"The Coalition's share of the vote has risen by 4 percentage points to give it a lead of 52 to 48 over Labor, on the two-party preferred measure.
But the Prime Minister has enjoyed no such boost. Abbott's approval rating fell a touch; his net approval is minus 2 per cent. And his standing as preferred prime minister was unchanged. How can the people re-rate the government, but not the man leading it? Stirton offers two thoughts: ''Tony Abbott has always struggled with his approval numbers. They are usually negative, but not always, and they don't tend to move much.'' Most people formed a firm opinion of Abbott long ago. Stirton's second thought: ''The government has started taking some big decisions, some hard decisions, that people notice,'' notably to refuse public subsidies to SPC Ardmona and the car manufacturers. ''There's just more of a consistency to what they are doing and saying and that's coming from the Treasurer, which he pithily summarised as 'the end of the age of entitlement'.''
