Tuesday, 27th September, 2005

Opinion polls two years out from an election are really rather pointless. Who cares about the result of a theoretical election held last weekend? After a week in which Mark Latham did his best to discredit the Labor Party he led at the last election it should surprise no one that the theoretical polls had John Howard being returned as Prime Minister.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of what the pollsters purported to tell us is the indication that support for both the governing Coalition and Labor is on the wane. Newspoll had the Liberal vote two percentage points less than at the election last 9 October, with the Nationals down one point and Labor down three and a half. The Greens were shown as slight beneficiaries of the swing against the major parties. Support for the Democrats has apparently shrunk to the point that they are no longer measurable in their own right but Newspoll put the vote for "others" 5.5 points higher.

With 22 per cent of people polled indicating they would vote for minor parties and independents (Greens 8% and others 14%) the ground is fertile for the emergence of another third force to replace the departed Democrats and One Nation.