Today's Newspoll has caused consternation among Abbott urgers and all those who believed in the myth of Abbott's growing ascendancy over Rudd. Alan Jones, on 2GB, who has been giving the impression that he is besotted with the athletic new Liberal Leader, gave voters a serve for 'not doing their homework' before exclaiming 'it's beyond belief' and 'where are these polls taken in out of space, on Mars'.
Dennis Shanahan, at the Australian, who has been portraying the poll results in the best possible light for Tony Abbott, came up with this little corker: "It's only one poll, and by no means the worst position the Coalition has been in since 2007". By no means the worst! Poor Tony, talk about damned by faint praise. The poll must also be sobering for the Australian which has been running a concerted, often shrill, campaign against the Rudd Government.
At the end of last month, I pointed out that a comparison between Rudd's performance as opposition leader and Abbott's showed that Abbott's performance was mediocre at best.Since then, of course, it has got much worse for Abbott and the Opposition. In mid-March 2007, Rudd's net satisfaction rating (satisfaction minus dissatisfaction) was an amazing 50 points. In the latest Nespoll, Abbott's net satisfaction rating is just one point. In mid-March 2007 the ALP had a 22 point lead (61 - 39) in the two party preferred voting intention. In the latest Newspoll, the current Opposition is 12 points behind. That's a 34 point difference, that's huge. Essential media has the ALP at 54:46.
Of course, Abbott has just come off a very bad week. He got thrashed in the health debate. He lost Nick Minchin and he sort of lost Barnaby Joyce though the latter is still the alternate Deputy Prime Minister (this is wrong, inexplicably I forgot about Warren Truss). I've also pointed out that part of Abbott's problem is that no-one knows what he stands for. Today he does the first of his headland speeches, this time on the economy, it better be bloody good.
Comments