Lenore Taylor, political editor theguardian.com,

Tuesday 27 May 2014

Essential poll shows Labor leads Coalition by 52% to 48% in two-party-preferred terms, with 67% saying PM is out of touch

Tony Abbott and Labor rival Bill Shorten. Photograph: Alan Porritt/AAP

Voters are passing an angry verdict on how Tony Abbott measures up against almost every leadership attribute, according to the latest Essential poll, which shows Labor’s lead over the Coalition unchanged at 52% to 48% in two-party-preferred terms.

Tony Abbott’s score on almost every negative attribute has jumped and on every positive attribute has declined since the questions were last asked on 15 April, before the federal budget.

More than two-thirds of respondents (67% – an increase of 11 percentage points) said Abbott was “out of touch with ordinary voters”, 29% (down 11 points) agreed he was trustworthy, 41% (down nine) agreed he was a capable leader, and 63% (up five) said he was arrogant.

On all these measures the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, outranked Abbott – 39% said Shorten was out of touch, 36% said he was trustworthy, 51% said he was a capable leader and 36% said he was arrogant.

But the voters were unimpressed with both leaders’ “vision” – only 31% thought Abbott was “visionary” and 30% thought Shorten was.

Voters disagreed with the budget decision to fund the school chaplaincy program for another five years, but to restrict it to religious chaplains and remove the option for schools to hire a non-religious chaplain.

Asked which program was most appropriate for the government to fund, only 5% nominated “religious chaplains only”, 17% said secular chaplains only, 37% said both chaplains and social workers and 23% said neither

Voters pass angry verdict on Tony Abbott's leadership attributes | Politics | theguardian.com