Malcolm Turnbull: the ‘Silvertail’ Australian leader who wants to be popular

Malcolm Turnbull is Australia’s fifth prime minister in as many years, and after eight months in the top job, declining approval ratings suggest he has proved a disappointment to many voters.

Turnbull called parliamentary elections for July 2 in hopes that his conservative Liberal Party will be able to pull off a victory before public opinion turns against the government further and give him a Senate that is more likely to pass his legislative agenda.

Kicking off a two-month election campaign, Turnbull said a centre-left Labor Party win would prevent the Australian economy diversifying from a mining industry that had been hit hard by the Chinese slowdown and the associated falls in the prices of iron ore and coal, Australia’s most lucrative exports.

“At this election, Australians will have a very clear choice: to keep the course, maintain the commitment to our national economic plan for growth and jobs or go back to Labor with its high-taxing, higher spending, debt and deficit agenda which will stop our nation’s transition to the new economy dead in its tracks,” Turnbull said.

Polls show Turnbull’s party is neck-and-neck with the Labor Party, but voters also say they prefer him as prime minister over opposition leader Bill Shorten.

Turnbull, a 61-year-old self-made multimillionaire, took over the reins of power in September from the polarising Tony Abbott, whose socially conservative stance on many issues had grown unpopular. His removal gave the coalition government an immediate but short-lived bounce in the polls.

The subsequent slide in Turnbull’s public support could be partly explained by the high expectations when he took office, said Australian National University political scientist John Wanna.