ALP Leadership and Latest Newspoll Trends

ALP Leadership and Latest Newspoll Trends

In our July 2004 Newsletter we noted that John Howard had begun to hunt down Labor Leader Mark Latham.

As we predicted then, the October 9 Federal election did indeed deliver Prime Minister Howard "the sweetest victory of all" making him only the third Australian Prime Minister to be elected four times.

Mark Latham's total demise came only three months later when he resigned the Labor leadership and from Federal Parliament.

Labor's experiment with the straight-talking, aggressive and maverick Latham failed dismally.

Now the Federal Opposition has returned to the steady and experienced hand of Kim Beazley.

Regardless of Latham's illness, the ALP Caucus had no choice but to change leader as the latest Newspoll data, published in The Australian, reveals.

The early enthusiam for Latham had rapidly declined from a high of 42% in the preferred Prime Minister stakes in March 2004, just 1% below Howard to 24% by December 2004. Howard had surged to 60%.

Similarly, the ALP's two-party preferred vote had tumbled from an election landslide of 55% in March 2004 to a crushing defeat level of 47.2% by election day.

Latham's survival was far from assured even if a miraculous cure for his illness had been found.

Below we have graphed Newspolls' historical trends of voters' responses to the question “Who do you think would make the better Prime Minister?” from the July 1987 Federal election to the most recent poll conducted in December 2004.

As well, continuing the series from previous Springboard Australia Political Briefings, below is a graphic reputation of Newpoll results since the last Federal election in November 2001 to the most recent Newspoll released in January 2005.

The graph plots the two-party preferred position of the Coalition Government and the Labor Opposition. It also plots the primary vote of the minor parties.

Kim Beazley's Statement on becoming Labor Leader is available here.