AS Malcolm Turnbull faces the possibility of losing 10 to 12 seats, Labor claimed he’s a snob for going to the opera in the same week he threatened a double dissolution.
Mr Turnbull and his wife Lucy attended the premiere of Opera Australia’s Turandot in Sydney last Thursday night.
Labor senator Sam Dastyari told Sky News there was nothing more elitist in Australia than being an “opera snob”.Mr Dastyari’s comments come after an analysis of recent Newspolls suggests the Coalition is on track to win the next election but lose 10 to 12 seats.
Queensland is emerging as a problem state for the government, which is also losing ground in Victoria, Western Australia and NSW as it counts down to a July 2 poll, the survey shows.
The Coalition has also suffered a fall in support among men and country voters, according to the analysis of Newspolls conducted in the first three months of the year for The Australian.
In Queensland, Coalition support has dropped six percentage points in two-party terms since the 2013 election but it remains ahead of Labor with 51 per cent of the vote.
Labor has recovered ground in Victoria where it has a two-party preferred lead of 53 per cent.
But its core support in NSW has flatlined and it has slumped the most in South Australia, while also losing women voters to the Greens.
The government is facing an overall fall in its primary vote of 1.6 percentage points and a two-party-preferred swing against it of 2.5 percentage points, the analysis shows.
The latest Newspoll survey revealing the potential fate of the Coalition at the next election come as about 58 per cent of male voters prefer Mr Turnbull as Prime Minister compared with 22 per cent who want Mr Shorten.
Female voters prefer Mr Turnbull as Prime Minister by 52 per cent to Mr Shorten’s 20 per cent.
As the Turnbull government’s honeymoon period is over, Mr Turnbull is not only battling lower opinion polls and internal party dramas. He is also facing the possibility of further destabilisation from Tony Abbott, who has announced he will visit marginal seats on his own election tour.
Mr Turnbull has been unable to prevent Mr Abbott from speaking out on government policies and repeatedly talking about his own record as a prime minister, which could affect the Coalition’s election campaign.
Former Liberal Party leader John Hewson has even urged Mr Turnbull to give him a formal role in the election campaign to avoid disunity.
Dr Hewson, who led the Coalition to the 1993 election, said giving Mr Abbott an official role would keep him in check.
“He won’t go away, so I think you give him a role,” Dr Hewson told Sky News yesterday. “Define the role very carefully and encourage him to be judged by his performance.”
Dr Hewson also criticised Treasurer Scott Morrison as a “spin merchant” who has failed in his role.
“I must say more broadly, though, I don’t think Morrison has performed that well as Treasurer,” he said.
“I think he’s a very good developer of arguments in the political sphere. He’s a great spin merchant.
“You can’t spin the economy for very long. You have got to actually have substantive answers and be prepared to carry them through.”
Dr Hewson said given that Mr Turnbull left him out of his “inner circle” of people who were first informed of his call to change the date of the budget from May 10 to May 3, suggests he has had a falling out with the prime minister.
“I think it’s indicative of a breakdown in that relationship, which I think is very significant,” he said.
“The one thing you might have wanted to tell the Treasurer before you changed the date was the date of his budget.”
In a recent interview with Lateline, Mr Turnbull said: “My relationship with the Treasurer is very, very close. We have been close friends and colleagues for the best part of 20 years. We are in constant dialogue and co-operation and collaboration. Our offices are working together constantly; our bureaucrats are working together constantly. It is a very tight team I can assure you.”
Mr Turnbull has also been facing pressure to remove cabinet secretary Arthur Sinodinos, amid allegations of disguising previous donations by major political donors — some of whom were prohibited — to the NSW Liberal Party.
Mr Turnbull recently told Lateline host Tony Jones off for “devoting much of his interview to the administration of the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party in 2011”.
The Prime Minister has also signalled the chances of an early election, with his decision to recall both houses next month to debate a potential double dissolution trigger.
He will bring back both houses of Parliament for an unprecedented sitting on April 18 to vote on the Australian Building and Construction Commission legislation, and will call a double dissolution election to be held on July 2 if the bills are not passed.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has claimed Mr Turnbull is in “full panic mode” after failing to deliver strong economic leadership to Australian voters.
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