Cheers from below, Mike B)
Latham, ALP romp home in latest poll
CANBERRA
MARK LATHAM is the most popular Opposition leader since Bob Hawke in 1983 and would have led Labor to a crushing win in an election last weekend.
The ACNielsen poll shows that on a two-party preferred basis Labor leads at 54 per cent - up six percentage points - to the coalition's 46 per cent - down six points.
If the swing was evenly distributed across the country, the ALP would have won 48 seats for a 28-seat majority at an election.
In the three months since Mr Latham replaced Simon Crean as Labor leader, John Howard has dropped 11 points as preferred prime minister, to 47 per cent. Mr Latham is up nine, to 43 per cent.
The coalition's first-preference vote was down six points to 39 per cent while Labor's vote was up six points to 43 per cent from the previous poll done immediately after Mr Latham's elevation.
And Mr Latham's performance was approved by 62 per cent of respondents. Only 19 per cent disapproved. The rest were undecided.
The latest poll shows Mr Latham has achieved a better approval rating as Opposition Leader than John Howard or Kim Beazley.
"Beazley hit 57 per cent approval a couple of times," Nielsen research director John Stirton said. "But he took a long time to reach those peaks. Latham has done in three months what it took Beazley three years to do. This is the highest rating for an Opposition leader since Bob Hawke, who also hit 62 per cent in March 1983. The last Opposition leader to have a higher rating was Malcolm Fraser, in July 1975 (64 per cent)."
Both those men went on to resounding election wins.
The latest poll will worry the Government but it has come back from worse positions. Labor led by a bigger margin for much of 2001, briefly by 60 per cent to the Government's 40 per cent and Mr Beazley was the preferred leader for four months.
However, the poll shows the Government is in big trouble with all age groups except the over-55s, where it leads by eight points.
Among voters aged 18-24 the ALP leads 56 per cent to 44 per cent, in the 25 to 39 age group by 57 per cent to 43 per cent and in the 40 to 54 group by 59 per cent to 41 per cent.
Another worry for the Government, particularly the Nationals, is that in traditionally conservative-voting rural areas the ALP leads 54-46 on a two-party preferred basis, the same as in the cities.
The Greens got 9 per cent and the Australian Democrats 3 per cent, against 5 per cent and 5.4 per cent respectively at the last election. In the 18 to 24 group, the Greens got 19 per cent of the primary vote.
-SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
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