More voters see Liberals as ‘divided’, the government as ‘out of touch with ordinary people’ and ‘too close to the big corporate and financial interests’

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Labor has pulled 10 points ahead of the Coalition, and there has been a significant rise in voter perceptions that the Liberals federally are divided, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll.

As the government prepares to bring heavily contested changes to the Racial Discrimination Act to the Coalition party room on Tuesday, the new opinion survey puts Labor well ahead of the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis, 55% to 45%.

The latest poll also charts a 16% increase in voter perceptions that the Liberals are “divided” since that question was last asked in June 2016, just before last year’s federal election.

Voters are also more inclined than they were last June to characterise the government as being “too close to the big corporate and financial interests”, “out of touch with ordinary people” and “will promise to do anything to win votes”.

Liberal moderates oppose 18C rewrite as internal debate heats up Read more

The Turnbull government’s ministry and the cabinet debated which way to go on reforms to the Racial Discrimination Act on Monday night after months of internal wrangling, with the discussion expected to spill over into the Coalition party room on Tuesday.

Liberal moderates have been bracing for ministers to propose a significant legislative overhaul of section 18C of the RDA, not simply pursue reform of the procedures administered by the Australian Human Rights Commission to try and stop vexatious complaints reaching the courts.

A number of Liberal MPs defending marginal seats in the major cities have argued consistently that changing the wording of 18C would be a significant political mistake, and will pit the government against religious and ethnic communities opposed to any watering down of the current provisions.

But the government’s right faction has dug in behind legislative change. The proposal pushed by the right would see the words “offend” and “insult” removed from section 18C of the RDA, to be replaced by the term “harass”.

The proposed legislative overhaul would also sit alongside a new test in the law in line with a recent recommendation from parliament’s human rights committee.

Under this proposal, the relevant test in the law would be changed from the current wording – a “reasonable member of the relevant group” to “the reasonable member of the Australian community”.

Ahead of the political debate on Tuesday, the AHRC made a last-ditch appeal for the legislation to remain as is.

“The commission remains of the view that section 18C and 18D of the RDA, as interpreted by the courts, strike an appropriate balance between freedom of expression and protection from racial vilification,” the AHRC said in a statement.

The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, also warned the opposition would strongly oppose any change in the law. “If Mr Turnbull walks out of his party room tomorrow with a policy that weakens the Racial Discrimination Act, everyone will know he has sold the last shred of his integrity to hang on to his own job.”

Any change to 18C proposed by the government would struggle to win the requisite Senate support. A key voting bloc, the Nick Xenophon Team, has been reluctant to countenance any reform beyond changes to process.

The new Guardian Essential poll has moved in the opposite direction to this week’s Newspoll, which had voter support for the government rising by three percentage points in three weeks.

Coalition support rises by three points in Newspoll but Labor holds lead Read more

The latest Newspoll, published on Monday, put the Coalition on 48% of the two-party-preferred vote against Labor’s 52%. The Newspoll in February recorded the same 10-point gap as Tuesday’s Guardian Essential poll.

While the Liberals have gone backwards with the public on a number of key attributes, the ALP has made up ground on a number of measures since last June.

Labor is now rated more positively on “looks after the interests of working people” (up 5%), has a “vision for the future” (up 4%), and “moderate” (up 4%).

On the negative side of the ledger, there have been increases in “out of touch with ordinary people” and “too close to the big corporate and financial interests”.