Latham could win election: poll (Australian PM) | ABC (Australia)

[Ediacara]

Last Update: Tuesday, February 10, 2004. 1:03am (AEDT)

Latham could win election: poll


Mark Latham is ready for first day
of Parliament for 2004. (Reuters)

Debate is expected to be fiery in Parliament today as the latest opinion poll shows Labor leader Mark Latham continues to win over voters.

Federal MPs and senators are back in Canberra for the first sitting day of the parliamentary year.

The Newspoll in The Australian newspaper shows the two parties level pegging on a primary vote of 41 per cent, the first time since 2002.

On a two party preferred basis Labor has shot ahead to 53 per cent, with the Coaltion's vote slumping to 47 per cent.

More at ABC (Australia)

[David__77]

1. Australian Labor must win!

We need another nation for justice and civil rights! Best of luck to them.

[truthspeaker]

2. Howard is such an arrogant bastard about Iraq

He deserves to be thrown out on his ass.

Say, whatever happened to those Australian citizens in Gitmo? Are they still there?

[Eureka]

7. Yep still there

And the govt has still said nothing, done nothing. Gee, don't want to offend the chimp now do we. Howard and his conga line have been bursting to sell out the Aussies to the corporate interests in the US (no offence, but we're being sold to the same companies US citizens have been/are being sold to) with the free trade agreement while doing nothing at all for the citizens.

Apparently they won't ask for them back because they have done nothing wrong as per Australian law (and they say that with a straight face.... white is black, war is peace blah blah blah)

[PROGRESSIVE1]

3. Labour must win!!!!!!!!!

We need one more country on the side of good.

[Minstrel Boy]

4. Aussies: is Latham a "third way" Labor leader

in the Blairite fashion, or is there more cause to cheer?

[PROGRESSIVE1]

5. He is a staunch critic of Bush, especcially on foreign policy.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/2003/Feb03/Latham.htm


snip:

"Bush himself is the most incompetent and dangerous president in living memory. It is somewhat inappropriate to be preaching democratic values when he himself failed to win a democratic majority in the 2000 presidential election. His war with Iraq is more about making good his father's mistakes; about things that happened in Iraq and Kuwait in the early 1990s; and securing a domestic political advantage, than a rational assessment of the best way to defeat terrorism. Post-September 11, Bush needs to be seen to be acting, giving the American electorate a sense of revenge and puffed-up patriotism. If he cannot catch Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein is the next best thing for the American Republican Right."

[Minstrel Boy]

6. wonderful quote, thanks! n/t

[Ediacara]

8. wow

Saying things like that makes me genuinely scared for his safety :-(

I hope Labour keeps its lead in the polls and kicks some ass!

[vanityfair]

15. Excellent!

I hope he wins!

We need more leaders to come out and "tell it like it is."

[Yerta Bulti]

11. he is a politician....

IMHO he knows his audience and says the right thing for them. The remarks he made about Bush were great but don't expect anything like that for a while.

Latham is often lauded as being the author of 6 books (I have lauded him myself on this forum for this) - I urge anyone with an interest in this guy to read one of his books, or at least read this review of his books:

http://www.crikey.com.au/politics/2004/01/25-0001.html

The review sums up what is not alright about Latham - he is just another NSW Right figure. His tendency to say what his audience wants to hear will snare him in contradictions eventually. His economics are right wing, his social policy appears to be a kind of patronising nanny state. In addition, AFAIK he has nothing to say about aborigines. He is fast being transformed by media minders into another palatable frankenstein, though this may be the correct thing to do.

Despite these which IMHO are his worst points, he might become a great PM. Or he might be a slightly yobbish aussie Blairoid with a bunch of hair brained contradictory books to draw policy from. Either way a Labor PM and a Green controlled Senate would be infinitely superior to what we have now.

[Matilda]

12. I agree with your viewpoint ... Latham has some contrary views.

Such as the woolly scheme he put forward of starting a bank account
for every child's education from their birth - does this mean
there'll be bugger-all help from Labor under Latham?

Some of his ideas seem to come from the left, some are quite
reactionary, and there are some things he's not talked about much -
such as mandatory detention of children of asylum seekers,or another
vote on the republic. But the thought of another three years of
Howard is too much to bear, and I think things are slowly becoming
unravelled for him. I'll support Latham, because there's absolutely
no-one else with a chance of unseating Howard. But I wonder if
Latham will turn out to be a one-term prime minister?

I think Julia Gillard is someone to watch - highly intelligent,
quick on her feet, and a tough debater. Maybe, just maybe, she
will end up being our first female P.M.

[SoCalDem]

9. ummm.. errrr.. Do you vote on Diebold machines there??

Here's hoping you have paper & pen :)He sounds like a winner :)

[wysi]

10. There's a paper trail...

... so no UN intervention for Australia! (I am both an Australian and a US citizen).

[Djinn]

18. another not so happy aussie

in a "better-than-howard" way - yeah this is good news, but Latham is actually further to the right than Howard on many economic issues although much much better on social issues (Can you say "sorry") but I'm not going to be throwing any huge parties if he beats Howard, for starters I've got a long memory and I remember whch party came up with mandatory detention of refugees who arrive by boat - wasn't Howard's band of mean men. Also from my own experience within it the ALP is FAR more sexist than the Liberal Party on many issues and I doubt very very much they'll have a female leader anytime soon


For wysi - I thought to get US citizenship you had to renounce any others? hence why Rupert isn't an Australian anymore? was that never the case or had it changed/has it changed recently

[interupt]

16. Aussie voting machines are Open Source

http://www.elections.act.gov.au/EVACS.html

- Unix based
- completely open sourced
- and was petitioned to the public as a trial run so it could be tested to my knowledge ( I read an article on Buzzflash about them but its gone now)

[foreigncorrespondent]

13. Oh this is the best news.

Howard is so done!

[Josh]

14. Not yet, but we'll see -

Howard is plowing ahead with extremely conservative proposals and with an arrogance that seems to imply he thinks the election is a done deal. Doubtless they will look to manufacture some external crisis that will scare people leading up to election day, but the public may not fall for it this time. Still, at this stage it will still be a close election.

[interupt]

17. Its called a man trap people.

THe parallels to the US and the Australian elections are frightening and this could be a biig trap.

- Its 9 months away and Labour is still enjoying a good surge due to a new leader and a new platform that is finally getting some media coverage.

- The RW pundits are going psycho at the moment trying to claw back attention to the PM (Bolt, Ackerman, Barnes)

- May budget is two months away (Picture Costello shaking the piggy bank and sheepishly shrugging his shoulders) "No money for labour promises"

- "October Suprise" will 'vindicate' the PM.

We can just hope that Labour will stick to their issues and be consistent and ignore the polls. Hit the Coalition where it hurts

- "Vote for Howard is a vote for Costello"
- Why is the treasurer blocking FIO requests for budget figures showing tax rates?
- Medicare
- Single income families
- The FTA (though may backfire)

[Djinn]

19. speaking of which

can't beleive the ALP's silence on the PBS effecting parts of the trade agreements reached the other day....the Lib's have been blue in the face repeating "PBS wont change, drugs wont be more expensive" but I've heard not one Labor party spokesman mention that Pharma's will now have the right to appeal decisions (usually because they've been knocked back coz they want to charge more) which they have never been able to do before, this may mean that at the point of sale there is no price rise for the individual customer but means we can watch the cost of the scheme sky-rocket

[interupt]

20. Tell me about it

However, there is no detail and the Libs have been deliberatly clouding the issue in this sitting of parliament. I believe labour is on the right tack about hitting the govt over sugar but keeping quiet until the devil in the detail has been revealed.....hopefully though it won't be long.

[dArKeR]

21. Australia opposition surges in polls

Australia's new opposition leader has propelled Labor into an election-winning position, according to an opinion poll published yesterday as the national parliament resumed at the start of a feisty election year.

The conservative government, now under threat, was expected to try to ambush Labor leader Mark Latham on his economic record, while Labor was set to attack the government for selling out the nation's farmers in a new free trade deal with the United States.

The rising political tension came as a Newspoll survey, published in The Australian newspaper, showed center-left Labor was neck-and-neck with the eight-year-old government for the first time in 18 months, with support for both at 41 percent.

http://www.etaiwannews.com/Asia/2004/02/11/1076464310.htm