Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Australians say Howard should have retired

More bad news for the Howard Government with a poll in this week's Bulletin magazine has found that 53% of those polled think John Howard should have retired.

Any thoughts of a last minute switch in leadership to Peter Costello does not appear to be a solution for the Government with the same poll finding that only 17% of respondents thought Costello would make a better PM.

Almost half of the respondents thought Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd would make the better prime minister, with 22% undecided.

Perhaps more surprising is the polls finding that 36.5% of respondents actually feel worse off than when Howard was elected in 1996, with 18.8% feeling the same. That means 55% of respondents feel no better off despite more than a decade of prosperity.

Despite other polls showing the Government with a commanding lead over the Opposition on who is best to handle the economy, this poll found almost 35% are undecided about who they trusted to handle the economy.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fancy seeing an article about JWH and the fact that "trust" is a bit thin on the ground these days ... I mean, it's .common knowledge that jh_lies.

Speaking of the Prosperity <-> FeelingWellOff dissonance, and such polling: do you have any poll data about people buying the " 3o yr consumer confidence high = good" line, whether folks pick up (in the light of record levels of household debt),that there's a shell game being played?

Cheers, Fred

Matilda said...

Fred,

I think the high consumer confidence, while an advantage for Howard and the Government, is also a disadvantage. The economy has been so strong for such a long time - even before his election in 1996 - that there is now a vast number of voters who think this kind of economy growth and stability is the norm. So scare campaigns about the "bad old days" of Labor is falling on a lot of deaf ears.