The polls are showing how far the Coalition has drifted from the mainstream, and the electoral damage could easily outlive this government

IN A FEW days’ time, a full year will have passed since the federal Coalition was ahead of Labor in the opinion polls. Individual surveys have put Tony Abbott’s government in the lead once or twice – Newspoll on one weekend in April, for instance – but the polls as a whole, aggregated by William Bowe at Poll Bludger, show a dismal two-party-preferred performance dating back to early December last year, barely two months after the election. Commentators often talk about the government’s post-budget slump, but it would be more accurate to call it a post-election collapse, unprecedented in Australia since serious polling began…

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