In fact, Mr Shorten's personal approval continues to climb with fully two-thirds of voters viewing his performance as either satisfactory (41.5%) good (15.9%) or very good (9.2%).

The ReachTEL/Seven News survey of more than 3500 voters was taken on Sunday afternoon, the eve of the 100-day milestone.

It confirmed the findings of the most recent Fairfax-Nielsen and Newspoll surveys revealing that Mr Shorten's ALP Opposition already leads by 4 percentage points at 52/48 over the Coalition.

Even on primary votes, Labor is virtually level pegging with the combined Liberal and Nationals parties at 40.4 per cent to the Coalition on 41.4.At the September 7 election, the Coalition easily trumped Labor, securing 46 per cent of the primary vote compared to Labor's meagre return of just 33 per cent.

Among the otherwise gloomy news for the Coalition was the finding that half of all voters believe it has done a satisfactory, good, or very good job in its first 100 days.

But on individual performance it's a different story.

The ReachTEL poll shows the collapse of support for the Coalition Government is being led by dissatisfaction with Mr Abbott's own performance, with 52.1 per cent of voters marking his prime ministership as either poor, or very poor.

The Government has been stung in its early months by political problems which it has been slow to manage. These have included a series of revelations that MPs had abused travel entitlements to fund their attendances at private social and political events such as weddings and football matches.

The Indonesian spying affair dating back to 2009 has also scuttled the new government's relationship with Jakarta just at a time when it needed optimum co-operation to achieve its stop-the-boats promise.

But its most grievous problem was the ham-fisted mismanagement of the education portfolio, which saw Mr Abbott first look to break an election commitment on schools funding before thinking better of it and returning to his original election pledge.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/shortens-popularity-climbs-while-abbotts-slumps-20131216-2zhku.html#ixzz2nhlcxev0

On a day when you might have expected him to sound grim, Treasurer Joe Hockey managed one note of humour over the projected size of Australia's debt in this exchange with economics journalist Jessica Irvine.

Jessica Irvine: "You've got a really big number in there: $667 billion, which is $1 billion more than the devil's number - and you can have that for free."

Joe Hockey: "Well it was 666.66, I'm told."

But the real devil is in the detail of the Government's forecasts.

About half of this year's budget deterioration, and almost all of 2016-17's descent from a forecast $8 billion surplus to a $14 billion deficit, are due to so-called "parameter variations".

Mr Hockey says this is due to a softening economy. But AMP Capital Investors chief economist Shane Oliver says if anything, the economy has improved slightly since August's pre-election fiscal outlook.

"Not much has really changed since August in terms of the economic outlook, but we have seen, quote, 'a significant downgrade to the growth assumptions which affects federal government revenue'," he said.

"So it may well be the case that by the time we get to the May budget that those numbers have become a bit more optimistic again and therefore the budget projections probably won't be quite as bleak."

Mr Oliver says it's likely some politics are at play in the downgraded forecasts.

"I think what we are seeing in this statement is a degree of politics; the government wanting to paint things as bad as they can such that they can then turn it around, and obviously that turnaround story might start with the May budget."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-17/joe-hockey-myefo-budget-details/5162512

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May be you should visit: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/8735 

ESPECIALLY: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/8735#comment-11142

How on Earth did we convince ourselves this bunch would be miles better at fixing the budget than the last lot?

Joe Hockey claims his midyear budget update is an honest assessment of the state of fiscal affairs he inherited from Labor. It isn't.

Rather, it is an attempt to lower expectations about the speed and ease with which the Coalition will be able to get the budget back on track.

Treasurer Joe Hockey has poured cold water over reports of a multibillion-dollar federal government rescue package for struggling Australian farmers, arguing there is no proposal before cabinet.

The Treasurer said the government was ''well aware'' of what was happening on Australian farms but argued on Monday that the government had a new farming assistance package beginning in July this year, as well as existing state and federal support.

He told ABC Radio that farmers with debt problems should  ''speak to the people that they owe the money to as a starting point''.

This followed a report that Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce had pledged he would wage a ''mighty battle'' in cabinet for a $7 billion bail-out package for ''distressed'' farm loans.

But Mr Hockey said he had spoken to his colleague and that the report was not accurate. Mr Joyce travelled to drought-stricken country areas, including St George and Coonamble, over the weekend on a 'listening tour'.