According to the latest Roy Morgan Research quarterly Trust and Distrust report Peter Dutton’s nuclear plans are not shaping up as a big winner and, worse, are adding to his problems with women.

The latest research asked which form of energy do you most trust to ensure a reliable source of energy. Of the total sample 47% nominated renewables, 31% nuclear and 20% fossil fuels. When this is broken down by gender 56% of females support renewables compared with 38% of males.

In the 31% who support nuclear 39% of males do but only 22% of females.

On the question of whether respondents support building nuclear plants the split of all respondents is 50% for and 50% against.  But yet again there is a big gender gap – 62% of women oppose while 63% of men support.

Of course, both parties have a much bigger problem than support for renewables versus nuclear although that issue is adding to the bigger problems.

The latest Newspoll survey for The Australian showed only 28 per cent of voters nominated Albanese and Dutton as their preferred leaders of Labor or the Coalition. The RedBridge research group dub this phenomenon as the ‘double haters’ – a term which emerged in response to the choices in the US Presidential election although whether recent events are changing that is not yet known.

RedBridge director, Tony Barry, told the ABC (17 June) that the most important attributes for leaders – whether political or business – were honesty, vision, empathy, hope, vision, strength and shared values. “In our research, voters don’t recognise these attributes in either major party candidate and instead what we are seeing is the emergence of, and rise of, the ‘double haters’ across the Australian political landscape.”

This suggests, RedBridge says, that the election contest will be about which leader is most disliked.  To illustrate this, they cite their finding that when asked whether the leaders give “people like me hope” 29% believed Albanese did and 51% said he didn’t. For Dutton 27% said he gave hope while 46% said he didn’t.

As for whether either leader had empathy for them only 29% thought Albanese did while 51% did not. With Dutton only 31% thought he had empathy for them and 46% said they didn’t.

The usual Australian response to such situations is to change leaders. That seems unlikely in both situations but as it is part of standing operating practice for Australian political parties who knows if it won’t happen again.

Meanwhile it’s all good news for Greens and Independents.