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Can Sussan Ley survive the ‘killing season’? · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm christinamiot.
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  Speaker 1: It's Monday, November three, twenty five. Anthony Albernizi says his
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  Speaker 1: party's major policies will be squared away by January one.
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  Speaker 1: The Prime Minister will prioritize universal childcare, environmental reform and
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  Speaker 1: changes to Medicare in the final sitting weeks of the year,
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  Speaker 1: following his longest absence from Parliament in his thirty year career.
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  Speaker 1: The PM's exclusive interview with senior political reporter Sarah Eisen
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  Speaker 1: is live right now at the Australian dot com dot au.
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  Speaker 1: UK counter terrorism police are assisting with investigations after ten
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  Speaker 1: passengers on a train in Cambridgeshire were stabbed on Sunday night.
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  Speaker 1: Authorities arrested two people following the terrifying six minute attack,
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  Speaker 1: which left all but one of the victims with life
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  Speaker 1: threatening injes the Coalition would be resoundingly defeated if an
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  Speaker 1: election was held tomorrow. That's according to a historic News
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  Speaker 1: poll which has seen internal chaos push the Liberal and
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  Speaker 1: National parties to new depths. But it's not all sunshine
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  Speaker 1: and roses for the government either. Today political editor Jeff
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  Speaker 1: Chambers joins me to unpack how the coalition got here
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  Speaker 1: and what they do next. It's been a big few
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  Speaker 1: months in Australian politics.
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  Speaker 2: We recognize the legitimate, unlong held aspirations of the people
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  Speaker 2: of Palestine.
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  Speaker 1: I'll tell you this one is they've got a great
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  Speaker 1: They really have a great prime minister.
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  Speaker 2: It's not really conducive to being effective for me, nor
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  Speaker 2: effective for them to remain in the room.
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  Speaker 1: I don't like you either, and it probably.
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  Speaker 3: Never will go h It's probably not real reason that
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  Speaker 3: he continue in the role, because the Shadow Home Affairs
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  Speaker 3: Minister Andrew Hasty has resigned from the Liberal front bench,
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  Speaker 3: declaring he can no longer remain silent on the issue
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  Speaker 3: of immigration. He knew, he understood, and still he wore
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  Speaker 3: the T shirt.
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  Speaker 2: The National's Federal Council passing a motion to abandon support
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  Speaker 2: for achieving net zero emissions.
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  Speaker 3: I'm not come.
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  Speaker 1: And voters, well, they're not having a bar of it.
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  Speaker 2: So there's a few records broken in this newspoll that
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  Speaker 2: was conducted between Monday and Thursday last week.
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  Speaker 1: Jeff Chambers is The Australian's political editor.
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  Speaker 2: Since the May III election, we've twice written that the
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  Speaker 2: coalition's primary vote was the worst on record since primary
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  Speaker 2: votes were first counted by a news poll in November
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  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five. What this poll tells us is that
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  Speaker 2: the Liberals and Nationals combined coalition primary vote is down
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  Speaker 2: to twenty four percent, and compared to the last poll,
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  Speaker 2: that's a very sizable decrease for Susan Lee's coalition. And
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  Speaker 2: when you add that to Labour's primary vote which fell
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  Speaker 2: a point down to thirty six percent, that combined share
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  Speaker 2: for the major parties is now only sixty percent, So
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  Speaker 2: that's another record. That's the lowest combined major party primary
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  Speaker 2: vote since nineteen eighty five. But it's not all great
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  Speaker 2: reading for the Prime Minister. The level of dissatisfaction with
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  Speaker 2: his leadership is at its highest now, so that's up
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  Speaker 2: three percent to fifty one percent dissatisfied with his performance.
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  Speaker 2: But obviously, in contrast to in Lee and where the
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  Speaker 2: coalition is that the government would easily win an election,
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  Speaker 2: the two party preferred vote is still at a very
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  Speaker 2: big margin of fifty seven to forty three.
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  Speaker 1: So if voters aren't behind the major parties, where have
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  Speaker 1: they gone?
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  Speaker 2: A lot of that coalition vote is flowing to Pauline
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  Speaker 2: Hanson's One Nation. One Nation's primary vote is up to
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  Speaker 2: fifteen percent, which is their highest ever and their previous
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  Speaker 2: highest mark of thirteen percent was all the way back
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  Speaker 2: in June nineteen ninety eight. The Other's pile, which includes
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  Speaker 2: minor parties and independents, they've also risen to fourteen percent,
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  Speaker 2: while the Greens have fallen one percent down to eleven.
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  Speaker 2: So you're seeing vote coming off the coalition, Labor and
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  Speaker 2: the Greens, and it's almost like a bit of a
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  Speaker 2: protest vote, you know, we're seeing votes splattering now out
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  Speaker 2: to One Nation and other minor parties and independents.
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  Speaker 1: Since she was appointed leader of the Liberals in May,
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  Speaker 1: Susan Lee has been trying to contain a party in
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  Speaker 1: crisis on top of a historic election loss. There's been infighting,
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  Speaker 1: public blowups, resignations, and policy confusion. But as we get
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  Speaker 1: to the pointy end of the year, the question is
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  Speaker 1: can she keep her job and can the coalition keep
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  Speaker 1: traveling the same path.
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  Speaker 2: Her net approval rating started off at about minus seven
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  Speaker 2: immediately after the election in our first News poll in July.
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  Speaker 2: That has now crashed to minus thirty three percent, So
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  Speaker 2: there are only twenty five percent of voters polled who
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  Speaker 2: are satisfied with her performance and fifty eight percent who
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  Speaker 2: were dissatisfied. And to put that in context, Peter Dunton
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  Speaker 2: was never a popular opposition leader, but this is by
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  Speaker 2: far and away much worse than Peter Duttan's poorest net
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  Speaker 2: approval rating, and this puts Susan Lee now into territory
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  Speaker 2: of other unpopular opposition leaders. So we're talking Alexander Downer,
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  Speaker 2: John Hewston, Simon Crane, Kim Bisley and Bill Shorten when
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  Speaker 2: he was running pretty poorly there. They're in a pretty
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  Speaker 2: poor shape right now. I mean, typically we've seen both
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  Speaker 2: the major parties suffer heavy defeats, but after the collective
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  Speaker 2: disasters of the twenty two and namely the twenty five election,
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  Speaker 2: it's a numerical situation. There just isn't many Liberals left
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  Speaker 2: in the building and a lot of the more talented
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  Speaker 2: liberal MPs have lost their seats at the last two elections,
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  Speaker 2: so it's a bit of a talent pool issue. We're
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  Speaker 2: about to enter the second final parliamentary sitting week of
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  Speaker 2: the year, and famously this period in Australian politics has
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  Speaker 2: become known as the killing season. And while there is
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  Speaker 2: no sort of coordinated war room or obvious candidate that's emerging,
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  Speaker 2: the effect of this news poll could actually see that
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  Speaker 2: back room chattering progress to something a bit more organized
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  Speaker 2: and Susan Lee has a lot to navigate. The National
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  Speaker 2: Party has come out and opposed net zero by twenty fifty.
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  Speaker 2: There's a lot of divided opinion in the Liberal party
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  Speaker 2: room as to what position they'll take, so that net
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  Speaker 2: zero piece, that energy policy piece, and most importantly keeping
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  Speaker 2: the show together because ever since the Male election, you'd
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  Speaker 2: expect some in fighting, some differences of opinion, but this
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  Speaker 2: has now run for a long period of time where
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  Speaker 2: almost every week you'll hear a senior Liberal MP or
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  Speaker 2: National MP seemingly undermining their leader. And we've seen that
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  Speaker 2: in the last fortnight and I think that she's very
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  Speaker 2: much now in his zone where she has to probably
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  Speaker 2: be a bit bolder and make decisions a bit faster
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  Speaker 2: than she thought she'd have to.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you think a poll like this adds a
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  Speaker 1: layer of inevitability to recent moves made by opposition figures
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  Speaker 1: like Barnaby Joyce, who said that his place in the
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  Speaker 1: Nationals party room is untenable. And Andrew Hasty and just
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  Speaker 1: Into NumPy and for Price, who've both quit the front
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  Speaker 1: bench despite being touted as possible future leaders at various points.
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  Speaker 2: I think the departures of just Into their Juniper Price
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  Speaker 2: and Andrew Hasty were very damaging for Susan Lee. I
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  Speaker 2: think Barnaby Joyce is on another level. He's as much
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  Speaker 2: more of a personality conflict with David Little Proud and
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  Speaker 2: his disillusionment with the National Party. But for those young
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  Speaker 2: up and coming Liberal MPs and senator in Senator Price,
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  Speaker 2: that is not a good early sign. I think it's
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  Speaker 2: the job of the leader to be able to bring
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  Speaker 2: together orring factions and tribes and get everyone on the
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  Speaker 2: same page. And if you can't do that, ultimately that
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  Speaker 2: pressure is going to build and any mistake you make,
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  Speaker 2: or any mistake it becomes more and more of a
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  Speaker 2: focal point in terms of the threat to her leadership.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. The MPs are back in town, but the
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  Speaker 1: mood is far from celebratory. This is, as you said,
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  Speaker 1: the second last sitting week of the year. How much
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  Speaker 1: attention are the major parties paying to polls like this
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  Speaker 1: one and are they worried about it or should they be?
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  Speaker 2: I think that publicly you'll hear plenty politicians on Monday
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  Speaker 2: coming out and saying poles come, poles go. The historic
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  Speaker 2: nature of this pole and those record lows for the
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  Speaker 2: coalition can't be ignored. And internally behind closed doors, this
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  Speaker 2: is certainly going to be a point of conversation, and
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  Speaker 2: the interesting aspect we will see to be whether it
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  Speaker 2: goes from disenchantment with the direction of the Liberal Party
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  Speaker 2: under Susan Lee to whether there is any organization against
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  Speaker 2: Susan Lee heading into that final parliamentary week of the year.
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  Speaker 2: The flip side of the argument is Susan Lee is
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  Speaker 2: the first female Liberal leader. She hasn't had that long
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  Speaker 2: to have a crack. We've got a long summer break
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  Speaker 2: coming up, and then we head towards a May budget
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  Speaker 2: where she would have an opportunity to do a budget reply.
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  Speaker 2: So the feeling had been to date that Susan Lee
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  Speaker 2: would be given time. But if she can't recover that
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  Speaker 2: position and the polling shows that support keeps dripping away
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  Speaker 2: from the coalition, the leadership will come into question.
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  Speaker 1: Jeff Chambers is the Australian's Political editor. You can read
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  Speaker 1: his in depth analysis of this historic Newspole result, plus
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  Speaker 1: all the nation's best news, sports, politics and business right
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  Speaker 1: now at the Australian dot com dot au