Morrison Still Preferred PM After JobKeeper Extension

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on July 30, 2020. Sean Davey/Getty Images

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has continued his rise in popularity with the latest Newspoll results showing record-high support for him as the preferred prime minister.

Data from the poll, which was released by the Australian newspaper on Aug. 9, showed that Morrison had extended his lead over Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese as preferred prime minister with 60 percent of those polled believing that Morrison is the “better” prime minister.

Twenty-five percent of those polled believed that Albanese would be a better prime minister.

This is the seventh month in a row that Morrison has been declared the preferred prime minister.

Notably, the Coalition party lost one point in the two-party preferred poll going from a 5 percent lead in July with 53 percent supporting the Coalition to a 4 point lead in August with 52 percent supporting the Coalition over 48 percent who support the Australian Labor Party (ALP).

This is the lowest percentage point rating in the two-party preferred poll for the ALP since July 2019.

The poll was taken between Aug. 5 to Aug. 8 and surveyed 1,509 voters from capital cities and the regions around the country.

Support for the Government Steady After JobKeeper Extension

The figures come after the Coalition government announced a significant extension of the financial support program “JobKeeper” on Aug. 7 with the Prime Minister calling the extension a “lifeline.”

“JobKeeper has been a lifeline to people’s livelihoods. It’s been a lifeline to businesses. It’s been a lifeline for the certainty and assurance that it’s provided Australians that I know they’ve been relying upon on these very difficult months and as we’ve seen at the outbreak of the Victorian wave and the impact that’s had specifically on Victoria,” said Morrison at a press conference on Aug. 7.

The extension to JobKeeper will provide an estimated $13 billion to the Victorians with the treasurer Josh Frydenberg calculating that around 1.5 million Victorians, will be on JobKeeper during the September quarter.

“That’s nearly half their private-sector workforce,” Frydenberg noted on Channel Nine on Aug. 7.

Greens Primary Support Rises As Major Parties Fall in Latest Poll

Both major parties also experienced a drop in their primary vote.

Support for the Labor Party fell to 33 percent, which is below the percentage received by the ALP at the 2019 election.

While the Coalition primary vote fell to 43 percent but unlike the ALP remained above the 41.4 percent the Coalition recorded at the 2019 election.

The drop coincided with a rise in the primary voter support for the Greens who saw their primary vote rise to 11 percent.

However, One Nation remained steady, getting just 4 percent of the primary vote in the latest poll.