Voters are not convinced that the government’s national energy guarantee will provide any relief from high power bills. The largest group told the Guardian Essential poll survey the policy would have zero impact.



With the Neg now in its make-or-break period, and the government deeply concerned about discontent with high power prices, the survey of 1,030 voters shows only 15% think the Neg will help reduce energy bills, 22% think it will increase them, and 38% believe it will make no difference.

Since the question was last asked in October 2017, there has been a drop of nine percentage points in the number of voters believing the Neg will increase prices and an increase of seven percentage points in people believing it will make no difference.

Asked who they blame for high power prices, most voters (44%) point the finger at power companies – although that figure is down by five percentage points since September. A further 21% say the government is at fault for failing to have a long-term energy plan.

A smaller number of voters (11%) blame environmentalists pushing for action on climate change and another 7% blame renewable energy costs for their high power bills.

Even though wholesale power prices have dropped in recent months because new renewable capacity has come on-stream in the national energy market, there has been a small increase since September in the percentage of voters blaming renewables or environmentalists for higher power prices.

The poll shows Labor remains ahead of the Coalition on the two-party-preferred measure, 52% to 48%, the same position as a fortnight ago, despite a choppy couple of weeks for both sides of politics.

During the final parliamentary sitting fortnight before the winter recess, the Coalition battled internal divisions on energy policy and the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, found himself the subject of internal and external speculation after frontbencher Anthony Albanese laid out an alternative manifesto implicitly critical of the party’s current direction.

Both the Coalition and Labor had a two-point improvement in their primary votes over the fortnight, with the Coalition on 40% and Labor on 37%. The Greens are steady on 11% and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is on 6%, down two points from a month ago.

Malcolm Turnbull remains comfortably ahead of Shorten on the better prime minister measure, 42% to 25%. Turnbull is up a point in a month and Shorten down two – movements inside the poll’s margin of error, which is plus or minus 3%.

Turnbull gets the thumbs-up as better prime minister from 83% of Coalition voters (6% of Coalition voters prefer Shorten) and Shorten has the approval of 53% of Labor voters (16% prefer Turnbull) – with 34% of the sample unable to say who is the better prime minister.

The approval ratings for the leaders also didn’t move significantly in a month, with 43% endorsing the job Turnbull is doing (up 1%) and 40% disapproving (down 2%).

But incremental improvements for the prime minister over recent surveys have pushed him into positive territory for the first time in a couple of years. Turnbull’s net approval rating in the latest survey moves from zero to plus three, the prime minister’s first positive net approval rating since May 2016.

Shorten’s outlook in the approval ratings is less rosy, although, again, his monthly movements were inside the margin of error – 31% approved of the job he is doing (down 2%) and 47% disapproved (up 1%).

Shorten remains in negative territory, with the monthly change in the opposition leader’s net approval rating minus 13 to minus 16.

The survey suggests voters are slowly warming up to the government’s plan to cut the tax rate paid by Australia’s biggest companies – despite the fact the government had to pull the vote on the legislation in the final sitting week before the winter break due to a lack of parliamentary support.

Voters are still divided on the tax plan, but 41% (up 4%) approve of the proposal and 36% (down 1%) disapprove, with 22% unable to give an opinion.

With parliament now in recess for the winter, the resources of the major parties will be trained on byelection contests in several states, with “super Saturday” looming on 28 July.