- The opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP) holds the upper hand in the country's federal political scene, according to a poll by Roy Morgan International. 42 per cent of respondents would support the ALP, while 39 per cent would vote for the governing Coalition of Liberals and Nationals.

The Australian Greens are third with 9.5 per cent, followed by the Australian Democrats, Family First and One Nation. 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 10-point lead over the Coalition.

In the October 2004 election, prime minister John Howard was rewarded with a fourth term in office, as the Coalition secured 87 seats in the House of Representatives. The ALP—led by Mark Latham—elected 60 lawmakers. In January 2005, Kim Beazley took over as opposition leader. Beazley commanded the ALP from March 1996 to November 2001.

Yesterday, Howard presented his Skills for the Future plan, which seeks to provide 500 additional places for university engineering students, and 30,000 annual vouchers to assist adults who wish to finish high school or receive vocational training. The prime minister declared: "The merit of it is to address the fact that there are a lot of mature-age workers, a lot of people who have been in jobs for a long time, who never got to year 12."

Beazley criticized the proposal, saying, "It is a response to a crisis of the prime minister's own creation. It is a product not of any sincere convictions on his part but of his political fears. We do not mind our policies being pinched. But this is nowhere near enough to address the 10 years of neglect."

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