Daniel Hurst, political correspondent
theguardian.com, Monday 23 June 2014
Fairfax-Nielsen poll registers small rise in voter support but only one-third of people regard budget measures as fair
Tony Abbott at the opening of a teaching centre for deaf children on Friday 20 June. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP
The Abbott government has registered a small improvement in voter support in the latest Fairfax-Nielsen poll, but the reception to its first budget remains poor with just one-third judging the measures to be “fair”.
Following sustained attempts by the government to promote the budget and a recent overseas trip by Tony Abbott, the Liberal-National Coalition’s primary vote stood at 39%, up four points since the previous Nielsen poll taken immediately after last month’s budget.
The new poll, published by Fairfax Media on Monday, showed Labor’s primary vote had fallen three points to 37% while the Greens and Palmer United had each lost one point to 13% and 5% respectively and the remaining 6% favoured another choice.
After the distribution of preferences, Labor maintains an election-winning lead over the Coalition of 53% to 47%. This two-party score is identical to the Newspoll published by the Australian newspaper last week and is a rough reversal of the Coalition’s 53.5% to 46.5% victory over the former Labor government at the election in September last year.
The government’s budget sales pitch – including Joe Hockey’s speech dismissing claims the impact of the measures was unfair – appears to have fallen flat. The former Liberal leader John Hewson was among critics who argued the budget was unfair because of its disproportionate impact on lower income groups.
The Nielsen poll of 1,400 voters between Thursday and Saturday last week showed 33% agreed that the budget was “fair”, an identical result to the previous poll taken on 15-17 May.
The proportion of respondents who judged it as “not fair” fell two points over the same period to 61%.
The Nielsen pollster John Stirton told Fairfax Media the fairness question had been asked after eight of the 19 federal budgets delivered since 1996 but this was the first time a majority had judged it to be unfair.
Asked for their view on the possibility of sending Australian troops to Iraq as part of international action, nearly one-third of respondents were in favour while two-thirds were opposed.
In the preferred prime minister rankings, Abbott recorded a result of 40%, unchanged since the last Nielsen poll and still behind the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, whose score had declined four points to 47%.
Just 35% of respondents said they approved of Abbott’s performance as prime minister while 60% disapproved, translating to a net satisfaction rating of minus 25. Shorten registered a net satisfaction rating of positive 1, the difference between his 42% approval score and 41% disapproval.
The communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull, was selected by 40% of respondents as preferred Liberal leader, roughly double Abbott’s score of 21% – but when broken down by party allegiance Abbott remains the clear choice of Coalition voters whereas Turnbull’s support is greatest among Labor and Greens voters.
