Support for Abbott government slumps
The April Fairfax Nielsen poll shows support for the government has slumped.
The Coalition now trails Labor by 4 percentage points of a two-party-preferred basis on 48 to 52 per cent, with the Greens primary vote rising sharply to a highest-ever share of 17 per cent.
According to reports in Fairfax that is almost double the Greens’ support achieved at the September election where it remained in single figures.
Despite a strong result in Japan with the signing of a Free Trade Deal, other events have overshadowed the government’s achievements.
Eighty-eight percent of those polled want to keep the Racial Discrimination Act intact.
Those polled overwhelming believed it should continue to be unlawful to “offend, insult or humiliate” based on race or ethnicity.
Six out of 10 disagree with Attorney-General George Brandis’ statement that “people do have a right to be bigots”.
And just thirty-five percent support Abbott’s Knights and Dames initiative.
Both government initiatives came without significant public push, while the attention surrounding the suspended Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos and his links with the disgraced Obeid family further caused the government to sink in the poll, according to Fairfax.
The nation-wide telephone poll of 1400 voters was taken between last Thursday and Saturday.