Poll Roundup: Sea Of Red Polling Ink At Start Of Election Year

After being in a merely historically dicey polling position for much of 2021, the Morrison Government starts this year in more serious trouble.  

Last night's was one of those Newspolls that deserves a quick post because of the dramatic nature of the figures.  The Morrison Government starts the year down 44-56 on primary votes of Coalition 34 Labor 41 Green 11 One Nation 3 Others 11.  Scott Morrison is on a net rating of -19 (38-57), Anthony Albanese is on net zero (by 2022!) (43-43) and Morrison leads on the skewed "Better Prime Minister" indicator by 43-41.

This all represents:

* The Coalition's worst Newspoll 2PP since it polled a pair of 44s in August-September 2018 immediately after Malcolm Turnbull was removed as Prime Minister.

* The Coalition's worst primary vote in the same period, and equal second-worst of all time.

* Labor's best primary vote since December 2018.

* Morrison's worst net satisfaction rating since the early 2020 bushfires, marginally above the -22 he sank to during that time.

* Albanese's best net satisfaction since March 2021.  Albanese is now 19 points ahead on comparative netsat after only taking the lead one poll ago.  

* Morrison's lowest lead on the skewed "Better Prime Minister" question since the bushfire period (in which time Albanese briefly led).

* However, one of the very few cases of a Prime Minister leading on Better PM while this far behind on voting intention.  Not a record in that regard, eg Morrison led by 6 in the second of the 44-56 Newspolls after the removal of Turnbull.

Poll-Shaped Objects: January 2022

Welcome to a new irregular series for this site.  From time to time I will do a post that covers and comments on all of the poll-shaped objects that come to my attention in a given month.  Where relevant, the article may also discuss real polling on the same issue.  Once I've decided there is enough material and time to put out an issue for a given month, all others that I see in that month will be added to the piece.  However I won't necessarily put out a PSO article every month; usually I will release such articles when there seem to be far too many of the things around and I feel that the proper order of things needs to be restored.  An early version of this idea can be seen in a 2017 article Poll Roundup: Attack Of The Poll-Shaped Objects.

The term poll-shaped object is one that I use to deride the overly credulous reporting of unsound or insufficiently transparent polls in media articles, and also the peddling of such polls by pressure groups, so-called think tanks, parties and other groups that cling to the foolish belief that you can influence public opinion by telling fibs about it.   A PSO can, for instance, be any of (i) something that is claimed to be a poll but isn't (ii) an especially unsound poll or (iii) a possibly sound poll for which the level of reported detail has been woefully lacking.  (The term is by analogy with piano-shaped object, something that appears to be a piano but sounds horrible or is impossible to play - whether by reason of shoddy construction, mistreatment or decay.)