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Abbott and Shorten – first poll

By Graham Young - posted Friday, 18 October 2013


It was only Sunday that Bill Shorten was elected Labor leader, and here we are and it's Friday and On Line Opinion has the first polls on the leadership of the parties and how Shorten shapes up to Tony Abbott.

And as you'd expect, there is not a lot happening yet. It's really too early to tell how either leader will go, although there are some pointers to how things might shape up.

We've based our analysis on the results of our online poll, weighted to reflect voting at the last election.

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The first thing to note is that Abbott may have won a landslide election, but he's not personally rating that well. While his net approval is in positive territory, with his approval 6 percentage points ahead of his disapproval, approval at 46% is less than 50% and disapproval of 40% is uncomfortably high. It also doesn't leave many undecided voters, and most of these are Labor voters.

So the Liberal Party needs to steer clear of any triumphalism. They didn't win because there leader was overwhelmingly popular, and he needs to take this into account in his leadership performance. While he had a good result the country is actually fairly bitterly divided over him.

By comparison Shorten is -8% net unpopular. 29% disapprove, but only 21% approve. These are very low figures because 42% are neutral about him at the moment. While that gives him plenty of room to improve his popularity, it has to worry Labor because it also says that despite him being a prominent frontbencher since Labor won power in 2007 he hasn't really struck a chord with the public. This figure is consistent across parties, meaning he hasn't antagonised Liberal Party supporters the same way that Abbott has antagonised Labor Party ones.

What should concern him is that our poll of last week showed Chris Bowen having a positive rating as Opposition Leader with 35% approval and only 20% disapproval. According to Reachtel, Labor improved its vote after the election, leading one newsreader to quip that this was done "even though they didn't have a leader". This table suggests that this is wide of the mark and Bowen could indeed be a good future leader.

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However popularity isn't everything, and when it comes to the question of who is the best prime minister, irrespective of whether you look at Abbott versus Bower, or Abbott versus Shorten, it is Abbott with 55% and 54% of the vote respectively.

So, what is driving these votes?

The Leximancer Maps below give some clues.

IMGI

This map shows the concepts driving Abbott's approvals. Labor voters detest Abbott because he is dismantling Labor programs, especially to do with climate change. They also frequently accuse him of having lied his way into office and now having to disown policies he campaigned on, such as those on asylum seekers. His foreign affairs travels are seen as failures where he grovelled to foreign powers for things he said in opposition.

The expenses issue has also done him some damage.

Liberal voters like him because they see him dismantling Labor policies, and for getting on with the job. They see his foreign affairs sorties as successes and point to the down turn in the number of boats arriving as a success.

These opposing views put the two sides fairly well:

His need to apologise to Indonesia and Malaysia demonstrates how his policies on asylum seekers were misconceived. Expecting the same for climate change.

Because he deals with the big problems for our country like an adult and doesn't play politics with people's lives. I feel I can leave the running of the country up to the government now without having to resort to finding out what they are up to so as to comment on their failings continuously.

A strong factor in Shorten's approvals is that most think it is too early to say whether he is a good leader or not. If there is a negative at this stage it is the question of "trust" (seen down next to the tag "Shorten_strongly_disapprove"), and to a lesser extent, his union connections.

When it comes to who would make the best prime minister, the most connected concept is "Abbott" as this question is seen more as a referendum on him as leader rather than a comparison. However again we can see "Shorten" and "trust" twinned in the centre of the map.

This poll gives us a good first appreciation of where the leaders and the parties stand at the beginning of this term of government. Because the Liberals won, and Labor has only just chosen a leader, more is expected of the Liberals, while Labor is getting a fresh start.

At the moment it looks like a mirror image of attitudes at the beginning of the last parliament. Then Liberal voters didn't want to accept that they had lost, and they vilified the Labor leader; now it is Labor voters, and they are vilifying the Liberal leader.

That strategy worked for Abbott, but I doubt that it will work for Labor. The outcome of the 2010 election was essentially tied, and neither side could claim a large mandate. This meant that continual agitation for a fresh election rested on a strong proposition – that the country needed certainty.

This proposition received further support when Labor broke key promises to keep their alliance partners happy.

Not only does Abbott have a large majority, but he is looking to honour all of his promises. While people may not like him, he has the opportunity to gain their respect, and as Machiavelli noted 500 or so years ago, it is better to be "feared" than "loved". He might also have noted that love can too often morph into hatred – something which explains to some extent the demise of Kevin Rudd.

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About the Author

Graham Young is chief editor and the publisher of On Line Opinion. He is executive director of the Australian Institute for Progress, an Australian think tank based in Brisbane, and the publisher of On Line Opinion.

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