The latest round of polls have not been kind on opposition leader Bill Shorten. Whilst his opponent soars into the 60’s and high 60’s in terms of popularity, with the Liberal party resurgent, poor old Bill is nudging a rating of only 17% and facing certain defeat the next election. That is, unless one of his factional rivals gets him first.
Whilst some commentators found the fact that only 17% of the voters would like Mr Shorten to be Prime Minister, the rather more alarming figure was the Morgan poll which had the punters rating Wayne Swan, along with Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek, ahead of Shorten as the preferred alternative Prime Minister. The former ‘world’s greatest Treasurer’ had been cutting a lonely figure in the cheap seats inside the chamber, but might now fancy his chances of having another tilt at racking up record debt and deficit.
Another poll that caught our interest this week was one about trade membership in Australia ‘plummeting’ to only 11% of workers in the private sector, and just 15% overall, even with the public service filling out the numbers. On this evidence, we think Bill Shorten’s 17% approval rating is not all that far off the money. It seems just about right for a former union leader, and is certainly more than adequately representative of the number of Australians who bother with unions these days.
Source: Labor unfazed by Turnbull poll lead | The Australian