Guy Beres

Despite a pointless pursuit of Kevin Rudd by the media on his relationship with Brian Burke, the Prime Minister is currently riding high with the highest preferred Prime Minister ratings in Newspoll’s twenty year history of such polls. The Coalition has already sensed that Rudd is top dog, and are instead concentrating their attacks on Treasurer Wayne Swan. Swan clearly needs to pick up the confidence levels and assertiveness quick smart if he is going to retain his job in the long-term.

Personally it is greatly reassuring to me that so soon after the government’s supposedly contentious delivery of a formal apology to the stolen generations, Rudd’s political standing remains not only rock solid but at record-breaking levels. Arguably it reinforces the point that although there is still a bit of anti-apology (and we may as well say “anti-compassion”) sentiment out there in the electorate, this sentiment is decidedly in the minority. From a progressive, dare I say left-wing point of view, this provides a not insubstantial dose of hope that the country will now finally cease to stagnate on issues of great social import.

Perhaps a touch more conclusively, it also says something about the Coalition. On the other side of the fence, sadly a very fragile hope is all that Brendan Nelson has at the moment in his position as Opposition Leader. That Nelson is currently burdened with just a 9% rating as preferred Prime Minister tells one a certain something about the current state of play with the major parties in this country. Federal Labor have succeeded (perhaps beyond their wildest expectations) in replacing John Howard with a mainstream, quasi-conservative figure, whom the “Howard battlers” can see a respectable degree of good in. That 70% of people prefer Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister sends a strong message to the Coalition that Brendan Nelson is currently not providing the leadership they require in order to be competitive. That only 9% of respondents prefer Nelson as Prime Minister more or less confirms that only rusted on supporters and party zealots (and Nelson’s friends and family) have elected to board the Nelson “I’ve never voted Liberal in my life” Express Train towards a Turnbull Opposition.

The clock must surely already be ticking. Having won the leadership and then completed a horrendously messy about-face on the apology issue, Nelson needs to be competitive or make way. One wonders if the Coalition party room, having not had the guts to do the politically intelligent thing and endorse Turnbull initially, will now have the guts to realise their error fast enough.

Tags: Brendan Nelson, Malcolm Turnbull, Polls

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 9:02 pm and is filed under Nelson Opposition, Rudd Labor Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.