But the risk is clear if Labor mishandles the immigration portfolio as it did in the first term (less likely now that veteran minister Tony Burke is in charge), it could climb swiftly up the list of priorities.
Which brings us to the fourth point.
Voters really don’t think much of the opposition at all. Combined support for the Coalition partners has fallen to a new low of just 27 per cent, or 45 per cent in the two-party preferred vote. The poll’s margin of error is 2.3 per cent.
Yet voters quite like Opposition Leader Sussan Ley: 42 per cent rate her performance as good or very good, 32 per cent say she has been poor or very poor and 26 per cent are undecided.
That undecided figure has fallen in one month from 33 per cent, which suggests the opposition leader is beginning to cut through, even as she finally made the call to demote party room rebel Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.
New opposition leaders typically enjoy a honeymoon period when first elevated. Doubtless, that is partly what is happening for Ley. But the numbers are still dire for the Coalition when we track voting intentions.
Peter Dutton was also popular once, but there is a difference.
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While 40 to 45 per cent of voters said Dutton’s performance was good or very good in the first two months of this year, by October 2024, about 40 per cent of voters were saying Dutton’s performance was either poor or very poor. Those numbers got much worse as the election approached, peaking at 57 per cent of respondents giving the then-opposition leader a poor or very poor rating in late April.
The moment that Ley was installed as leader, those negative ratings just about halved compared to Dutton.
There is plenty of time for voters to change their minds on Ley and at this stage, she should be reasonably pleased with the way she is tracking.
Albanese will not be asleep at the wheel, but Ley could prove a more formidable opponent than Dutton if she can keep her party united and her backbenchers in line long enough to drag up her party’s primary vote.
That will be no small task.
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