CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
A recent poll of 2,256 voters has shown that more people want to keep Anthony Albanese as the country’s leader than those who don’t.
This is the first time the Prime Minister has enjoyed this level of approval from voters ever since dropping the ball on the clanger Indigenous Voice Referendum 18 months ago.
The latest Guardian Essential polls shows that Albanese’s approval rating has increased to 46%, up four percentage points from earlier in March, while his disapproval rating fell to 45%.
These new numbers come after a faultless performance from the government during Australia during Cyclone Alfred.
The extreme weather that rocked Queensland and Northern New South Wales last week has dug up memories of the time that the Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison fled to Hawaii during the Black Summer bushfires. The same flakiness could not be said about the current government this last month.
With Treasurer Jim Chalmers on the ground sand-bagging in his outer Brisbane electorate, and Albanese moving quickly to unlock recovery payments for small businesses and stranded workers, Opposition leader Peter Dutton was nowhere to be seen.
It was later revealed that he had followed Scott Morrison’s footsteps and fled from his North Brisbane electorate on the eve of the Cyclone’s expected arrival, and was spotted courting billionaire Liberal Party donors in Sydney’s sunny Eastern Suburbs instead.
This kind of pussyfooting around from Dutton appears to have not only boosted Albanese’s numbers, but directly impacted his own.
The man they now call Temu Trump has copped his highest disapproval rating since polling began tracking his rating in April 2023. His disapproval rating sits at 46%, compared with 41% who thought he would be a better option.
It doesn’t help Dutton that he spent the last couple months spreading misinformation about an alleged terrorist plot that turned out to be a stupid hoax. Female voters have also taken issue with him saying that young mothers working flexible hours should be paid less.
With the new spike in popularity, Albanese is now considering calling the 2025 election for later this arvo, before Peter Dutton and his media allies can somehow implicate the government in the allegations of corruption within the construction union that he forcibly placed into administration 12 months ago.
