I have had the most absorbing dialogue with a Mr Lewis, a nobody, a person with amnesia, a Turnbull. Hockey, Abbott (omg the defunct priest, the catholic church are so embarrased) he is an Abetz supporter, Abetz he a declining believer in the honesty of a Senate investigation of Abetz, the liar. So the good folk of Tasmania can now see what they have representing them. A stage managed user of a pathetic Liberal mole in treasury, a Senator who has declined with his party an investigation by the Senate Priveledges Committee into his involvement about the questioning and prior knowledge of the fool Grech befofore the said Grech spoke the infamous words…I MAY HAVE BUT i AM NOT SURE IF I HAVE…..as Mr Rudd said there are a lot more questions to be answered. Incidently if the said grech is so ill all of a sudden, whybare the media not chasing it up…is there a blackout on his condition?
Steve K, they don’t mention it because it is not true.
If you were Turnbull would you do it? It would be very unlikely to change the result.
Steve K: If the Liberals are so desperate that they have to be bank-rolled by a proven crook they should get out of politics and make way for a whole new Party. It is people like the Liberals who were the inspiration of the Orson Wells masterpiece called Citizen Kane. In that scenario every one and every thing was for sale. If Oz has taken this attitude to politics then we have terminally fu-ked ourselves into oblivion.