Two weeks on from a budget that was the Coalition’s primary chance to reset politics and break Labor’s years-long lead in the polls, and there’s no joy for the government.
Newspoll today has Labor’s vote back to the level it’s been for most of this year, while the Coalition’s primary vote has lifted in concert with One Nation’s fall. That’s good news for the LNP in Queensland, but doesn’t suggest the government is shifting votes from the opposition.
The budget — less than a fortnight ago but it now seems ancient history — was designed as a platform for the government’s “strong economy” pitch (which is false, but never mind). So far, however it doesn’t appear to have provided a boost or gotten voters to take a fresh look at the Coalition.
In fact, the sticky quality of the polls around a 4-6 point lead for Labor in two party preference terms suggests minds made up and baseball bats at the ready. Even so, victory is still achievable for the Coalition — it has never been as terminal as both its critics and even some supporters have claimed. But it is in the difficult position of needing to win seats to survive, making the task a tough one even for a party on top of its game.
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After Peter Dutton’s latest display of poor judgment in attacking his Labor opponent over her disability, Scott Morrison’s “ni hao” gaffe and Treasury having to admit it hadn’t costed Labor’s tax policies last week, “top of its game” isn’t a description you’d bandy around too readily at the moment.
A self-created problem for the Coalition is that the campaign will grind to a virtual halt on Thursday evening while the nation enters an Easter break that is, for many voters, likely to extend through to April 29. For a party that needs to shift the polls, the break will be an unwelcome one, even though the government opted to go for May 18 rather than May 11 to give itself an extra week.
Without a substantial shift in momentum before Easter, the Coalition risks arriving at the halfway point of the campaign with nothing to show for it, leaving a lot of work to be done in the last three weeks of the campaign — by which time a substantial chunk of the electorate, probably more than a third, will be voting pre-poll.
The government needs voters to hold off voting as long as possible to give itself a chance to change their minds. But if the trend of previous elections holds, the number of pre-poll votes could exceed 35% — especially in Victoria, where voters seem to be particularly keen pre-pollers.
Scott Morrison thus needs four good says this week — with no stuff-ups or distractions. Even then, the momentum might dissipate over Easter, but at least it will start the work of shifting enough voters currently intending to back Labor over to its column, to enable the Coalition to pick up the seats it needs to stay in office.
Time is the enemy here as much as Labor.
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I’m interested to know how many people-inside & outside of Dickson-actually accepted Dutton’s “apology” as genuine, rather than just an 11th hour response to the very clear Social Media backlash he had received (gee, who’d have thought that attacking a disabled woman would garner so much negativity?!?!)
Even if Dutton’s apology was somehow genuine, then why did Morriscum defend Dutton’s original comments? They both look bad as a result of this disgusting own goal.
Likewise, the whole “ni hao” thing would have been quickly forgotten if Morriscum hadn’t just gotten off attacking Labor by implying they are racist (for simply calling Adani an *Indian* company-which it is)…..an implication which was even more galling given the Coalition’s own long history of Dog Whistling on Race (African Gangs, anyone?), & their frequent cuddling up to One Nation.
I note that the issue was kicked off by The Australian asking Ms France why she didn’t live in the electorate. Does this mean that The Australian is going to check the addresses of every candidate in every electorate? And even if they do, which I doubt, why did they start with Ms France.
I’ll bet a diamond to a doughnut that The Australian was sooled onto this issue by Mr Dutton or his office, so he could be seen to be responding to an issue (remember he said it was worrying other electors in Dickson) and thus not taking the lead which, he correctly judged, would be seen as reprehensible.
It was never about Ali not living in her electorate. Clearly the LNP had private polling indicating some in the Dickson electorate didn’t like the idea of a person with a disability representing them. Dutton only needs a few percentage points to hold on to the seat and clearly doesn’t care what he says to do so.
typo in the headline
Didn’t see one there, but here:
Scott Morrison thus needs four good says this week
A coalition of knuckdraggers and dinosaurs is about to become politically extinct, left with only its braindead base and bereft of policy or 21st ideas and pushing its trickle down ideology in an old shopping trolley like a homeless person looking for a place flop in is all thats left of menzies liberal party and McKewans once proud country party, while Howard, Costello and Peter Reith set this agenda for disaster, it is Abbott, Turnbull and now Morrison that are finishing the job and will bear the tag well into this century as the architects of the end of neo liberism in Australia and for that we owe them a massive debt.
Shouldn’t it be about which party of government has the best vision for Australia going forward? Not who can knock out the other in the voters’ minds before election day?
It reminds me of winning the battle but losing the war.
People I know want a government that is going to be a steady hand on the tiller guiding the nation calmly ahead through whatever stormy seas are ahead and who will do maintenance on the ship of state when we are in calmer waters.
It’s always about the LNP and how they might lose and how they will win and how Morrison is going to do this and how Morrison is going to do that and blah blah blah LNP blah blah blah. I know it’s unbelievable and extremely unlikely but it just sometimes looks as if the media actually believe that the LNP are the born to rule party and Labor are just a working class rabble not worthy of any consideration.
I agree. Apparently it is beyond the media to postulate that Labor might actually have good policies and capacity to implement them.