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Not Believing the Evidence

Tuesday, 25th April, 2006

The McNairAndersen poll in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age yesterday has joined Newspoll in having Labor as being in an election winning position. Nothing remarkable about that really. Over the last year Newspoll has had Labor in front in 13 polls and the Liberals in 12. (See Federal - The Australian Newspolls)

What is remarkable is the reluctance of most political commentators to react to the polls in a way that suggests Labor has a very good chance of winning the next election. This is shown by the way that the Canberra based journalists now invariably publicise whether the public think Howard or Beazley would be the better Prime Minister. With Howard still well in front on this question, the assumption is that Beazley is not doing well and that a Liberal Party led by him will inevitably go on to another victory.

For months now, government backbenchers in marginal seats have shown a similar complacency to the neck and neck opinion poll figures. That is why all the heat has gone out of the argument about whether Howard should step down and let Peter Costello take over.

A few more months of figures like those in today’s McNairAndersen poll and the vulnerable Liberal and National members will start getting restless and the speculation about a Prime Ministerial retirement will start afresh. And the chances of the polls continuing to show Labor as winners are very high.

There is undoubtedly considerable concern among wage earning Australians at the potential for their bosses to arbitrarily sack them because of the changes in industrial relations law. The ACTU is showing considerable skill at publicising every real or imagined example of unfair treatment. Unless and until the concern is found by wage earners to be groundless, the government will continue to suffer on this front.

Another negative is the AWB kickbacks inquiry. This issue does not have the personal impact of industrial relations but it is again undermining the Honest John image of the Prime Minister. People just do not believe the assertions of Howard and his other ministers that they did not know that kickbacks were being paid to Iraq. Labor will keep on attacking the government’s credibility.

Foreign policy, long a strength for the conservative side of Australian politics, now has its dangers. There is no public enthusiasm for having troops in Iraq. While Labor might not question having them in an Afghanistan where becoming a Christian is a capital offence, others surely will. The Solomon Islands will soon be seen as an expensive bungle. Appeasing Indonesia is not a good look.

All it will take for panic to set in among government MPs is for next month’s budget not to widely applauded. A luke warm, so what public response, accompanied by an even stronger two party preferred support for Labor, and the calls will start going out for Peter Costello.