Abbott on notice

Speaking through the latest polls electors have put Tony Abbott on notice: "Smarten-up your act son, or you're out of the house in two year's time."

That's the message from our qualitative polling (a sample of 1,324 with developed opinions about politics). Their support is back to levels last seen in September 2010. That gives Abbott an equivocal lead. The latest Newspoll and Nielsen are even worse for him, predicting a respectable win for Labor.

What's gone wrong? Abbott won the last election in a landslide. The opposition ought to be demoralised and introspective, and, after a bit more than a 100 days in power, the government should be consolidating its agenda and its honeymoon.

The first problem is the nature of the win. Abbott is one of the most polarising and least-liked political leaders in Australian history (the abuse from focus group participants is often vile). But at the last election he faced-off against Kevin Rudd, who was even more disliked and polarising.

On election day our respondents gave Abbott a net 2% approval (46 to 44). They gave Kevin Rudd a net minus 44% (21 to 66).

Take Kevin Rudd out of the picture, and normal transmission is resumed. Abbott is now running on a net minus 12% (41 to 53), while Bill Shorten, also in negative territory, is doing better at minus 2% (34 to 36).

Now he's PM, Abbott's taken Rudd's popularity slot, while Shorten is playing a muted rendition of the old Abbott.

Modern politics is more a personality game than ever. Successful pop-up political parties like Pauline Hanson's One Nation, and the Palmer United Party tend to be eponymously branded, and it works.

Some of the same dynamic applies to mainstream political parties. Voters presume the nature of parties changes when the leadership does. Labor isn't Labor anymore, it's Shorten Labor, whatever that might be.

Look closely at Shorten's figures and you see they almost cut evenly three ways – a third approve of him, a third disapprove, and a third are neutral. This isn't a strong position and indicates he has made a weak impression. It could also change radically as the middle third will decide one way or the other before the next election.

The second problem is the electorate's expectation of performance. The GFC pinched our national psyche, making us nervous, and impatient.

Many Australians are undergoing relative suffering and they want someone to fix it, now. While their own position is not necessarily precarious they want it to be better, and as the baby boomer cohort comes in sight of potential retirement, timelines are tightening.

The multiple speed economy has exacerbated this with miners, and high earning public servants and business leaders adding an element of envy into the mix. While the Gini coefficient isn't out of the bottle, it can easily appear that inequality is increasing.

Those who supported Abbott at the last election wanted the "mess" cleaned-up, but instead of immediately embarking on an energetic program Abbott and his government suddenly went quiet.

A subsidiary problem is that electors actually like what Labor was promising, and Abbott played along with this, adopting key Labor policies such as the NDIS and Gonski. Electors want those policies as well as fiscal rectitude. It's going to be hard, if not impossible, to deliver.

Two themes dominated the last election: Trust (running through the promise to abolish the carbon tax, unwind the mismanagement of asylum seekers, and putting "adults" back in charge); and the economy (debt and deficits).

Trust relates to the personal – you mightn't like me, but you can trust me - the economy to performance.

The government's attempt to abandon Gonski seems to have had some effect on whether or not Abbott is viewed as trustworthy, impacting the personal, and the change of rhetoric on debt and deficits has impacted impressions of performance.

All of this has combined not only to undermine Abbott's first preference vote, but his support amongst non-Green minor parties.

Is all of this just a temporary glitch?

Not necessarily.

The electorate is more volatile than ever. Buyers regret could lead them back to the old supplier within 3 years. It all but happened to Labor between 2007 and 2010, and Rudd started off from a higher personal, but lower electoral, base than Abbott.

There is a certain triumphalism in some of the behaviour of Liberal ministers. That indicates they don't understand they didn't win, Labor lost. Without a compelling rationale for change they will not be able to effectively implement their policies, and then they will fail on the performance issues that matter most to their supporters – debt, deficit and the economy.

Federal Coalition governments are not particularly good at crafting a coherent story. That leaves them vulnerable to charges of ideological extremism and fundamentalism if electors don't understand why they are doing what they are doing, and why it is necessary.

Our research suggests that Labor's claims of broken promises are starting to resonate, and it is partly a consequence of this.

A particularly interesting straw in the wind is the loss of support amongst non-Green minor party voters. While they are still on balance in favour of the Coalition, that support has dropped dramatically. Add to that open hostility from some of their political leaders, like Clive Palmer, and Abbott really could be in trouble.

While Labor portrays the Liberals as being in favour of the big end of town, they've actually held power since 1996 through the support of blue-collar conservatives in outer-suburban and regional areas. These people disproportionately make up the base of the non-Green minors.

Judged by social class they are more naturally Labor's constituency, but they vote Liberal on the cultural grounds of traditional values, and the practical grounds of economic performance.

The fact that 60% of them favour a Liberal government should give Abbott some comfort. The fact that on election day this was 77% should give him reason for pause. Another 100 days like this and it could be only 43%.