How's that second one, huh?
Posted on 10/19/2007 8:18:34 AM PDT by naturalman1975
JOHN Howard has slashed Kevin Rudd's poll lead in a tax cut-fuelled fightback confirming the election will be a hard fought contest after all.
The Herald Sun/Galaxy poll - the first conducted since the $34 billion tax cut was unveiled on Monday - reveals the Coalition has halved Labor's two-party preferred lead from 12 per cent to 6 per cent in just under four weeks.
While a Rudd-led Labor Party would still be swept comfortably to power with a uniform 6 per cent swing, the poll confirms the early tax gamble has paid off, giving Mr Howard control of the first week of the marathon campaign.
The exclusive poll also revealed that the Coalition's primary vote has jumped 3 points to 43 per cent. This is the highest it has been in any Galaxy poll this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
How's that second one, huh?
Rudd’s a socialist - albeit a fairly moderate one.
A Labor government under Kevin Rudd would therefore mean Australia becoming more socialist.
And he has committed to pulling most of Australia’s troops out of Iraq.
I’ll the experts speak up on this, but I’ll throw my two cents in, as well.
Howard is unpopular in Australia for several reasons, though primarily for the WorkChoices Legislation the Liberals introduced. It overhauled Australian industrial policies, nationalizing certain hiring standards, making it easier to dismiss employees, mandating secret ballots for industrial action, and doing away with pattern bargaining (i.e. a trade union gets entitlements from one company and then attempts to force that right to entitlement on other corporations in the industry).
An Australian could tell you far more about this than I could. They have a much different working environment than we do.
Suffice it to say that the unions were not happy with Howard. Nor were federalists. Howard sees this as streamlining the Australian economy and making it more competitive on a global scale.
There’s also the issue of the Iraq war and Australia’s mounting interest rates—even as the Aussie economy is perhaps stronger than it ever has been.
Obviously this is a tough sell to not only the working class but also to the youth—all of whom are mandated by law to vote in the elections.
Well, the current polls are showing Labor in front 53-47.
If I was seeing those numbers on the day before the election, I'd be confident of the Howard government retaining office, with a reduced majority.
Mathematically Labor is looking at a target of 52.1% of the two-party preferred vote to win power.
The situation is somewhat similar to the fact that a US President is elected by gaining a majority in the Electoral College, not a majority of the popular vote. Normally a majority in the Electoral College is accompanied by a majority in the popular vote, but not always.
In Australia, the government of the day (and hence the Prime Minister) is elected by gaining control of the House of Representatives in the Commonwealth Parliament. Normally gaining a majority in the House is accompanied by a majority in the overall vote, but not always.
And the current state of the Australian Parliament, means Labor is very unlikely to win unless it clears 52%.
53% would be enough, but historically most Australian opinion polls tend to overstate the ultimate winning vote by about two percentage points - so a 53-47 in the polls is likely to equate to about a 51-49 final vote, and with that result, the Coalition would hold on with a majority of around 5-10 seats (the current majority is 27).
But it's still just over a month until the election. The polls could change a lot in that month.
And in the final analysis, one mistake can cost either side the election. The Coalition is often said to have lost the 'unloseable' 1993 election based on one question in one interview - when the then Leader of the Opposition gave a very confusing answer to a question about whether a birthday cake would cost more or less under his new taxation proposals. And allowed Labor to paint the whole system as too complicated.
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