Shorten Less Shit Than Abbott According To Polls, Turnbull Coming In Hard

By

Published

August 17, 2015

Another day, another poll – and as Fairfax points out, the 167th one in a row that the Coalition has come off worse as the preferred party.

The findings of the latest Fairfax-Ipsos poll shows, in no uncertain terms, that Bill Shorten is simply the least shit option for Prime Minister.

It’s not that we *like* him (his net approval rating is at -10), but we just think Tony Abbott is considerably more of an abysmal accident of a PM – his net approval rating is -24.

Fairfax pollster and Ipsos director Jess Elgood himself said that Shorten is “the less repellent of the two”, which conjures up far too many reptilian vibes for Elgood to be *entirely* innocent in the knowledge of Tony Abbott’s Lizard King status.

Malcolm Turnbull, public transport aficionado, has 41% of voters reckoning he should be PM. In stark contrast, just 23% are gunning for Julie Bishop for the top job, and a dismally lower 15% supporting Abbott.

Now, here’s bad news for 41% of you: the Coalition ain’t singing the same tune / Imperial Death March. They still prefer Abbott to Turnbull, thanks to the latter’s left-leaning ways and apparent bullheadedness when he was leader in 2009.

Scott Morrison backed this up on Ray Hadley‘s show this morning:

“I’m not his keeper, he’s not mine, we’re colleagues,” SMorrison on @TurnbullMalcolm. There’s not going to be a change, PM has my support.

— Latika M Bourke (@latikambourke) August 16, 2015

On the opposite end of the Shorten-Abbott-disaster, Greens Leader Richard Di Natale is steady with a solid 16% of voters supporting him for PM.

It might not be an improvement on the July polls, but it does show that they weren’t a fluke from recent positive media coverage – Australians are getting behind the socially progressive option.

TBH, zero surprises there – it makes absolutely perfect sense that the Greens would be attracting support; our current alternatives consist of one major party fucking dilly dallying on climate change and marriage equality, and the other with a leader most often described as “hopeless”.