Prime minister records best ever Newspoll but Coalition still trailing Labor on two-party-preferred basis in two surveys

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Scott Morrison’s hopes of securing a third term in office for the Coalition still appear out of sight, despite the prime minister recording his best ever Newspoll.

Two polls out on Sunday night suggest voters’ dislike of the opposition leader Bill Shorten will not stop Labor winning majority government in the May election.

Newspoll, published by the Australian, suggests the government trails Labor 48% to 52% on a two-party-preferred basis.

That is an improvement from the 46-54 poll a month ago and marks the Coalition’s best result since Malcolm Turnbull was dumped as leader in August 2018.

The Ipsos poll, published by the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, put the Labor lead at six points (53-47).

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Labor needs a uniform swing of about 1% to win majority government.

A 3% swing to Labor would lead to senior ministers Peter Dutton and David Coleman losing their seats.

Despite each poll’s dire warning for the Coalition, both continue to suggest almost half of all voters approve of Morrison while about 36% were in favour of Shorten’s performance.

In the Ipsos poll, Morrison also maintains a net approval rating of positive nine percentage points, while the Labor leader’s net approval has dropped three points to minus 15.

On Sunday Morrison defended his right to call the election when he deems it best, dismissing criticisms from Labor over the extra week of taxpayer-funded advertising the delay allows.

“[I’m] not going to take lectures from the Labor party that completely defied every single convention that has been known to Australian elections when they ran taxpayer-funded ads during the 2013 caretaker period,” the prime minister said.

“So Labor, honestly, they can lecture nobody about anything. Labor are about lies and higher taxes.”

Labor has accused Morrison of wanting to spend $600,000 a day in taxpayer-funded advertising in the next week.

“I don’t know what goes through the mind of the government most days,” Shorten said. “I think they think they’re getting some marvellous tactical advantage. Everyone knows there’s got to be an election on a Saturday in May.

“I’d put it this way – this government wants to spend tens of millions of dollars on TV advertising to pump up their own tyres. That’s why they’re buying time, so they can spend some more of Australians’ money. If they have money in Treasury, they should be spending it on services for kids with cancer.”