An election can't come soon enough for Turnbull

Extract from ABC The Drum

Opinion

By Barrie Cassidy

Updated yesterday at 9:55am

Photo: The Prime Minister has floated so many ideas that failed to land. There are no more, surely. (ABC: Nick Haggarty)

Malcolm Turnbull has struggled to put together a winning week all year, and now the polls have turned against him. The pressure this puts on an election-year budget is excruciating, writes Barrie Cassidy.

So often the politicians say there is only one poll that counts. That blithe statement is a useful though essentially inaccurate rhetorical tool when they're under pressure.
There are two polls that count - elections and Newspoll.
Obviously elections are the ultimate decider. But Newspolls matter ahead of any other poll because politicians take them more seriously than others.
They impact on the psyche, alter perceptions, influence media reporting and most importantly, even at times, change policy direction.
That is why this week's poll - with Labor hitting the lead for the first time since Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister - is more than a symbolic setback to the Coalition Government.
It is a mood changing event, given even more resonance because, when he challenged Tony Abbott, Turnbull referenced the fact that Abbott had lost 30 consecutive Newspolls.

Video: Barrie Cassidy: "It's another chapter in the decline in the Australian manufacturing industry" (ABC News)


The level of anxiety in Coalition ranks has risen. One minister this week was privately asking the "what if" question. What if this is not the low water mark? What if the next poll, or the one after that, shows a further decline? After all, there has been a gradual deterioration since January, with the Government struggling to have a winning week in all that time.
More troubling now for the Government, however, is that the issues are starting to work against them.
Take education. The Government went flat out this week putting that issue front and centre, an issue that historically favours Labor.
The Minister, Simon Birmingham, is articulating the problem effectively enough. He points out that the budget deficit is $36 billion and against that background, the cost of higher education since 2009 has grown by about 59 per cent - while the economy has grown at just 29 per cent.
But the solutions will be much harder to sell, and they will have to be sold in a budget that is now critical to the Government's re-election.
To rein in the ballooning costs of HECs loans, the Government is looking at wiping them out in the vocational training sector; making university entry harder; and clawing back the loans at a faster rate. None of that, however you argue the principle, will be popular.
And now overlaying the whole education debate is the wash-up from the Prime Minister's futile attempt to have the states raise their own income taxes.
In the process he exposed a preference for the states to fund public schools. Whatever the merits of such a proposal, that preference will be used by Labor to cast doubt over his commitment to public schools.
Even without the education changes, the pressure coming on the budget is excruciating.
The Prime Minister has floated so many ideas that failed to land. There are no more, surely. The budget is now the whole plan.
Responding to his own backbencher's lament that the Government is "wishy washy" Turnbull said this week:

She (Michelle Landry, member for Capricornia) is entitled to her view. But she is no doubt, like everyone else, very keen to see what's in the budget. But like everyone else, we will wait until the 3rd of May.

The budget. The answer to everything. It has to be. That's the corner the Government is now in. But can it meet the competing demands?
A leading figure on the right, Cory Bernardi, told Capital Hill this week that the Government's priority was "getting the budget back in the black and making government sustainable".
He went on:

This is a critical budget for the future of the country. It's a critical choice for the future of the country because we cannot continue on spending 50 or 60 billion a year more than we have in income and taking further income in is not the answer.

That's a widely held view within the Coalition. But can the Treasurer fashion a budget that does all that and also serves as the political document that saves the day? Can it be both economically tough and politically pragmatic?
Budgets rarely shift polls very much. The 2014 budget was an obvious negative. Rarely do they provide much of a boost, no matter how responsible. Yet this one - on the eve of an election campaign - has to be a positive with the punters; even more so if that feared further slip in the polls happens.
Beyond the budget, the Government is relying on discontent - even anger - with the behaviour of trade unions. The "bullying, the intimidation, the thuggery", as Michaela Cash describes it, was well documented at the Royal Commission.
But now even that attack has lost some of its power because of the even more serious allegations of corporate cheating globally, and the slippery behaviour of some banks locally.
Given the blow to the credibility of the corporate world, can the Government anymore, for example, entertain the idea of a tax break for business in the budget, and nothing for the workers?
Without the advantage of focus group feedback, reading public opinion is largely guesswork. Anecdotally, however, the country seems to have gone through two moods since Turnbull replaced Abbott. First relief, and since, disappointment.
That in itself is not a mortal blow. Those who decide elections are those who are not partisan to begin with – those who tend to have a passing interest in politics. Again anecdotally, a common observation from such people is that "Malcolm deserves to be given a go".
As it stands, giving him a fair go means giving him support at his first election. At a time when Australia has had too many prime ministers in a few short years, that's a powerful motivator.
However, as each week goes by, that force diminishes.
July 2 won't come soon enough for the Coalition.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of the ABC TV program Insiders.