(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – The emergence of a new opposition leader did not alter voting intention in Australia, according to a poll by Newspoll published in The Australian. 43 per cent of respondents would support the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in the next election to the House of Representatives.
(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – The emergence of a new opposition leader did not alter voting intention in Australia, according to a poll by Newspoll published in The Australian. 43 per cent of respondents would support the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in the next election to the House of Representatives.
The Coalition of Liberals and National is second with 38 per cent, followed by the Australian Greens with 11 per cent. Australia’s preferential voting system—where electors indicate an order of predilection for each contender, and the ballots from smaller parties are re-distributed—gives the ALP a 12-point lead over the Coalition.
Australia held a federal election in November 2007. Final results gave the ALP 85 seats in the 150-member House of Representatives. ALP leader Kevin Rudd was officially sworn in as prime minister in December, bringing an end to the 11-year tenure of Liberal leader John Howard as head of Australia’s government.
Howard failed to retain his seat in the Bennelong constituency and stepped down as Liberal leader. Since their electoral defeat in 2007, the Liberals have had three different leaders: former defence minister Brendan Nelson, former environment minister Malcolm Turnbull, and former health minister Tony Abbott, who defeated Turnbull in an internal leadership ballot by just one vote on Dec. 1.
On Dec. 13, Abbott called for a re-evaluation of the industrial relations policies passed during Howard’s tenure, saying, "I should point out that just because WorkChoices is dead, it doesn’t mean we don’t still need a free as well as a fair labour market, and I would certainly like to see less union power than we have been witnessing under the Rudd government. So WorkChoices is well and truly dead but there are some aspects, many aspects of the Howard government policies, until WorkChoices went too far, that we do need to keep."
Polling Data
If a federal election to the House of Representatives were held today, which one of the following would you vote for? If "Uncommitted", to which one of these do you have a leaning?
|
Dec. 6 |
Nov. 29 |
Nov. 15 |
|
|
Australian Labor Party |
43% |
43% |
43% |
|
Coalition (Liberal / National) |
38% |
35% |
37% |
|
Australian Greens |
11% |
12% |
11% |
|
Others |
8% |
10% |
9% |
Two-Party Preferred Vote
|
Dec. 6 |
Nov. 29 |
Nov. 15 |
|
|
Australian Labor Party |
56% |
57% |
56% |
|
Coalition (Liberal / National) |
44% |
43% |
44% |
Source: Newspoll / The Australian
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 1,152 Australian voters, conducted from Dec. 4 to Dec. 6, 2009. Margin of error is 3 per cent.
