Australia's Prime Minister John Howard, aiming for his fifth term in office, faces an election drubbing, with voters ranking his opponent as more trustworthy and visionary, a new poll showed yesterday.
With his youthful opponent Kevin Rudd promising generational change taking the country into the future, the Labor Party has a 56 to 44 percent lead over Howard's conservatives on preferences, the AC Nielsen poll showed.
Rudd, 50, also maintains a strong 52 to 39 percent lead over Howard as preferred prime minister. And it is the 18th straight monthly lead for the opposition in the closely-watched survey.
"A point must come when John Howard leaps out of the aeroplane and hopes that a miracle opens the parachute," veteran political analyst Michelle Grattan wrote in the Age newspaper.
Howard, 68, known sarcastically as "Honest John" by many conservative political supporters, is expected to call an election this weekend, with voters going to ballot boxes on November 17 or 24.
Howard used a weekly radio message on Monday to highlight his economic credentials, which is the one area he has maintained a steady lead over Rudd. Rudd's support has come from his promises to re-shape education, health and employment law.
"I want Australia to become a full employment economy where anyone who wants a job and is able to work has a meaningful job that leads to a lasting career," Howard said, highlighting unemployment at 33-year lows.
But Howard's pitch has been blunted by successive central bank interest rises with a decade high of 6.5 percent, denting traditional conservative support in outer city mortgage belts.
"At the moment these people don't really care about the economy, they're saying they intend to vote Labor or Greens," AC Nielsen pollster John Stirton told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.
The survey shows Rudd has a 43 to 32 percent lead over Howard when it comes to trustworthiness, while Rudd has a 48 to 38 percent lead on the question of who had a better vision for Australia.
"The polls, it seems, are not going to provide any greater security before the jump," Grattan wrote.
Adding to Howard's woes, public opposition to the war in Iraq and Australia's military deployment there and in Afghanistan is eroding his usual strength in defense and security.
A long-running drought has also lifted the importance of climate change as a major issue for 8 in 10 voters, polls show.
That made Howard's backing last week of a new A$2 billion ($1.8 billion) timber pulp mill in the island state of Tasmania a political gamble. Howard, unlike Rudd, has refused to ratify the Kyoto climate pact, angering environmentalists.
(China Daily 10/09/2007 page 8)
Questions:
1. When is John Howard expected to call an election?
2. Why does John Howard anger environmentalists?
3. The survey shows the Labor Party leading by how many percent?
4. When are Australian voters likely to go to the polls?
Answers:
1. This weekend.
2. His refusal to ratify the Kyoto climate pact.
3. 56%.
4. November 17 or 24.
（英语点津 Linda 编辑）
About the broadcaster:
Marc Checkley is a freelance journalist and media producer from Auckland, New Zealand. Marc has had an eclectic career in the media/arts, most recently working as a radio journalist for NewstalkZB, New Zealand’s leading news radio network, as a feature writer for Travel Inc, New Nutrition Business (UK) and contributor for Mana Magazine and the Sunday Star Times. Marc is also a passionate arts educator and is involved in various media/theatre projects in his native New Zealand and Singapore where he is currently based. Marc joins the China Daily with support from the Asia New Zealand Foundation.
