Shalailah Medhora Tuesday 2 June 2015
Opposition party keeps an election-winning lead on a two-party preferred basis but Shorten’s net satisfaction rating plummets
Bill Shorten’s net approval rating has slipped behind Tony Abbott’s for the first time in more than a year. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian
Labor retained a two-party preferred lead over the Coalition in the latest Newspoll survey, which also suggested opposition leader Bill Shorten’s personal rating continued to wane.
The opposition holds an election-winning lead of 52% to the Coalition’s 48% in the two-party preferred stakes, down from 53% a fortnight ago, according to the poll published in the Australian.
Another survey, the Morgan poll, which was published on Monday afternoon, showed Labor on 53% (up two points) and the Coalition on 47% (down two points) on the two-party preferred vote, and 37% and 41% in the primary vote respectively.
The Newspoll also showed Tony Abbott remains the preferred prime minister over Shorten, and on a separate measure, Abbott’s net approval rating is better than Shorten for the first time in more than a year.
After a short-lived post-budget bounce, the Coalition’s primary vote has edged up one percentage point to 41%, while Labor’s has remained steady at 37%.
The Greens popularity is up one percentage point to 13%, after the installation of its new leader, Richard Di Natale, less than a month ago.
Abbott’s rating as preferred prime minister held steady at 41%. Shorten was the preferred choice of 37%, down three percentage points from two weeks ago, despite a public campaign by the opposition leader to spruik his private member’s bill on same-sex marriage.
Shorten’s net satisfaction rating has also plummeted, with the percentage of people being satisfied with his performance falling three points to 32%. His dissatisfaction rating has increased to 50%, giving him a net approval rating of -18%.
By contrast, Abbott’s satisfaction rating is down one point to 38%, and his dissatisfaction rating is up one point to 53%. The prime minister’s net approval rating is -15%, higher than Shorten’s rating for the first time in more than a year.
Monday night’s Newspoll was based on a survey of 1,169 people, and has a margin of error of three percentage points.
