It’s not exactly a shocker that Australians think the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition are both incompetent piles of rhetoric spewing excrement, but it is surprising just how shit they’re both polling.
We’ve got two different polls to mine for numbers, statistics, and low-hanging comedic fruit. Fairfax is reporting on their Ipsos poll, The Australian is reporting on their Newspoll poll, and The Guardian is reporting on both.
According to the latest Fairfax-Ipsos poll, Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten are experiencing unprecedentedly low net approval ratings, for the first time standing at minus 20 or worse.
The net approval rating is taken from the approval rating less the disapproval rating.
Tony Abbott:
Approval: 36% (down four points)
Disapproval: 59% (up five points)
Net: -23%
Bill Shorten:
Approval: 35% (down six points)
Disapproval: 55% (up eight points)
Net: -20%
“At no point from 1996-2014 have the two party leaders had such low approval ratings,” said Ipsos Senior Project Manager Robert McPhedran to Fairfax. “The closest to what we have now was in mid-2012, when Gillard and Abbott both had approval ratings in the mid to high 30s.”
No one seems to think they’re capable of running the country, either – their competency ratings are a low 45 and 52 percent respectively.
Is it the mass media piling on the MPs? The rise of digital journalism and the 24-hour news cycle not letting a single gaff go unnoticed? Or is that these two are shitter than a collapsed drop dunny?
Abbott. Shorten. It’s an impossible choice.
According to the polls:
What’s wrong with Tony Abbott, apart from his sub par onion eating skills?
- War with the ABC and Q&A. Three weeks later and we’re still seeing his head rolling (preferably out the door) over the Zaky Mallah episode. One arguably unnecessary federal review into the ABC later, and he’s ordered his frontbenchers to boycott the show indefinitely. Logic was never his strong suit, anyway.
- Dragging his feet on marriage equality, and having zero issues with various ministers saying stupid things about it.
What’s wrong with Bill Shorten, apart from being a political wet blanket?
- Fallout from ‘The Killing Season‘. A documentary about the turbulent Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years found a victim in the current Party Leader, when it emerged that he previously lied about his involvement in toppling Gillard.
- Questions about deals made when he was leader of the Australian Workers Commission. He’s being questioned this Wednesday about work place deals he struck at the royal commission.
Who would win in an election between the two right now?
Labor, by a small margin. In a two party vote, Newspoll has them at 51 percent to the Coalition’s 49 percent, while Ipsos has them at 53 percent to 47 percent.
CC: The Greens
Subject: GET ON WITH IT MATES, CARPE DIEM THE CRAP OUT OF THIS SHIT STORM
Maybe. Maybe not.
Newspoll has the Greens falling one point to 13 percent, while Ipsos has them rising to 16 percent. Take into account their margins of error (3 percent and 2.6 percent respectively), and it’s entirely plausible their standing hasn’t changed.
Is that it?
Not quite – other parties and the independents have fallen two points to 10 percent.
While it’s harder to know exactly why this is, with everyone acting entirely independent of each other (including Jacqui Lambie‘s mouth and brain), we’d put money on the drop being caused by Lambie losing the plot entirely and comparing the Greens to the Islamic State.
