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Tuesday, April 06, 2004

Still in the Opposition by Christmas? 

Some helpful signs that comes Christmas this year, our troops might still be in Iraq helping that country's transition to normalcy; and comes Christmas this year, Mark Latham might still be the Leader of the Opposition.

The latest Newspoll shows that his "let's imitate Spanish Socialists and bend over" act didn't go down too well with the public. The Werriwa Appeaser (sounds like a good name for a local newspaper, doesn't it?) had dropped 14% in his approval rating (down to 52%), and his dissatisfaction rating has increased by 17% (to 32%). The gap between John Howard and Latham as preferred Prime Minister is up from just 1% two weeks ago to 11%. As the primary vote count shows there's still some way to go for the Government, but at least it looks like Latham's honeymoon is over.

Meanwhile, the latest Morgan poll shows that "A significant majority of Australian electors believe Prime Minister John Howard is a stronger leader than Opposition Leader Mark Latham (55% cf 32%) and 55% say he would be better at managing Australia's economy than Mr Latham, 25%... More electors trust the Prime Minister to keep Australia safe and secure (51% cf 32%). The Prime Minister was also favoured by electors as being more capable and intelligent than Mr Latham (49% cf 27%) and as making clearer policy statements (47% cf 34%)."

And in another poll, 95% of taxi drivers said they would feel safer giving John Howard a raid, versus 2% for Mark Latham and 3% for Saddam Hussein. Just joking.

And the last piece of news that Latham didn't need this morning is Gareth Evans coming out in support of the Government's position. Gareth "Gareth" Evans, now the head of the International Crisis Group, says: ""I didn't think that going to war was a great idea, but I do think that the international community has a responsibility to see this through now." My favourite quote from the news story, however, is: "Mr Latham and Labor foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd were unavailable for comment last night." Funny that.

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