Newspoll Shows Turnbull Not Acceptable PM
The 30th Newspoll since Turnbull challenged Abbott and won has confirmed that Labor remains well ahead on a TPP basis (52/48), although this is one percentage point lower for Labor than in March. However, Turnbull’s Better PM test also fell by a fraction (39/38) while Shorten’s was steady on 36, and he also fell on the Best Liberal leader test 30/28. At that level he is only one percentage point ahead of Bishop (28/27). The Coalition underTurnbull has now trailed Labor on two-party-preferred support for 564 days. Julia Gillard’s government trailed the Coalition for 521 consecutive days, Abbott’s government trailed Labor for 493 days while Howard’s longest period trailing Labor was 364 days (see PM has 30 Poll Losses).
Turnbull’s Leadership Dwindles Further
As soon as Turnbull arrived back in Australia from his visit to Israel for the BeerSheba, he held a press conference in Perth at which he rejected the idea of having an audit to determine whether MPs have complied with the constitutional requirement of having no foreign ancestry or, if so, of having renounced it before becoming federal MPs. He particularly attacked reports that Frydenberg might be deemed to be of Hungarian ancestry because his mother was born in Hungary but escaped the killing of Jews there and migrated to Australia. Frydenberg is reported as telling the ABC that “I did seek some advice and I am very confident with that advice but also contacted the embassy here and I was very comforted by conversations with them”.
Liberal Party Policies Under Turnbull
I referred in Sunday’s Commentary to the opportunity provided by Abbott’s continued advocacy for government policies to be more in line with stated objectives of the Liberal Party. I suggested that his suggestion to freeze the renewable target at its existing level of 15% (the Turnbull government’s target is 23.5% by 2020) provides just such an opportunity given the extent to which renewable usage has been heavily criticised by climate change experts.