Labor's Saviour?
What a week in Australian politics. Not only did Kevin Rudd have the political rug pulled from under him, the nation appointed its first female Prime Minister.
Or rather, the Caucus did.
Immediately after the announcement that Julia Gillard had taken over the reigns as the country’s leader, CoreData asked 2500 Australians how they felt about it.
Interestingly, the fact that she is female was of little consequence to most people.
The majority of respondents (50.2%) say that Gillard is a worthy successor for PM, and 52.8% feel she is capable of carrying the Labor party to victory in the next election.
However while the poll indicated a 9% swing from Liberal voters to Labor due to the appointment of Gillard, it also suggested a 21% swing away from Labor if Australians were asked to lodge their vote this week.
Now that the dust has settled, recent political polls suggest votes are swinging in Labor’s favour. Time will tell.
In CoreData’s poll, little sympathy was shown towards Rudd, the consensus being that he ‘deserved to go’ (52.9%). Liberal voters were not surprisingly significantly more likely to believe this was the case than Labor voters (75.5% versus 34.1%).
But despite the sentiment that Rudd got what he deserved, many people did feel that he had been bullied by his own party (53.6%) and one third felt his time as PM was unfairly cut short (32.5%).
There are murmurs in Canberra that Gillard had more to do with the ousting than she’d like us to believe and likewise 56% of respondents did not believe that she was simply reacting to the situation, rather than initiating a challenge.
Yet she has nevertheless escaped the finger of blame, with at least half of Australians (50.8%) saying that Rudd was most to blame for his role as PM ending after just one term, a further 29.8% blaming the Labor party and 8.3% blaming the media.
Only 1.7% of respondents blame Gillard herself for the outcome.
On the day the leadership spill was announced, the public’s perceptions of the ‘authenticity’ of key politicians increased to the highest level since CoreData began tracking this in January.
According to the poll, Gillard is considered the most authentic among the politicians measured, while Peter Garrett is considered the least authentic.
Gillard received the highest ratings for ‘truthfulness’ and ‘reliability’ relative to political peers Joe Hockey, Tony Abbott, Rudd and Garrett.
Having tracked backwards over the last few months, Rudd’s authenticity rating increased substantially last week, perhaps due to public sympathy on the back of the ousting, although he was still considered less authentic than Gillard, Hockey and Abbott.
Chart: Two-by-two showing perceived truthfulness of politicians versus reliability
Somewhat surprisingly, more than half of Australians (53.5%) accept having a PM they didn’t vote for, with just over one quarter (27.7%) believing it was time for Rudd to go and a further quarter (25.8%) saying that although they accept the decision they would have preferred to be involved in it.
Those who voted Liberal in the last election were more likely to believe that a new PM needs to be a decision made by the people, while those who voted Greens last time were more likely to say it was time for Rudd to go.
The Opposition is now scrambling to recover the ground that they’d gained on Gillard’s predecessor but have subsequently lost in the eyes of the mainstream media, telling the public that Gillard’s rehashing old policies under new guises.
Labor’s position is looking far stronger than it was prior to the political shake out. Only 42% of Australians agree Abbott is a viable alternative for leadership of the country, suggesting the Liberal party too has its work cut out in assuring the public that its leader is sound.
Just under half (46.8%) say Abbott is capable of carrying the Liberal party to victory in the next election.
But Gillard’s task also remains a tough one with two thirds of Australians (66.7%) saying that the Labor party is losing credibility and half (50.0%) saying they no longer have faith in the party.
It’s going to be a tight race to the finish line.
One Comment on “Labor's Saviour?”
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Sergio Arcaini says:
What really surprise me is not so much that journalists are trying to sell us the worthiness of a prime minister based on the fact that she is a female; but the fact that since the “coup” no one, especially in the media, has really bothered to tell the Australian pubblic what this Prime Minister, that Caucus not them have elected, stands for ideologically, what her political beliefs are and what government decision has she been directly involved. That only shows how shallow the media players are in Australia. It is a long time since journos used to report facts, now a days they all tend to give us their interpretation of these facts. Not good reporting, I think that one day people will wake up to it and start realising that they to are capable of formulating opinions all what they need is pure facts without ideological adulterations.