What If No One Is Listening?
The Age
Tuesday July 17, 2007
THE Prime Minister, John Howard, turns 68 next week. Then he has only three years and one month to go, should he still be in the job, to equal the record of his idol, Sir Robert Menzies.
The proposition is loaded with symbolism and "what ifs", the greatest being the election. The age of a person, possessed of a fitness of mental faculty, should have no bearing on the ballot. However, the age of that person's government may. Mr Howard and his cabinet met in Canberra yesterday in the shadow of yet another bad result in an opinion poll. The Age/ACNielsen poll, published yesterday, put the Opposition ahead 58 per cent to the Coalition's 42 per cent on a two-party preferred basis. On the primary vote, Labor was on 49 per cent to the Coalition's 39 per cent. It is the 15th successive month that Labor has led the Government. Kevin Rudd became Labor leader last December. Since then, out of 50 national polls none has put the Coalition ahead. This is despite a well-received budget and, in recent weeks, initiatives by Mr Howard such as the intervention in indigenous affairs, a softening on industrial relations and climate change and a national broadband strategy. However, the polls say the Coalition is on the nose in two areas: industrial relations and the war in Iraq. In 1996, one of Labor's slogans was "you may not like Paul Keating, but you have to respect him". It did not wash with voters. After 13 years of Labor rule, they had stopped listening. Which begs the corollary: are voters listening to Mr Rudd? Perhaps the Coalition's greatest enemy is its greatest success. If inflation is low, if unemployment is low, if interest rates are steady, then why should people listen? Does this make Mr Rudd more appealing? The polls would suggest yes, yet little separates the two parties. In Julius Caesar Brutus says: "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." Mr Howard's challenge is to turn the tide of public opinion; Mr Rudd's, it seems, is merely not to drown. We would hope for the sake of the future, there is more depth to both men.
© 2007 The Age