Voters back budget - but not its authors
Prime Minister Scott Morrison may have hoped that a well-crafted budget could turn around his government's fortunes but the disappointing news for him is that even though most voters like his economic plan they still do not want to vote for the Coalition.
Voters were fairly happy with Tuesday's budget which promised tax cuts targeted at middle-income earners while still forecasting a surplus next year. According to the Herald Ipsos poll of 1200 voters released on Monday, some 41 per cent of voters think the budget was fair despite Opposition criticism that the budget includes a promise of significant tax cuts from 2024 targeted at relatively high income workers.
Crucially only 24 per cent think the budget makes them personally worse off, which is the lowest negative response since the 2006 budget at the height of the mining boom when Peter Costello announced a bonanza of tax cuts. Incidentally, the worst result in recent memory on this question was the 74 per cent who thought the budget Joe Hockey handed down in 2014 made them worse off.
Mr Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg might give themselves a pat on the back for a job well done but wait. Despite the positive reception for the government's economic blueprint, the poll says that the Coalition is still headed for a bruising defeat at the federal election due next month. Indeed the ALP's lead in percentage share of the two-party preferred vote has widened to 53-47 compared to 51-49 at the last poll in February.
Mr Morrison - who has surprised many by choosing not to call the election this weekend - must be scratching his head, but there are a few obvious explanations.
First, history says that budgets rarely make much difference to voting intentions and the budget on Tuesday appears to confirm that experience. Second, voters may like the Coalition budget but that does not mean they dislike the economic plan outlined by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten on Thursday, which offers tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners balanced by tax rises on investors to pay for extra services.
Yet perhaps the most worrying explanation for Mr Morrison is that many voters have simply decided that whatever rabbit he pulled out of a hat in the budget the Coalition has forfeited their trust by its leadership instability and infighting.
The tensions over the coup against Malcolm Turnbull floated to the surface again last month when the Herald reported on leaks from within the government over the role Mr Morrison may have played in the coup.
The party is nowhere more divided than in its policy on climate change and the Herald Ipsos poll finds that 42 percent of voters think the ALP has a better climate policy against 25 for the Coalition.
The Coalition's rift between coal-loving climate deniers and centrists remains a shambles and it could drive disaffected Liberals to vote for independents in affluent metropolitan seats such as Wentworth and Warringah in NSW and Mr Frydenberg's seat of Kooyong in Victoria. The poll finds that even 16 per cent of Coalition voters think the ALP has a better climate-change policy than the Coalition and 33 per cent do not know.
Mr Morrison now has five or at the most six weeks to capitalise to win over some of the 29 per cent of voters who said they were undecided about the budget. But he is starting from well behind and the momentum is against him.