This was a piece I had in the Crikey mail earlier today.
When it comes to unsuccessful Opposition Leaders, some burn their way through public goodwill slowly, while others like Peacock, never really had any goodwill to begin with — but in the modern history of federal leaders of the Opposition, there have been only two that have burnt their public approval like phosphorus.
Forget the comparisons of Turnbull being like Nelson or Latham — no, we have to go all the way back to Alexander Downer to find a situation in any way comparable to that which the Coalition now finds itself in.
While the problem of political support always comes back to vote estimates — they are essentially the only polling metric that really counts — the satisfaction/approval ratings of a leader have an uncanny knack of becoming a threshold test for short term electoral success. Forget “Preferred Prime Minister” — it’s a meaningless beauty contest that rides on the coat tails of the vote estimates, the action is with the satisfaction ratings.
Once an Opposition leader has more people disapproving of their performance than approving, warning bells start to sound. However once an Opposition leader has significantly more people disapproving of their performance than approving, their vote — and their electoral fortunes — are generally set in concrete.
If we look at the net satisfaction ratings of every leader of the Opposition over the last two decades at the ninth month of their leadership (or in the case of Downer, the 8th since he couldn’t make nine) — Turnbull finds himself in auspicious company.
Compared to Turnbull, after nine months of leadership Nelson looked positively popular, Crean was doing well and Latham was a veritable superstar. Only Downer and Peacock experienced such public disapproval after such a short period of time – and in Peacock’s case, he never had any to begin with, starting on minus 28 and ending 11 months later on minus 33.
Not only has an opposition leader never won an election with large negative net satisfaction ratings, but the polling on the vote estimates rarely improves after that large negative split has occurred — certainly not in any significant manner over the last 20 years worth of Newspoll. If we track the net satisfaction ratings of recent failed opposition leaders over the months of their leadership, a typical pattern emerges.
Once a leader has their net satisfaction ratings drop to a certain level, they never recover, to the point where the leadership itself starts to pull the party vote down. Whether that bottoming out is achieved in nine months or 20 matters naught, for once it has occurred, recovery has never been witnessed. The only thing that differs with these leaders is the length of time it took for their party to remove them — but remove them they did.
Turnbull on a net satisfaction rating of negative 33, where 58% of the voting public disapprove of the way he’s doing his job compared to only 17% approval, has reached the level where recovery is pretty much impossible. It might move a few percent over the next few months one way or the other, but a proper recovery is little more than a fantasy.
The question left to answer is whether the Coalition will leave Turnbull hanging for a period of time like the ALP did to Crean, or whether they’ll be humane, cut him down relatively quickly and give a new leader the time needed to prepare for the next election.
6 Comments
We really need more data, there, Scott… pity we have to wait so long for it.
On a largely non-politics forum with a small politics section I have a poll up asking how many Opposition Leaders Labor will face before they finally lose office.
The hopefully accurate history (omitting caretaker PMs) of this statistic going back to the 1930s:
* Coalition under Lyons/Menzies/Fadden had two (Scullin, Curtin)
* Labor under Curtin/Chifley had two (Fadden, Menzies)
* Coalition under Menzies/Holt/Gorton/McMahon had four (Chifley, Evatt, Calwell, Whitlam)
* Labor under Whitlam had two (Snedden, Fraser)
* Coalition under Fraser had three (Whitlam, Hayden, Hawke)
* Labor under Hawke/Keating had four (Peacock twice, Howard twice, Downer, Hewson)
* Coalition under Howard had four (Beazley twice, Crean, Latham, Rudd)
* Rudd has had two already (Nelson, Turnbull)
I wrote this re my own poll question:
Now, one of those in my list was P. Costello who is (apparently) leaving the building. But even so if the Libs really dump Turnbull before the next election and replace him with a third unelectable who will be fatally wounded by a rather heavy election loss, they’d then have #4 in place during Rudd’s second term.
Of course, Rudd might yet find a way to screw it all up and lose quickly but I’d be interested in others’ views of how many L.Opps the ALP will face.
My poll also includes an option “The Liberals will never win government again” though thus far no-one has voted for it.
What were the final results?
I think Turnbull facing an election will come down to whether:
a) The Libs can find an alternative boost to their financial coffers
b) He starts alienating the Liberal base and placing safe Liberal seats in danger.
c) Some Liberal other than Turnbull starts polling better in the places it matters.
Poll is still open and will remain so indefinitely. Current score is two votes for 2 opposition leaders (Turnbull as next PM), 3 votes for 3, 3 votes for 4, and I am flying the flag alone for 5, with a note that it’s a mug’s game and I do not consider my psepho reputation on the line over this one!
Oh, one of the two votes for 2 came from a teenage troll and the other from a devout Christian.
The problem for the Libs (and the temporary saviour of Turnbull) is the lack of alternatives. Even thinking more long term, it isn’t clear who the alternatives might be in the future. I’m too young to personally recall the Liberals long dark tea-time of the soul during the Hawke/Keating era, but I do recall Labours years of toying around with guys that never had a hope but were filling time (Beazley and Crean) and occasional long shots (Latham).
There are a lot of parrallels in the last two changes of Government, the opposition eventually won by sheer attrition when voters got bored with long serving Governments, and in both cases probably one election later than they should have due to leaders who didn’t realise that all they needed to do to win was to simply be there looking mildly competent and not say anything stupid (which is largely what both Howard and Rudd did to get elected against unpopular Governments).
Barring the kinds of unusual events that usually occur in politics, I can’t see anything different happening this time. Labour will get at least 2-3 terms and eventually the voters will elect whichever of Abott, Hockey, Pine, Robb or whoever else happens to be occupying the chair at the right time.