Napthine's honeymoon is over, for Shaw THE rational analysis of Denis Napthine's leadership is that he has been a game-changer for the Coalition. Yet if an election were held last month, Napthine could have been booted out of office. There are important caveats to this assumption, including that the final electoral boundaries have not been ratified, but the Newspoll numbers will be worrying for every Coalition MP in a marginal seat. Even more so given that the Liberal independent MP Geoff Shaw was charged yesterday - after the Newspoll was conducted - with multiple offences in relation to the alleged abuse of his parliamentary allowances. The July-August Newspoll comes at a time when the Labor brand has been trashed federally and the party is entering a prolonged debate about who should be running the ALP show out of Canberra. There also has been a national resurgence towards conservative politics. The Greens are down nationally. So is Labor. Despite all this, Napthine is struggling and there is a creeping sense that he has lost some of the momentum he had when he replaced Ted Baillieu in March. If he has made a strategic error around the $8 billion East West Link through Melbourne's inner north, it's not in his having moved decisively to build it. It is that the government has focused too much attention on one project. It needs to broaden its agenda, and not in a piecemeal fashion. But Napthine has successfully focused on the regions, where the election in November next year will possibly be won and lost. What he must also deal with now, though, is the awkward fallout from the charges against Shaw. It was an awful day for Napthine yesterday, and this Newspoll gives him even more to contemplate.