Polls and Punts

Tonight's Lateline, returning from the holidays, has reported that a poll in tomorrow's issue of The Australian, will confirm that the Federal Labor Party has made a dramatic jump on a two party preferred basis, to 56% compared to the government's 44%, with Kevin Rudd now trailing Howard as preferred Prime Minister by only one point.

I'm no poll watcher, and I had initially decided not to make mention of it - just as I passed over this weekend's poll that had the NSW Government in a comfortable winning position just less than two months out of the State Election. Even though the fact that more people agreed it was time for a change than planned to vote for the government is significant, its significance is obvious enough not to have to explain it to my readers (other than to add that the conditions currently existing in the government are so eerily like those that preceded the fall of the Unsworth Government that I'm no longer trusting myself to rely on the government's large margin).

That was until I saw John Howard interviewed on the aforementioned Lateline by Tony Jones.

Wow. He looks genuinely rattled. No relaxed and comfortable here. Political junkies closely monitor Howard's body language. He gets flushed. He gets tetchy. The vocal chords constrict. And then there is The Shoulder. Howard has an odd habit of making a little shrug when he's really feeling up against the wall. I didn't notice a shrug tonight, but all the other symptoms were there - none more when, in a masterstroke of the sort of uncomfortable journalism that is Jones' stock in trade (just ask Tony Abbott), Jones decided to exclusively reveal The Australian poll results to Howard live during the interview. The tension was almost cruel.

I look forward to seeing whether The Australian poll also contains estimates of the ALP's primary support. This is the real meat and veg, with the party saying for some time that it needs to break through the crucial 44% level to have any chance of competition with the government.

T'will be an interesting year, methinks.