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The PM says Labor has your back. Most voters don’t believe him
By David Crowe
Voters have slashed their core support for federal Labor to a new low of 27 per cent amid a deepening dispute over the cost of living, backing the Coalition to deliver more help to households over the next three years.
In a rebuff to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, an exclusive survey shows that 56 per cent of voters have rejected his new message on the economy – “we have your back” – after years of pressure on family budgets.
The survey also reveals that 59 per cent of voters believe they are worse off than when Labor came to power at the last election, with only 13 per cent feeling better off.
The latest Resolve Political Monitor, conducted for this masthead by research company Resolve Strategic, highlights the gains for Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in the crucial economic debate despite a slip in the Coalition’s primary vote from 39 to 38 per cent over the past month.
Asked to name the party and leader most likely to make them better off over the next three years, Australians backed Dutton and the Coalition over Albanese and Labor by 36 to 27 per cent.
The Resolve Political Monitor surveyed 1604 eligible voters from Wednesday to Sunday, a period that included widespread media coverage of the weak economic growth revealed last Thursday and the arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on Friday.
It shows the Coalition has taken the lead over Labor in two-party terms, by 51 to 49 per cent, when preferences are allocated in the same way people voted at the last election.
The results have a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points. In another indicator of uncertainty, 38 per cent of respondents said they were “uncommitted” with their vote.
Albanese has pointed to the government’s success in parliament – including the passage of 45 bills last month – to assure Australians he would shield them from economic hardship, while signalling more help to come before the federal election due next year.
“We started the year by delivering a tax cut for every single Australian taxpayer, and we’re ending it by delivering more help for households,” he said on November 30.
“The number one priority of my government is to continue providing support. My message is ‘we have your back’.”
Resolve director Jim Reed said the weaker outlook for the economy in the national accounts last week, showing annual growth of just 0.8 per cent, combined with concerns about community safety to cloud the outlook for many Australians.
“These results would make Labor think carefully about election timing, not just because they would need to explain going early, but you would want to turn this trend around before pressing go,” Reed said.
“I can understand why the line about having people’s backs was chosen. It’s positive, forward-looking and can stretch to fit a number of policy areas.
“For the slogan to be credible, Labor would need to demonstrate they are focused on people and have the solutions to their problems.”
Core support for the Greens rose slightly from 11 to 12 per cent in the latest survey, while support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation increased from 5 to 7 per cent and independents were steady on 11 per cent.
Because the Resolve Political Monitor asks voters to nominate their primary votes in the same way they would write “1” on the ballot papers for the lower house at the election, there is no undecided category in the primary vote results, a key difference from some other surveys.
While the Resolve Political Monitor has a different methodology, the latest results confirm a decline in core support for Labor since the party’s primary vote reached 42 per cent as recently as May last year.
The fall in Labor’s primary vote over the past month, from 30 to 27 per cent, represents one of the steepest falls for the party in the Resolve series and takes the party to its lowest result since the election.
Asked to name their preferred prime minister, voters are deadlocked on 35 per cent each for Albanese and Dutton. This reflects a slight fall for both leaders since last month, when they were on 37 per cent each, and an increase in the number of undecided voters.
Asked how they rated Albanese, 31 per cent of people said his performance was good and 57 per cent said it was poor. His net result, which subtracts the “poor” from the “good”, slumped to minus 26 percentage points from minus 14 one month ago.
Forty per cent of people said Dutton’s performance was good and 42 per cent said it was poor. His net result was minus 2 percentage points, a reversal from his positive net rating of 5 points one month ago.
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