Voters Expect Budget Bad News

Tony Abbott continues to trail badly in the polls amid extraordinary pessimism about next month's Federal Budget.

According to the latest Seven West Media ReachTEL poll, just one in 20 respondents - 5.1 per cent - believe they and their families will be financially better off after the Budget. A clear majority of the 2532 - 54.1 per cent - believe they will be worse off, while just under 41 per cent said their circumstances would likely remain about the same.

The ReachTEL poll, conducted on April 23, shows that Australians have not heard - or are deeply sceptical about - the Prime Minister's promises of a "dull and boring" Budget that will not hurt households.

Asked about their voting intention, 39.8 per cent nominated the coalition, compared with 39.3 per cent for the ALP and 11.9 per cent for the Greens.

This translates to a 54-46 two-party preferred split favouring the ALP over the coalition, based on the flow of preferences at the 2013 election, and would see the coalition lose government and 37 of its 90 seats. Malcolm Turnbull continues to be preferred leader of the coalition, with 40.6 per cent favouring him compared with 28.2 per cent for Julie Bishop and 24.7 per cent for Mr Abbott.

On the Prime Minister's performance, 52 per cent rated Mr Abbott as poor or very poor, compared with 25 per cent who said he was good or very good, with 23 per cent saying he had performed satisfactorily.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten fared similarly, with 25 per cent rating him good or very good, 41 per cent poor or very poor and 34 per cent satisfactory.

Respondents have given Treasurer Joe Hockey the green light to adopt Labor's policy to increase the tax rate on superannuation contributions, with 57 per cent support, compared with 22 per cent against, including a majority of coalition supporters (48 per cent in favour compared with 28 per cent against).

And the idea of a so-called "Netflix tax" to impose GST on products and services bought overseas also got majority support, with 56 per cent in favour and 22 per cent opposed, including strong support among coalition voters (65 per cent to 18 per cent).