Malcolm Turnbull's Net Approval Rating Has Just Hit Zero

Remember when you liked Malcolm Turnbull? No? There was a time, believe me. Cast your mind back to a different era, before the myriad horrors of 2016 unfolded like a badly scripted coma dream from Grey's Anatomy. Picture a man who was once chairman of the movement for Australia to become a republic. Someone who believed in climate change. A voice of liberal reason in a party room full of out-of-touch conservatives.

Malcolm Turnbull really was, for a brief moment, Australia's leather daddy. Perhaps the lesson of his fall from grace should be a universal truth: dads will always disappoint you.

When Turnbull ousted Tony Abbott, under the pretence that he was in any way dissimilar to Tony Abbott, many people chose to be optimistic. For a couple of months there, Turnbull was the man who could save Australian politics. Fast forward to today, and Malcolm Turnbull officially has a zero percent net approval rating. Yes, zero percent. You can't spin that. It is very bad. Somewhere in Canberra, there is a room full of high powered public servants losing their goddamn minds.

To break it down, a zero percent net approval rating means that you inspire so little feeling in the electorate that an equal percentage of voters like and dislike you. This evens out to no voters liking you, at all. It means you, through your perceived lack of leadership and charisma, have failed to appeal to anyone outside of your usual voter base. This is probably quite depressing if you are the leader of a federal government, and a man who once gave the impression that he possessed some kind of personality—and perhaps even a moral conscience.

It's easy, at the point, to ask whether Australian voters—like those in the UK and the US before them—are done with elites. Does the government's embarrassingly low approval rating mean we are tired of the establishment? Is this the start of our Brexit? Is Pauline Hanson our Trump?

The same Fairfax Ipsos poll indicates that support for alternative parties—the Greens on one end of the spectrum, One Nation on the other—is at an historic high, with 34 percent of voters choosing them over the Coalition or Labor. Meanwhile, on a two-party preferred basis, neither major party is enjoying much support. The government is sitting on 49 percent, behind Labor's 51 percent.

Given everything that's happened around the world this year, the everyman revolt theory is convincing. But you can't help wondering how things would be different if our federal parliament had managed to pass one piece of memorable legislation since the election. Perhaps that would have persuaded the public to feel something other than apathy or horror.

This is the last week of parliament for 2016, and nobody has anything good to show for it. Would it really have been so difficult to find a compromise on marriage equality—given its widespread support amongst the Australian public? Was Peter Dutton's suggestion that Lebanese immigrants were a national "mistake" really necessary?

Look, a zero percent net approval rating isn't surprising for a leader swept into power mainly on the premise of "not being Tony Abbott." But Turnbull's historic unpopularity should be a wake up call to all federal politicians. Should be, but won't be, because it's clear they aren't listening to what voters want and haven't been for some time. Malcolm, Malcolm, we're a fickle electorate. We are easily bought. You didn't even have to do much, probably. You just had to do something.

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