Voters Want Neither Turnbull nor Shorten

The longer this election campaign continues the more it becomes apparent that voters are becoming increasingly sick to death of both leaders. The analysis below of voter satisfaction shows that

“last weekend, net satisfaction — the difference between satisfaction and dissatisfaction — for the Prime Minister was minus 16, the Opposition Leader’s was minus 15 and both had 51 per cent of people dissatisfied with their ­performance. While Turnbull is favoured over Shorten as preferred prime minister 46 per cent to 31 per cent, there’s never been as low a collective vote nor as high an undecided factor at election time”(My highlighting).

It is particularly remarkable that, having called an early election, Turnbull is showing an inability over the past 4-5 weeks  to convey a set of policies which appeal to those who support a reduced role for government and is unable to present a coherent critique of the outlandish policies advanced by Shorten. As a result a situation has developed in which Turnbull is on the defensive while Shorten’s policies have escaped substantive criticisms and he has not had to defend justifiable criticisms of his past.

With its heading “Michaelia Cash shows Coalition how to campaign”, today’s Letters column in The Australian illustrates this by referring to a report on the union problem which the Federal Minister responsible for workplace relations highlighted vigorously yesterday. Turnbull has limited his ventures into this area of policy to the Victorian Government’s outrageous decision to allow a union take-over of the volunteer fire brigade. But that provided an opportunity for arguing for reform of workplace relations on a much wider basis.

The defensiveness was shown in the Q&A show last night, where Turnbull treated questions seriously when he should not have (he seemed not to appreciate the likelihood that the ABC would  bring on a “genuine” refugee and failed to emphasise the policy of using those who come through the UN system). See Turnbull on Q&A.

Columnist Andrew Bolt argues that, looking at the next 10 years,  it might be better if Leftist Turnbull was defeated now rather than risk three years of Turnbull followed by a likely six years of Labor. That he suggests would allow the replacement of Turnbull by those in the Liberal Party with conservative values (he gives names) and reduce the risk of ten years of (in effect) Labor (see Bolt on Shorten).

Bolt also points out that Turnbull “COVERS for Islam, last week holding an Iftar dinner at Kirribilli to be photographed next to Waleed Aly, having snubbed the installation of a new Catholic bishop in Parramatta. Falsely claimed that the Koranically-inspired anti-gay preaching of another guest, Sheik Shady Al-Suleiman, the elected president of the Australian National Imams Council, were just “the opinions expressed by one person, by one cleric”; and “DOES not speak frankly about Islamist extremism, at first defending the Grand Mufti when he blamed terrorism on the West’s alleged oppression of Muslims; and at first falsely claiming the Islamist murder of police accountant Curtis Cheng was “politically inspired”;

The threat from Islam is becoming more widely understood. But as pointed out in a video in a convincing analysis, has yet to be accepted by leaders of Western countries (see Wake Up Call on Islamic Threat). There would certainly be little prospect of seriously addressing the problem under Turnbull as PM.