CANBERRA, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- Two-thirds of Australians believe Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce should resign after he engaged in an extramarital affair with a member of his staff, a poll has found.
The latest Newspoll, released on Sunday night, revealed that 65 percent of respondents want Joyce, leader of the National Party of Australia, to step down.
Joyce's relationship with former media adviser Vikki Campion, who is expecting their child in April, was the source of a feud between Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his deputy last week which came to a head when Joyce called Turnbull "inept."
The political firestorm has harmed the government, Newspoll found, as it lost ground to the opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP) to trail 53-47 on a two-party preferred basis.
It marks the 27th consecutive Newspoll that Turnbull's Liberal National Party (LNP) has lost on a two-party basis, only three short of the 30 straight losses under former leader Tony Abbott before Turnbull defeated him in a leadership ballot.
The government's primary vote also suffered as a result of the Joyce saga, down 2 points to 36 percent, one point below Labor.
If an election was held and those poll numbers were accurate, the LNP would lose in a landslide, surrendering as many as 13 seats to the ALP in the lower house of parliament.
In addition to his party taking a battering, Turnbull's personal approval rating also fell significantly with 40 percent of the 1,632 respondents picking him as their preferred prime minister, down 5 points from the previous poll.
The PM's approval rating also fell 3 percent to 34 while his disapproval went up 4 percent to give him a net satisfaction rating of -20, identical to that of ALP Leader Bill Shorten.
