
The Coalition has fallen behind Labor in Newspoll for the first time since last summer’s bushfires. The narrative of Scott Morrison’s invincibility could be starting to break.
The poll comes after a fortnight in which Morrison and senior ministers have responded with a disappointing lack of empathy to the Brittany Higgins and Christian Porter sexual assault allegations, and just as thousands around the country are set to march for gender equality.
It’s a sign that despite the Morrison government’s poor record on gender equality and its stunning failure to read the room could start to cost it.
Put a fork in them, the election is almost done.
Understand what happens next with our best ever discounts.
The women problem
While the latest Newspoll doesn’t break down by gender, and Morrison’s personal approval ratings haven’t suffered a major blow, the government’s latest dip reflects the wide public opprobrium — particularly from women — over its handling of sexual assault allegations.
Brittany Higgins’ story and the allegations against Porter have both started a broader conversation about male privilege and a toxic, misogynistic culture in politics — one which the Coalition has responded to with stubborn indifference.
Morrison continues to oppose a public inquiry and defend “innocent” Porter. Coalition MPs lash out at “trial by media”, but most refuse to engage with the protesters surrounding Parliament House today.
In that context, it’s worth re-examining the Coalition’s historic problem with female voters. At the last election, 35% of women gave the Coalition their first preference (compared to 45% of men). It was the biggest gendered voting gap in more than 30 years.
That election happened right after prominent female Liberal MPs quit, citing sexist abuse and gendered bullying as factors driving their exit from politics.
The last few weeks — characterised by a PM mumbling platitudes about being a father of daughters and an absent Minister for Women — have only further re-emphasised the narrative of a Coalition boys’ club, out of touch with female voters and unwilling to touch issues around gender equality.
Newspoll isn’t the only data point highlighting anger at all this. An Essential poll at the start of March (before Porter had been named), found two-thirds of respondents, including a majority of Coalition voters, thought the government was more interested in protecting its reputation than protecting women. Another poll from The Australia Institute found a majority of respondents supported an independent inquiry into the Porter allegations.
Taken all up, the government looks to have gone missing in the middle of a Me Too moment — and voters are starting to notice.
The polling was never that good
The recent Newspoll will generate its share of shocked reactions but it really shouldn’t.
Conventional pundit wisdom has always been bullish about Morrison’s chances of winning the next election on the back of the government’s pandemic management. Apart from the time Morrison took an ill-fated Hawaiian holiday, the polls have had him comfortably ahead, and he still leads Albanese as preferred PM.
Still, while polling — as the last election told us — can mislead, there’s plenty of data showing the narrative of a Morrison landslide is flimsier than assumed.
The Coalition and Labor have been level on a two-party-preferred basis since the start of the year. Essential had Labor narrowly ahead through 2020. And their latest offering found fewer voters trust Morrison in a crisis, and more think he’s out of touch with ordinary people.
Polling won’t tell us the outcome of the next election, possibly a year away. But it does give us a good snapshot of a moment in time. And right now, as the wave of Australia’s second Me Too moment is breaking, the Coalition have gone missing. Their longstanding gender problem is dragging them under.
Sale ends tomorrow.
Expect more from your journalism.
Crikey is an independent Australian-owned and run outfit. It doesn’t enjoy the vast resources of the country’s main media organisations. We take seriously our responsibility to bear witness.
I hope you appreciate our reporting and consider supporting Crikey’s work. Join now for your chance at election themed merch.

Editor-in-chief
Leave a comment
I am surprised that they had such a high female vote at the last election. They belittle and diminish women in all their policies.
Sometimes people feel they need a father figure.
This is very true when there is a $68,000,000 anti- Labor, death tax threatening Face Book campaign being run by Clive Palmer in conjunction with a sports rorts on steroids sweetener being funded by all of us.
Strangely in the Queensland election, the ALP pointed out that Clive was loose with the truth and his vote collapsed.
What surprises me is that no one has yet raised the very inappropriate replacement for Christian Porter in parts of his duties.
Since when did an appointee, that is unelected extremely right wing senator (Stoker, Qld) somehow come to be the arbiter of judicial appointments???
Scottie from marketing needs asbestos pants for this brain wave, as he slides out of the frying pan and into the fire.
He faces a world of hurt on this.
“It’s a sign that despite the Morrison government’s poor record on gender equality and its stunning failure to read the room could start to cost it.”
Where is the aub-editor, or even just anyone who can read, and tell you that this sentence makes no sense.
sub-editor. I think my own typo neatly illustrates the point I make.
Muphry’s law is an adage that states: “If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written.”
Ah yes, Muphry’s Law. Just another exampul of it.
Good ol’ Muphry hey!
Who are all these people voting LNP? What are they seeing, or not seeing?
A donkey vote would be more well thought out, an invalid vote better again. Even if you hate Labor, surely the greens or an independent are better options. I’ll even advocate for shooters, fishers and farmers party before any LNP vote.
Ask WA Liberals
Interesting question that is never publicly presented or discussed versus focus upon Morrison and Canberra or centralised ‘leadership’ following hollowed out and centralised media; similar modus operandi to the US GOP and UK Tories nowadays (and elsewhere with ageing regional electorates vs. socially moderate urban).
Last election QLD got up for the LNP on Adani etc., backgrounded by economic management/’jobs’, faux family values, Christianity and patriotism (latter often expressed as bigotry) with much free support from Palmer and NewsCorp.
Moral hazard, the more the LNP (IPA/NewsCorp) drags Libs to the nativist libertarian right, through catering to more conservative regions for votes/seats, the more likely they are to lose urban seats due to not just moderate undecided or persuadables, but Lib voters’ themselves or at least their wives and children….. (in Vic where many Lib voters approved of ‘Dictator Dan’s’ response to Covid, as indicated by NewsCorp polls).
Although in any defamation case we shall observe the aggressive skewering of defendants and witnesses, there may be the distinct possibility that the plaintiff’s risk is also about being skewered in public, with impact on the LNP’s ‘optics’ for any upcoming election.
Wot. No mention of labours own rape issues and poor record on hostile workplace? Sauce for the goose should be applied to all other fowl creatures.
The Brittany Higgins and the Kate allegations have, at last, ripped the scab off the festering wound that is this muppet government. Until then #ScottyFromMarketing could freely exploit the disengagement of the great majority of the electorate by manipulating the news with ‘announceables’ and then doing bugger all. Now the ‘doing bugger all’ is the news and it is deeply offensive to women and sympathetic and supportive men. But even now, #ScottyFromMarketing cannot distinguish marketing from political leadership.This moment cannot be swept under the carpet with vacuous marketing stunts.
Watch him try though!
no sane person would place Higgins complaint in the same category as Kate pseudo-complaint – ask any police investigator
Sorry are you saying Kate Thornton’s allegation is false?