Morrison?s approval dives over vaccine rollout, grants and Brittany Higgins fallout, poll suggests

Voter approval of Scott Morrison has dived 19 points in a year as voters marked down the prime minister for vaccine bungles, sustained controversy over the allocation of taxpayer funded grants, and the extended furore over parliament's #MeToo reckoning.

A year of Guardian Essential data reveals the high-water mark of Morrison's voter approval was in February, when 65% of survey respondents said they approved of his performance, and 28% said they disapproved.

But in the final poll of 2021, only 46% of respondents say they approve of the prime minister's performance, while 44% disapprove. The last survey of the year has 1,095 respondents.

With the federal election now in sight, Morrison remains comfortably ahead of the Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, on Guardian Essential's better prime minister measure.

In the new poll, 42% of respondents say they prefer Morrison to Albanese, 31% say they prefer the Labor leader, and 27% of respondents don't know who they prefer.

But Morrison's standing on the better prime minister metric is now 10 points lower than it was at the start of 2021. Back in February, Morrison led Albanese as "better prime minister" by 52% to 24%.

While the prime minister has lost standing with the public, approval and disapproval of the opposition leader has been steady throughout 2021.

In the latest poll, 40% of respondents approve of Albanese's performance and 36% disapprove. The Labor leader's high point was back in January when 42% of respondents approved and 33% disapproved.

Going into the election year, the data suggests Albanese's challenge is to become better known. The proportion of voters in the survey saying they don't know whether they approve or disapprove of Albanese remains significantly higher than Morrison. In the final poll of the year, 24% of respondents don't have a view about Albanese's performance, compared with 9% for Morrison.

While the prime minister battled turbulence on a range of fronts, the Covid-19 pandemic again dominated the political year.

Morrison opened 2021 with strong approval for his management of the public health crisis, with the high point recorded in March, where 70% of respondents characterised Canberra's response as good. Only 12% said it was poor.

But as public controversy grew about the lack of available vaccines, and Australia battled the Delta wave, approval of the Morrison government's management of the pandemic slid from a clear majority of respondents to 36% by the end of August.

Guardian Essential data indicates Morrison began to recover after the winter, with an uptick in September. By November, 48% of respondents characterised the government's performance as good.

But approval has dropped again over the past month as the Omicron variant has triggered another wave of community anxiety in the run up to summer holidays.

In the latest survey, 41% of Guardian Essential respondents say Morrison's pandemic management is good, and 32% say poor.

While the premiers have also suffered a slide in voter approval of their pandemic management - all state leaders remain ahead of Morrison.

In the latest survey, respondents were asked how they would rate their state government's response to Covid-19. The percentage of respondents who said "good" was 54% in New South Wales, 43% in Victoria, 57% in Queensland, 57% in South Australia, and 78% in Western Australia.

Voters are happier in the states that have not endured long lockdowns, and all of the states are past their high-water mark for 2021. March was the high point for NSW (75%), Queensland (75%) South Australia (85%) and WA (91%), and Victoria was May (63%).

Voters were asked in the final survey for the year whether 2021 had been good or bad on a range of measures. While the data suggests the second year of the pandemic has created stress and strain, 34% of respondents said the year had been good for them and their family and 31% said good for their finances.

Significant minorities thought 2021 had been bad for the economy (47%), politics (42%) and the planet (43%). A majority (60%) thought the year had been bad for small business and 42% thought bad for the average Australian.

Respondents were also given a list of issues to assess over the life of the Coalition government. Legalising same-sex marriage topped the list of things voters thought the Coalition had done well since Tony Abbott's election in 2013 (49% of respondents thought that had been done well, with 21% of that cohort rating the issue as important to them), while 28% thought that had not been done well.

When it came to Covid-19 vaccinations - which went from the notorious "stroll out" to Australia recording one of the highest vaccination rates in the world - 45% of respondents thought that had been done well, while 40% thought the opposite. Of the not done well cohort, 31% reported that issue was important to them.

Around a third of respondents (36%) thought the Coalition had managed the catastrophic summer bushfires in 2019-20 well. But 42% said that disaster was not managed well, and 31% of the negative cohort said the mishandling was important to them.

While Tony Abbott won an election in 2013 promising to repeal the carbon price, 35% of respondents now say that issue was not done well, and 16% of that cohort are Coalition voters.

Nearly half of the sample (49%) say the Coalition has not handled issues around corruption well (29% say the opposite). Of the not done well cohort, 35% say that particular issue is important to them, and 25% are self-identified Coalition voters.

The ratios are similar for the furore triggered by the government's handling of the alleged sexual assault of former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins. Half the sample says the government bungled the handling of the allegations (29% say the issue was well handled). Of the not done well cohort, 35% of respondents say the issue is important to them.

Morrison and Albanese have ended 2021 with a blitz of campaigning in marginal seats ahead of a federal election contest that could be called as soon as the end of January. But the government has scheduled parliament to return in early February, with a budget in the calendar for March.