The polls are probably right about Abbott, but is it really likely that voters would kick out the Coalition after just one term, and return to the most incompetent and dim-witted mob ever to hold office in Australia – Labor?

And if “… electors actually like what Labor was promising”, why didn’t they return Labor to office? Perhaps because many in the electorate did not want billions spent on NDIS and Gonkski, but did not say it aloud before the election because it’s not the done thing to deny anything to the disabled or the kiddies, but they thought Abbott would cut the big spending and big government.

And, as Graham says, Abbott has gone quiet, and people are generally peed off with his switch from tough guy to wimp. That sentiment, however, could hardly lead to the desire to replace Abbott with Shorten, one of old gang we had for 6 years, with his bleating and baaing and telling the electorate that he will stick with the carbon tax no matter what the people want.

Anything, including Abbott and the Coalition, is better than going back to that.

As for the “open hostility” to Clive Palmer, the hostility comes from the media, not necessarily from the voters who don’t get much chance to air their views publicly; and we all know whose side the media is on.

From the Liberals' point-of-view, they played their cards well: As in many card games, knowing that their opponents replaced a '2' (Julia) with a '3' (Rudd), it was a good tactic to hit them with a '4' (Abbott) - why place an ace or a joker on the table when it's possible to keep them for later?

Politicians are there to serve themselves and will always remain the enemies of ordinary people. We should get rid of them all and vote directly for the issues at hand rather than for personalities.

*they don't understand they didn't win, Labor lost*.

That says it all.

Peter Clack, my analysis is based on polling. I report what the respondents are saying, not my own views. What you say may be true, but if it is not what is coming through in the polling, then it won't appear in an article like this.

NTP, I tend to think that Abbott will win the next election fairly easily, but only if he changes his approach. He's shown adaptability before, and no reason to think he won't adapt again.

Shorten is travelling well partly because he hasn't been tested. That will come as well.

But nothing is for certain, and Abbott's fall from grace appears to be pretty rapid. I can't check because Newspoll doesn't have results on the web back that far, but I don't think Howard faded this quickly post 1996.

it amazes me how people keep saying that Abbott did not win the election but Rudd/Gillard lost it. Usually it it those who insisted Turnbull would replace Abbott and then through sour grapes could not graciously concede defeat who sprout this line. How slow to remember that after only one term Gillard knifed Rudd and then had to do sleazy deals with Greens, Independants, and Slipper in order to form what many considered a total sleazy illegitimate Government. Shorten was a large player in that Government. If ever a Government 'won'by default it was Gillard and her sisterhood.

Very interesting that this article in The Australian of 18th january is accompanied by a bar diagram which shows that Bill Shorten is now, by a narrow margin, Australia's preferred prime minister. Strangely, no mention of this noteworthy fact is made in the text (see above). But in case any readers are left in doubt, there is a picture of Mr Shorten, with the caption "Bill Shorten has made a weak impression on the electorate."

Such is the environment in which Australian politics is conducted today, in the Murdoch press and, sadly, elsewhere.