Earlier in the year the long-serving Labor government of New South Wales was finally defeated in a general election by the Liberal-National Coalition led by Barry O’Farrell. The coalition victory was a landslide, just as the opinion polls had been predicting. What is more, the polls had been indicating that the voters had made up their mind to get rid of Labor a long time before the election was actually held.

The situation in New South Wales was influenced in no small way by a strong sense that the state’s voters had made up their mind about the need for change a long time ago and had simply stopped listening to the government. Thus it didn’t matter what Labor did (changing leaders, promising railway lines, selling power stations to build up a financial war chest), the electorate had made up its mind and then spent time waiting patiently for the designated moment to dispense a massive defeat on Kristina Keneally and her colleagues.

The state of the national political debate has been bringing back memories of NSW politics and Labor’s decline in that state. Like Ms Keneally, federal Labor leader and Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and her government are confronting an electorate that appears not to be listening to her or her government. The evidence of this resides in the opinion polls, all of which failed to register any shift in voter support from the Liberal party to Labor on the back of what many commentators thought was a strong federal budget.

And even if the view that Mr Swan’s budget was considered to be politically astute isn’t universally held, it certainly was the case that the opposition leader Tony Abbott’s budget-in-reply effort was subject to almost universal condemnation by commentators who saw it as devoid of substance. So pervasive was this view that Abbott had failed some sort of test of his economic credentials that one of his leadership rivals in the form of Malcolm Turnbull appeared to launch a putative attack on Abbott via the climate change policy debate.

Meanwhile, at the National Press Club, the press rounded on shadow treasurer Joe Hockey for his alleged lack of policy substance. Signs of leadership strains and allegations of rubbery figures really ought to signal trouble for the opposition and Mr Abbott. The opinion polls, however, are indicating the opposite. Far from falling, voter support for the Coalition remains at landslide-delivering levels.

What is more, approval for Mr Abbott is preferred Prime Minister is on the rise and will soon overtake Ms Gillard’s approval rate (which appears to be in free-fall). The Gillard strategy, meanwhile, continues to be based on vilifying Abbott. Labor strategists are clearly of the view that voters won’t elect Tony Abbott as Prime Minister. Presumably this message is coming from Labor’s internal polling. It might be pointed out, however, the voter doubts about O’Farrell in NSW and Ted Baillieu in Victoria were recurring themes in opinion polls, but that this did not stop them from becoming Premier.

The key data is voting intentions, and the national polls indicate voter support for Labor at an all time low. In other words, the Labor strategy of banging on about Mr Abbott’s negativity is just not swaying voters. It may well be that Abbott’s firm oppositional line on things like the carbon tax is precisely what the voter wants to hear.

All Labor is doing is continually drawing attention to Abbott. It’s hard to recall a time when the government has gone so far out of its way to give the opposition leader so much publicity. Despite the budgetary inducements, the promise to be back in surplus and the hint of compensation for households on the back of the carbon tax, the Gillard government remains on track to sustain a defeat that might rival the landslide losses incurred by Gough Whitlam in 1975 and 1977, and Paul Keating in 1996, and it matters not if Abbott is the alternative.

Indeed, the only sign of movement in the national debate appears to be on the question of the Liberal leadership and the hint that Turnbull might be manoeuvring on the basis of the assumption – based on the polls – that whomsoever leads the Liberal party at the next election will be Prime Minister.