Painted Dog poll shows close to half of all WA women want Tanya Plibersek as Prime Minister

Close to half of all women in WA want Tanya Plibersek as Prime Minister following a week where the treatment of females in Parliament House was under the spotlight. A Painted Dog poll conducted for The West Australian of 801 West Aussies found while Scott Morrison was still the most preferred Prime Minister overall, a closer look at age categories and genders revealed a different story. In a worrying sign for Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese former Deputy Labor Leader and now Shadow Education Minister Tanya Plibersek had a higher preferred PM rating than he did. Mr Morrison had the support of nearly half of West Aussies with 41 per cent preferring him as PM, followed by Ms Plibersek, at 32 per cent and Mr Albanese at 22 per cent. Defence Minister Peter Dutton, who ran against Scott Morrison in the leadership ballot that ousted Malcolm Turnbull in 2018, only secured 4 per cent of the vote. Males are significantly more likely than females to prefer Scott Morrison as the Prime Minister - 47 per cent of males prefer him compared to 36 per cent for females. But female West Aussies are significantly more likely to prefer Ms Plibersek compared to males 41 per cent compared to 25 per cent for males. While still behind both Mr Morrison and Ms Plibersek, Mr Albanese highest preferred rating was among younger West Aussies. However Mr Albanese secured just 26 per cent of the vote for 18-39 year olds compared to 32 per cent for Ms Plibersek and 39 per cent for Mr Morrison. Giving Labor more reason to use WA Premier Mark McGowan prominently in the federal election next year he is seen as the more trustworthy leader to the prime minister by more than three-quarters of voters. Of those polled 78 per cent think Mr McGowan is the more trusted leader compared to 22 per cent for Mr Morrison. Females are significantly more likely than males to trust Mr McGowan more as a leader compared to Morrison with 86 per cent of females seeing the WA Premier as more trustworthy compared to 71 per cent for males. Males are significantly more likely than females to trust Mr Morrison more as a leader compared to Mr McGowan with 29 per cent of males seeing the PM as more trustworthy compared to 14 per cent for females. Trust for Mr McGowan compared to Mr Morrison reduces among older West Aussies, with the opposite true of Morrison where trust increases with age. The poll results highlight the importance of the female vote at the next election. The last parliamentary sitting week of the year was dominated by the treatment of women with the release of the Kate Jenkins review on Tuesday and a statement by a former Alan Tudge staffer that the Education Minister was “abusive” during their consensual affair. The support for Ms Plibersek will cause ripples within the Labor party who know that they need to win WA in order to win Government. The Labor Party has its eyes set taking the WA seats of Swan, Hasluck and Pearce from the Liberal Party to help win Government.