The Turnbull government has seized on a poll showing almost half of all voters would prefer someone other than Bill Shorten to lead the Labor Party.


"This is going to be a very bleak year for Bill Shorten - unfortunately the public have found him out," cabinet minister Christopher Pyne told ABC radio on Monday.

Mr Pyne was responding to the first Newspoll of the year showing Tanya Plibersek (25 per cent) is the preferred Labor leader among all voters closely followed by Anthony Albanese (24 per cent) with Mr Shorten on 22 per cent.

Among Labor voters, Mr Shorten was a clear choice with 37 per cent backing him over Ms Plibersek (27 per cent) and Mr Albanese (23 per cent).

Senior Labor frontbencher Tony Burke believes Mr Shorten will lead Labor to the next election.

"We don't want to go back to the days, which the Liberal Party are still in, of constant leadership change and speculation," he said.

His colleague Stephen Jones saw a silver lining in the preferred leader results: "Isn't it good to be a member of a party where we've got such a talented frontbench that everybody's looking at it and saying, 'Geez, you're all doing an outstanding job, there's so many of you who are popular within the electorate'."

And health spokeswoman Catherine King - who joined Mr Shorten at the weekend to announce Labor's new policy to limit private health insurance price hikes - denied the leader was having trouble getting his message through to voters.

"We've got a long way to go before this year is out and the election is out," she told reporters in Canberra.




The Newspoll also showed Malcolm Turnbull stretch his lead over Mr Shorten, 45-31 per cent, as preferred prime minister.


*** How long will it be before Labor 'gets it'.. Shorten cannot win the next election. Anthony Albanese would give it a red hot go and if Labor don't replace Shorten immediately, they might as well consign themselves to another term on the Opposition benches

Frankly - Shorten smells like limburger cheese...Red Baron

You think Bam?

I have always held the view that Bill Shorten is a One Trick  Pony

He has been discovered for what he is...a lightweight ex Union Boss who is way out of his depth when it comes to ability

His performance in Parliament has been underwhelming, along with is inability to sell what Labor is promoting

Frankly I don't know what the hell Labor's BIG PLAN for Australia is..Don't think they have one

Shorten just continues to react to so called Liberal stumbles

It's going to take a lot more than that for Australia to vote Labor in

Australians have big memories and the last Labor Government was a rout and a shambles

Bam wrote on Feb 5^th, 2018 at 11:38am:


The Govt is on the nose and Labor is only a smidge ahead in the pols and Shorty is  behind in preferred PM.

What does that tell you?

There's a long way to go before Shorten and the ALP is not a threat at the next election.
Preferred PM does not have much bearing on that outcome BTW.

Hell I might even vote for them.

Only 1 electorate votes for Shorten
If he loses he's out they vote in a new leader probably Albanese... 

But, I don't think he's so unpopular in his electorate.

Howard was disliked...  yet won...

I don't like Shorten and his dishonesty...  yet the ALP is full of that these days.

Then so too are the Libs...
Turnbull undermined Abbott and had him defeated in a spill...  Turnbull is unlikely to get a turnaround before he beats Abbott's record in bad polls.
Turnbull is a Wet, a progressive and is unpopular with much of his Conservative base.

If the ALP have good policies I'll vote for them.
I'll vote for whoever I think has the best policies for Australia and Australians.

After Bennelong expressed their revulsion and abhorrence for the lying little union puppet Bull S. and his dredged up Eddie Obeid's girl Bull S.'s slide downhill has been accelerating as he is now seen as a toxic pariah and stinks to hi Heavens all over Australia.

His "speech" to the press club was just piling lies on bulldust. Standard crap from Bull S. who couldn't lie straight in bed.

If Labor loses Batman to the abhorrent Greenies this will be a further nail in the coffin.

Mal of course is delighted but he knows he must be careful in case the corrupt unions kick Bull S. out and so Mal is carefully orchestrating NewsPoll to keep giving completely ridiculous "boosts" to Bull S..

So the libs are ahead in the polls juliar and dickhead?

MMmmm  ?

No .....They are still behind ?

FFS I thought they were shoe ins!

Dreamers it seems!

Gordon wrote on Feb 5^th, 2018 at 3:14pm:

That is wishful thinking. Abbott had virtually no honeymoon at all because he was simply a bad leader. Turnbull managed to keep his going for just long enough to eke out a 1-seat majority at the election, but after the election he was losing Newspolls within weeks. Gillard didn't enjoy much of one either because she knifed Rudd.

Shorten cannot possibly be as bad as the Coalition is right now. He will have some kind of honeymoon if he wins. It all depends what he does in the first 100 days.