News and politics live updates: Hanson poll slide hands Albanese lead as Coalition hits historic Newspoll low

Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming said she was forced to make a complaint to the police accusing a colleague of placing her in a headlock — an allegation she partly retracted — because the Liberal Party refused to investigate.

In a dispute that could make it harder for the Coalition to win power in Victoria, Ms Deeming said she was mistaken to accuse fellow Liberal Matthew Guy of placing her in a headlock at a crowded community event last month but insisted the male MP touched and held her against her will.

Ms Deeming said in a statement through her lawyer, Tim Houweling, that she was not “attributing motive” to Mr Guy, in what appeared to be an attempt to lower tensions without withdrawing the assertion she was manhandled.

“After the CCTV footage was released to media, our client was able to view the footage for the first time,” Mr Houweling said in a statement issued to The Nightly.

“She accepts that she misunderstood the technical meaning of the term ‘headlock’, but maintains that she used it in good faith to describe what happened.

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Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Ted O’Brien is “not reading too much” into the most recent Newspoll results, despite the Coalition struggling to gain numbers.

“Any politician would be a fool to not look at the polls but they’d also be bigger fools to read too much into it,” he told Nine.

“People are feeling the pain right now. The budget hasn’t helped and Mark (Butler) is right. Post-budget, of course, you do see some fluctuation in polls.”

Meanwhile, Opposition leader Angus Taylor spoke on Sydney’s 2GB this morning, “We were in freefall ... We’d seen two bust ups with the Coalition. Now the Coalition is solid. Solid as a rock,” he says.

“It’s going to take time because people need to rebuild trust in the Coalition, in a Liberal Party and National Party that has breached trust”.

Australia and Vanuatu are set to sign a landmark strategic agreement in Canberra today, bringing an end to months of negotiations that delayed the deal over concerns about Vanuatu’s sovereignty.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Vanuatu Prime Minister Jotham Napat are expected to formally sign the Nakamal Agreement almost 10 months after a planned signing ceremony in Port Vila was abruptly cancelled.

The final pact has been softened from its original form, with both nations removing clauses that would have restricted “third party involvement” in critical infrastructure such as ports, airports and telecommunications, provisions widely seen as targeting future Chinese investment in the Pacific nation.

A pair of polls has confirmed a post-Press Club headache for Pauline Hanson and One Nation, showing a slide in popularity since her high-profile speech.

They have even worse news for the coalition, with the much-respected Newspoll putting support for the opposition at a historic low of 17 per cent.

Labor has reclaimed a narrow lead in both the Newspoll and Redbridge surveys, released on Sunday night.

Newspoll, printed in The Australian, has Labor on 33 per cent (up three), with One Nation on 29 (down two) and the Greens on 14 (up two).

The Redbridge poll had Labor on 30 per cent support (up two) compared to One Nation’s 29 (down two), with the Coalition on just 18 (down two) and the Greens on 14 (up two).

The numbers are a sweet tonic for Anthony Albanese and his party, which has battled for post-budget credibility after breaking promises on tax.

The Redbridge poll, reported in the Australian Financial Review, also had Senator Hanson’s net approval falling 10 points from a neutral position to be -10.

The polls are the first major surveys since Senator Hanson’s expansive speech at the National Press Club which set the national discourse for days.

On that outing, she decried paid parental leave and suggested Australia should reject what she described as a failed policy of multiculturalism and instead become a “monoculture”.

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