Labor falls to near record low in polls

Labor’s vote has collapsed to a near record low as One Nation surges ahead as the preferred party, according to the latest Newspoll.

The Newspoll released on Monday found Labor’s primary vote fell from 29 per cent to 27 per cent – just one per cent away from the party’s lowest level of support ever recorded in 2012 under former prime minister Julia Gillard.

One Nation was ahead with 30 per cent of the primary vote while the Coalition was behind at 19 per cent. The Greens have remained steady at 13 per cent.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s net approval rating reached -27 per cent with only 35 per cent of voters satisfied with his performance and 62 per cent dissatisfied following the Bondi Beach terror attack and an unpopular federal budget.

Former opposition leader Peter Dutton had scored -24 per cent on the same metric a week before he suffered a historic loss at the federal election.

And former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull reached similarly low ratings in January 2020 following his handling of the Black Summer bushfires.

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Albanese was only slightly in the lead as the preferred prime minister with 42 per cent of the vote compared to Opposition Leader Angus Taylor’s 41 per cent and 17 per cent uncommitted.

Albanese – who is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly meeting and shoring up support to have Australia sit as a non-permanent member of the security council – was asked whether he was a “fraud” accepting an award for being a global citizen when he is losing popularity in the polls.

“No,” he said, moving on to the next question at a press conference.

Back home, Labor Minister Tanya Plibersek admitted the polling results were “not great”.

“The polls are obviously not great, but we are not focused on the polling. What we’re focused on is making a real difference in people’s lives,” she said.

“We know that they’re doing it tough. We hear that.”

Meanwhile, Taylor is defending his policy to use an 80 per cent tobacco excise cut to fund a fuel excise cut.

And Pauline Hanson has left Canberra after dominating headlines over the latest parliamentary sitting fortnight over resurfaced remarks she made about Indigenous Australians and Albanese’s late mother and her radical migration policy.