Wealthier graduates who deserted Dutton warm to Ley but not to Liberals

Sussan Ley has clawed back personal support in her first four months as opposition leader from voters who deserted Peter Dutton at the election in May, recording big jumps in her approval ratings among middle- and high-income earners, people with tertiary degrees and younger voters.

However, the jump in personal approval ratings since Ley became opposition leader has failed to save the Coalition from a record slump in the primary vote.

The figures from Resolve Political Monitor’s quarterly analysis suggest Ley’s pitch for the centre is starting to bear fruit, just as she is being pressured within the Coalition party room to shift the opposition’s policy stances on climate and migration further to the right.

This week, opposition home affairs spokesman Andrew Hastie pulled focus with a series of Instagram posts warning that the Liberal Party faced extinction unless it went into battle over manufacturing and migration, among other topics. He has said he will leave the frontbench if Ley backs in support for net zero by 2050.

After calling party colleagues who had briefed against him “muppets” and “nameless cowards”, Hastie played down any suggestions of open rebellion, saying he was a team player, but one who was bolder in putting his view.

His stance was backed by Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, sacked from the frontbench after her refusal to offer Ley full support, and leadership rival, opposition defence spokesman Angus Taylor, who said on Friday: “Good on Andrew for having a go.”

Resolve Political Monitor’s first quarterly analysis of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s second term of government, conducted exclusively for this masthead, is based on responses from 5911 voters from July to September. It has a margin of error of 1.3 per cent.

The survey results do not reflect the full impact of the recent outbreaks of public disunity, as they are a three-month snapshot. However, they do show that voters rate Ley’s performance to date much more highly than they had rated former leader Peter Dutton’s performance in the final survey before the last election.

Dutton, for example, had a net performance score of minus 25 percentage points among high-income earners, whereas Ley has a net performance score of 14 percentage points. Among middle-income earners, the shift has been from a minus 30 percentage point rating for Dutton to a 9 percentage point approval for Ley. In both cases, that is a swift uptick of 39 percentage points.

Among people with tertiary qualifications, such as a university degree, Dutton had a net approval rating of minus 36 percentage points by May this year. Ley has a net approval rating of 21 percentage points.

Ley has also recorded a net 40 percentage point approval jump on Dutton’s scores in Victoria, a net 43 percentage point jump in approval in the inner city, and a net 34 percentage point increase in the suburbs – all targets for the Liberal Party if it wants to reclaim urban seats. Only a handful of Liberal MPs remain in city seats across Australia. Gisele Kapterian on Thursday conceded defeat to teal independent Nicolette Boele in the wealthy and once blue-ribbon Sydney seat of Bradfield.

Resolve director Jim Reed said compared to Dutton, Ley’s performance ratings are “much healthier among 18- to 34-year-olds, in Victoria and inner-city areas, and those with higher education or middle to high incomes”.

“These are the groups that Dutton had given up on, instead focusing on the suburbs and regions. Ley is actually appealing anew to some of those groups, though it is not yet reflected in the party’s primary vote and preferred prime minister score,” he said.

“She has started the process of creating interest in some of those blue-ribbon areas that might have started voting teal or Greens, and has done so without pissing off the base.”

However, Reed said Ley’s personal ratings had not yet swayed the way people voted for parties.

“I would take this to mean the opposition is seen as somewhat irrelevant to many at the moment,” he said.

But the findings are unlikely to concern Albanese and the federal Labor Party. Labor’s national primary vote has increased by one percentage point – from 35 to 36 per cent – since the last election.

The Coalition’s national primary vote has slipped four percentage points in the same time – from 32 per cent to 28 per cent – and Labor now leads the Coalition in Queensland as the Sunshine State belatedly warms to the federal government.

The primary vote results suggest that if an election were held tomorrow, federal Labor would be returned to office easily and it would retain much, if not all, of its record majority in the federal parliament.

Despite the big jumps in approval of Ley’s personal performance, the first woman to lead the Liberal Party has overseen a decline in the party’s primary vote among women from 31 per cent to 26 per cent, while Labor’s improved from 32 to 35 per cent.

Albanese’s personal performance ratings by voters have barely shifted since the federal election across most demographics, regions, income groups and among people with different levels of education.

However, tradies have cooled on the prime minister. His net approval rating with that group has slipped from minus 1 percentage point to minus 11 percentage points, a 9 per cent decline when allowing for rounding. Approval of Albanese in the inner city has also cooled: his net approval rating has slipped by 9 percentage points.

The survey also reveals new details about One Nation’s improved standing with voters. The far-right party has increased its primary vote in some surprising places.

The survey shows One Nation’s share of the national primary vote has increased by 4 per cent since the last election, from 6 to 10 percentage points. Those gains are most noticeable among voters in the 35 to 54 and the 55-plus age brackets, where Pauline Hanson’s party was tracking from 7 per cent to 11 per cent of the vote, if these older Australians went back to the polls now.

The poll recorded a statistically significant 5 percentage point boost in inner-city support for One Nation since the last election.

The Greens’ overall share of the national vote has held steady at 12 per cent since the election, but its support in former inner-city strongholds has slipped 4 percentage points from 16 to 12 per cent.

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