On Monday night Abbott presided over a cabinet meeting. I heard on Radio National:

The Guardian reports that there was not a single formal Cabinet submission to consider and that has some MPs concerned that the Government’s policy agenda is looking thin.

We know that because because of yet another leak, which are driving Abbott crazy.

Laura Tingle told Phillip Adams that LNP pollies always comforted themselves with the thought that Bill Shorten was unelectable. The idea of the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption was to kill Bill (politically, of course) and after Justice Heydon’s job on him it seemed to work. But now Heydon has ‘killed’ himself along with the royal commission and no-one remembers Bill’s appearance.

The Fairfax Ipsos poll out on Monday had two main features. First, the TPP vote for Labor improved a point to 54-46. But:

Labor’s 54-46 two-party lead is up from the 53-47 lead of last month and is based on how preferences flowed at the last election. When those polled were asked how they would allocate preferences, Labor’s two-party lead stretches to 56-44.

The polls appear to be consolidating in the landslide zone, for now at least.

Secondly, Bill Shorten’s approval rating rose 4 points to 39 per cent and his disapproval rating fell 6 points to 49 per cent, a 10 point improvement and perhaps reversing the previous trend. He now leads Abbott as preferred PM 45 to 39.

Photographs can be cruel, but this image from Michelle Grattan’s piece I suspect tells the inner story:

Van Badham has done a reassessment of Bill. She thinks he has shed his ‘tired accountant’ persona and now deserves to lead Labor to victory. He has successfully pulled the party together.

Shorten tours the country shoring up support for marriage equality, pledging a 50% RET and reminding voters of the jobless rate – now grown to 800,000. We wrote him off as a “tired accountant”, “shifty bureaucrat” and scorched bakery product, but a month after he was said to be finished, he seems to know what he’s doing.

Yet there is further good or bad news in the Fairfax Ipsos poll, depending on your perspective. The Greens are steady on 16%. This could threaten some inner city Labor seats.