The Government received some positive news on Monday, with the latest Newspoll of 1,606 respondents showing signs of life, as the Coalition rallied ground to close the two-party preferred vote to six points, 47:53.
While an improvement over the previous survey result of 46:54, the current mark places the Coalition back to its trend result of six points, a figure consistent since May 15th.
Pleasingly for Coalition party strategists, the primary vote rose from 35 to 37 per cent, while the Labor primary vote remained steady at 38 per cent. The Greens were unchanged on nine per cent, while there was a small fall in support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, whose primary vote slipped again, from nine to eight per cent. This mark is now three per cent off their high of 11 per cent in June 2017.
Interestingly, while the shifts in support in the primary vote category were within the margin of error of 2.5 per cent, the changes in the preferred Prime Minister category were above the margin of error, indicating the Prime Minister was the beneficiary of a positive fortnight.
The Prime Minister was able to widen his lead over the Opposition Leader, the Hon Bill Shorten MP, as preferred Prime Minister to 17 points, a rise of 7 points in the fortnight. Voters increased their support, from 43 to 46 per cent, for Mr Turnbull while trimming their support for Mr Shorten from 33 to 29 per cent. 25 per cent of voters remain uncommitted in this category, a rise of four per cent.
The Prime Minister’s net satisfaction rating?—?the difference between those satisfied and those dissatisfied with his performance?—?was unchanged at negative 20 points. There was no change in the satisfaction, dissatisfaction or net satisfaction ratings for the Opposition Leader. While 34 per cent are satisfied with his performance, 54 per cent remain dissatisfied and he too has a net rating of negative 20 points.
Of significance in the past two weeks has been the subtle shift in the Prime Minister’s media strategy by blitzing FM radio. The Prime Minister, a devotee of traditional AM radio, has found time for a swathe of ‘lighter’ interviews on commercial networks, including with Mix FM Adelaide, Nova FM Sydney, WSFM Sydney and Fox FM Melbourne since 28 August.
