Voters seem largely unmoved by Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s efforts at ‘barnacle removal’ during the past two weeks. Photo: Andrew Meares

Edmund Tadros

The Coalition and Prime Minister Tony Abbott end the year behind Labor on every polling measure, despite efforts to knock “one or two barnacles off the ship” before Christmas.

Labor has maintained its two-party preferred lead of 54 per cent to the Coalition’s 46 per cent in the part fortnight, according to the latest Newspoll, published in The Australian on Monday.

The Newspoll primary polling also shows Labor up two points to 39 per cent, while the Coalition is up one point to 38 per cent.

The results reinforce the findings of last week’s Fairfax Ipsos Poll, which found the Coalition remains locked in an election-losing position, while Mr Abbott’s stocks fell significantly.

The Fairfax Ipsos Poll found voters rate Mr Abbott as being as incompetent and as untrustworthy as Julia Gillard at her nadir.

The Newspoll found Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has pulled further ahead of Mr Abbott as preferred prime minister, with 44 per cent of voters preferring him compared with 37 per cent preferring Mr Abbott. Both ratings are up one point, but almost one in five voters remain undecided on the two men.

Most voters continue to be unimpressed with Mr Abbott’s performance, with 58 per cent disapproving of his performance (up one point) and 33 per cent satisfied (no change). Only 37 per cent of voters are satisfied with Mr Shorten’s performance (up one point) with 43 per cent dissatisfied (no change). One in five voters remains on the fence about Mr Shorten’s performance.

Voters seem largely unmoved by Mr Abbott’s efforts at “barnacle removal” during the past two weeks.

The PM announced two weekends ago that his parental leave scheme would be further watered down, with funding redirected to child care. The $7 GP co-payment has been replaced by a plan where the government will cut its rebate to doctors by $5, with practitioners left to decide if they should pass the cost onto patients.

During this time, anger in the government between key ministers and the prime minister’s office has spilled out into the media, with government members now openly criticising Mr Abbott’s chief of staff, Peta Credlin.

The government has been behind the national polls for most of the year.

Newspoll is based on a telephone survey of around 1100 voters and has a margin of error of 3 per cent. The Fairfax Ipsos Poll is based on a telephone and mobile phone survey of around 1400 voters and has a margin error of 2.6 per cent.

The Australian Financial Review