while the prime minister and the treasurer search for a cause that can give the government enough energy to climb back to safety.
In the latest Resolve poll,Peter Dutton (left) leads Anthony Albanese on managing the economy,the budget,defence,migration and keeping costs down.James Brickwood
Peter Dutton,meanwhile,hammers his complaint about soaring energy bills and rising supermarket prices. He dominates the political debate with his warning about the cost of living and taps into the anger of the electorate,without proposing an alternative plan to bring prices down.
The result is another big gain for the opposition leader and the Coalition when voters are asked who they think would do the best job of running the country. Dutton leads Albanese on managing the economy,the budget,defence,migration and keeping costs down.
Labor is falling short on basic measures of political performance. When voters are asked who is listening and focused on the right issues,29 per cent say Dutton and the Coalition but only 23 per cent say Albanese and Labor.
Who is offering strong leadership? This week’s Resolve Political Monitor shows 32 per cent think it is Dutton and the Coalition,but only 27 per cent name Albanese and Labor. The gap is about the same when voters are asked who has a vision for Australia’s future.
Three broad factors stand out. The first is that these numbers should debunk,for good,any idea that Dutton is unelectable. He is assertive,and abrasive for some,but also effective. Dutton is now the and has a positive net performance rating – the first time he has edged ahead on both counts in the Resolve surveys.
Dutton borrows some of his tactics from Tony Abbott and could duplicate the former prime minister’s success – which,of course,required a two-term path to power.
The second factor is the gender divide. The June results show 39 per cent of male voters give their primary vote to the Coalition,while only 33 per cent of female voters do the same. This confirms a trend in the of the Resolve numbers in April.
This is not a big win for Labor among women,though. In fact,the Labor primary vote is weak across the board. The Greens,however,have 18 per cent support among women and only 9 per cent support among men.
The third big message from the latest survey is the economic protest vote. This is a wake-up call for Labor barely a month after the federal budget.
Voters liked key budget measures such as the and the on industry,but this did nothing to change overall sentiment. Voters also liked the big shift on the at the start of the year,but they on economic management.
Albanese and Chalmers talk about reviewing the supermarkets or looking into,but nothing seems to jolt the electorate into thinking Labor has the answer on the cost of living. Too often,the answer seems to be to wait for the Reserve Bank to tame inflation and cut interest rates.
Matt Golding
These factors highlight the dangers for Albanese – but they do not confirm a victory for Dutton. Labor still holds a slight advantage in two-party terms – 51 per cent to 49 per cent – when the preference flows at the last election are applied to the primary votes in this latest Resolve Political Monitor.
And there is no such thing as a uniform swing. The national two-party vote is only a very rough guide to the next election when the Liberals face a big challenge in winning back their formerly safe seats from the teal independents.
One nagging doubt within the Liberals is that they are adding to their primary vote in the seats they already hold and are not doing enough to win Labor seats or defeat the teals.
So this Resolve survey does not mean Dutton delivered a masterstroke last week by for 2030 and refusing to decide his own. If his climate policy turns voters away in the teal seats,his fight only becomes harder elsewhere.
Remember,the starting point for the next election is that Labor has 78 members in the lower house and the Coalition has 55,so Dutton needs to gain 21 seats to form a majority.
What does that mean? Without the teal seats,the Liberals must defeat the government in seats where Labor has margins of more than 6 per cent.
Resolve director Jim Reed questions whether Dutton is doing enough,so far,to achieve that goal.
“The Coalition is certainly in the ascendancy,but the number of seats it needs to win to govern is a major hurdle,especially when it is writing off those it lost to independents,” he says.
“The results we’re seeing at the moment suggest a Labor minority government is a live prospect,but it’s way too early to be making predictions. There are too many scenarios.”
Dutton appears to be soaring. But he needs more than this to win power.
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