Five days left and Howard looks a goner

[Robbien]

Source: New Zealand Herald

CANBERRA - Prime Minister John Howard today starts his final week of campaigning for Saturday's elections so far behind the only question remaining is how large a majority Labor will win.

. . .

If Labor's consistent 8-to-10-point lead in the polls does translate into a uniform national swing, Rudd would be swept to power in a landslide that would decimate the present Liberal leadership, toppling ministers across the country.

. . .

In an interview with Sydney's Sun-Herald, Rudd listed his top five priorities, in order, for his first days in office: ratification of the Kyoto protocols; opening negotiations with the states to reform Australia's struggling hospital system; a new high-speed broadband network, connected to all schools; upgrading trade training centres in secondary schools; and beginning negotiations with the United States to bring Australian combat troops home from Iraq by the middle of next year.

. . .

Latest Newspoll and Galaxy polls targeting marginal seats both pointed to defeat for the Government, with Newspoll also indicating the size of the hit Howard has taken among the nation's youth.

The Newspoll, in the Weekend Australian, said Rudd maintained a huge primary-vote lead of 750,000 voters aged 18-34 sufficient on their own to deliver victory to Labor with a lead of 78,000 among those aged 35-49.

Howard has a lead of 60,000 primary votes among the over-50s.



Read more: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10476861

---

It would be great if the Howard poodle goes. And Rudd doesn't sound bad at all so this may be a win win situation.

[eleny]

1. A shrub ally going down

[havocmom]

3. Like to believe that, but RWers world wide seem to pull off some election

miracles

I'll wait for vote count. Won't necessarily believe it, but I'll wait before celebrating

[LeftishBrit]

6. Who has pulled off election miracles? I agree that some RW-ers have won elections but they had been

expected to (e.g. Sarkozy). In fact, he did a bit *less* well than expected in the parliamentary elections.

Bush certainly pulled off some 'miracles'. I doubt that the RW could in Australia so easily: (a) voting is compulsory, making it (I would imagine) harder for pre-election polls to be badly out; (b) although they do use voting machines, the programming systems are readily available to public scrutiny.

[bbgrunt]

11. and they vote for parties, not individuals AND they

use a reiterative preference vote so it is much easier for 3rd parties to have an impact on voting. I was really surprised when Howard stayed in office last time.

Sending good vibes to all Ozlanders and wish I could be there to help celebrate!!

[patrice]

2. "trade training centers in secondary schools", oh we couldn't have that!

That would be SOCIALISM, oh! the horror!

[Harper_is_Bush]

4. Look at the last couple of paragraphs in the OP....only the old..

with their "beautiful minds", still cling to the selfishness of the rightwing ideology.

As they die off the youth, who've grown up watching the disasters that rightwing ideology brings - unneeded war and increased global warming - will set the agenda.

[alittlelark]

5. Good Riddance to bad rubbish.

[Judi Lynn]

7. It would be a godsend to think we've seen the last of this clown. n/t

[HughMoran]

17. ASS clown

:D

[boricua79]

8. great news

I'm so happy to see these power hungry asses get brought down.

And as for the people of the world...wake up! I hope the world has learned it's lessons about voting in Conservative governments and what they can do. The same goes for Extreme left stalinist regimes. people have to always be mindful.

[Peace Patriot]

18. "Extreme left stalinist regimes"? Who, pray, are you talking about?

And if it's who I think you're talking about, please provide evidence--and I don't mean Bushite "talking points." I mean evidence, facts, truth.

Welcome to DU! But be aware that you can't get away with comments like that here, without being challenged.

[boricua79]

26. no,

I'm not talking about Chavez...(god you guys are sensitive).

I'm talking about ACTUAL Stalinist regimes...you know...STALIN, Mao in China, The Kims in North Korea, etc.

Chavez is a democratically-elected socialist, and until he converts Venezuela into a communist dictatorship, he'll remain a democratically-elected populist-socialist to me.

[Peace Patriot]

27. Yeah, you get touchy when you see the "Big Lie" pushed, time and again, in

all the corporate news monopolies, and echoed here at DU. Sorry I misunderstood you.

[boricua79]

28. I understand.

:pals:

[Warpy]

9. I know my Ozzie friends were disgusted that Howard

won the last one. There's almost as much bad feeling toward him in Oz as there is toward his good buddy Stupid.

My take on it is that this time, he's toast.

[Andrushka]

21. Most definitely

Even life-long Liberal voters (with a capital 'L' - remember, in Australia, the Liberals are the right-leaning ones! (though by no means as wing-nuttish as some smaller parties)) have told me they cannot vote for another Howard term. Will be a very, very interesting election, not least because my party of choice, The Greens, has a very real chance of big upsets.

[kansasblue]

10. Australia is using E-vote,

howeverthe code being used in open source and is can be viewed by all.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2003/11/61045

[roamer65]

12. Buh-bye, John.

Good riddance to bad rubbish...Go ALP!!!!!

[rodeodance]

13. good for the Aussies--hope my congrat. are not premature.

[AlCzervik]

14. My friday night guilty pleasure the McLaughlin group said the same thing.

[Nutmegger]

15. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out you Bush kissing bastard!

:hi:

[Truth2Tell]

16. Is it too late to get Diebold

over there to fix this mess? :shrug:

[Pachamama]

19. Bet ole' John Howard is hoping for a terror attack....

Because that's all at this point that he could hope would give him "something" to be able to distract and get people fearful enough to vote for him....

I hope for the safety and future well being of all the Aussies out there that there is nothing that happens in the next 4 days and that Howard is no longer your Prime Minister....

[Peace Patriot]

20. I've seen the following explanations for why Brits and Aussies voted for these

Bush lapdogs, but they don't seem adequate, and, if there are members of the Commonwealth, or of the mother country, present, I would appreciate your thoughts.

1. The Brits. The issue was the EU, and they thought they needed Labor in office, to join or better cooperate with the EU, and benefit from this. This overrode the Iraq War issue, even though (I've read elsewhere) 80% of Brits were opposed to UK joining that awful war from the beginning. Also, the Conservatives would have meant more Thatcher-ish retrenchment in labor protections and other helps to the poor/middle class. In other words, Brits had no choice. Blair was the lesser of two evils, as so often happens here.

2. The Aussies. A wheat deal that Australia needed badly (Bush's bone to the Aussies). I don't know a poll stat on Aussie opposition to the war, but I presume it was high, maybe not as high as England. Did the Bali bombing have anything to do with support for the Irag (or Afghanistan) war?

Are either of these things true, in your opinion? Is there something else? It has been a great puzzle to me and others, why the people in England and Australia supported these governments, when you had transparent elections with which to oust them.

[LeftishBrit]

25. As regards the British...

We kept Blair in office because the alternative was the Tories. And the Tories are indeed worse, especially Michael Howard, the last Tory leader and a disgusting RW holdover from the Thatcher years. He was a very authoritarian Home Secretary under Major.

'Conservatives would have meant more Thatcher-ish retrenchment in labor protections and other helps to the poor/middle class.'

Yes - we hadn't forgotten the unemployment and other disastrous effects of Thatcher. And Howard was an architect of some of her government's worst policies, e.g. the 'poll tax'.

The EU was not the issue in quite the way you suggest. We've been in the EU for some times, and both party leaders supported remaining in it (though with some differences as to the exact degree of co-operation needed). Where the EU may have made some difference to the election, was in that there are some very ANTI-EU voters, who generally hold RW Tory ideals in other respects, and considered that even Howard wasn't RW enough. They voted for the small UKIP (UK Independence Party), which didn't get anywhere, but in some constituencies may have split the RW vote enough to keep the Tories out. I think Blair would have won very comfortably even without UKIP, but it may have made his majority a bit greater.

It should be noted that the Tories, for the most part, have been at least as pro-Iraq-war as New Labour - so we really didn't have a choice.

[Divine Discontent]

22. couldn't happen to a NICER Aussie! n/t

[minnesota_liberal]

23. GWB: "Is that my pal from Austria?"

But seriously, it would be such a bummer if another Bush toadie went down.

[oscarmitre]

24. Bugger the popcorn

Saturday night I'm loading up on sparking white wine (can't say "Champagne") and I'm going to watch this little toad and his mates booted out on their arses.

Howard has a lead of 60,000 primary votes among the over-50s.

Not with this 57 yr old he doesn't.