Compare the pair: According to recent Newspolls, one national leader’s overall approval rating has dropped three percentage points since mid-July. Another national leader’s approval rating has, in that same time, risen five percentage points. Across the past two editions of The Australian, one of those leaders has been heralded for their great success with voters, and the other has been absolutely poleaxed. One of them is Prime Minister Scott Morrison. The other is Victorian Premier Dan Andrews. This isn’t gonna be too hard to figure out.
Both Morrison and Andrews, according to Newspolls released this week, have fairly similar approval ratings at the moment.
Morrison’s latest figures returned a 65% “satisfied” rating, which happens to be down three percent from the 68% mark he achieved in the poll period covering July 15-18. Though it is slightly up – a whopping 1% to be exact – on the 64% mark returned in the August 26-29 polls.
Andrews, conversely, has seen his of “satisfied” mark rebound to 62%, which is well up from the relative dip of 57% recorded in the last state-based Newspoll conducted, covering the period of July 23-29, which coincided with the peak of Victoria’s second COVID-19 wave.
The Australian, however, has bent themselves out of shape to laud Morrison’s 1% rebound as a massive win, and Andrews’ 5% rebound as a sign Victorians are “not ready to slam” him “for his errors.”
In yesterday’s print edition of the paper, Morrison’s 1% climb – which still puts him 3% down on where he was in July, we reiterate – was heralded as an apparent sign that the Prime Minister has “[bounced] back.” Meanwhile a 2-point change in a two-party preferred poll (one that’s seen a previous 50-50 deadlock now split to 51-49) has been interpreted and presented as voters abandoning the Federal Labor Party en masse.
Today, however, a more pronounced swing in poll fortunes has been interpreted violently differently.
Andrews’ 5% bump has been harangued in an editorial from Victorian editor of The Australian Damon Johnston, in a piece positioned deliberately in print to appear as factual reporting.
Appearing directly above the data tables, The Australian’s headline “Voters not ready to slam Andrews for his errors just yet” paints an entirely different picture of the Newspoll results. This despite the extremely similar numbers for both Andrews and Morrison, and Andrews’ larger overall bump.
Fairly ironically, Johnston’s hit piece opens with him opining “Melburnians trapped in our “leper colony” are, at least for now, treating this pandemic as a health crisis and not a political crisis.” Which comes ball-achingly close to actually realising the point before he meanders off into News Corp-standard parrot points about the economy.
Either way, The Australian’s agenda could not be more clearly on display.
Another day in the dream factory for all, it seems.
