and some of them are the government's fault, but not all.
Opinion polls are generally accurate to within three percentage points, but they can change with events, and the results can be skewed somewhat by what day the polls are taken, and also the time, and Newspoll is particularly known for calling at a time when younger voters (who are more likely to vote Labor or Green) are not at home. But there is only so much they can do, and when all polls are showing a similar trend, politicans should be paying attention.
Unfortunately, Julia Gillard is accident-prone - she has very poor political judgment and seems to be unable to view issues from any point of view other than her own. An example is her "captain's pick" of Nova Peris for the Senate. Only an extraordinarily popular leader can get away with that kind of arrogance, and Gillard is one of the most unpopular leaders in our history. However worthy it might be to appoint not just an Aboriginal, but an Aboriginal woman, to the Senate, there are much more tactful ways of handling it than the way she chose. It was done without consulting cabinet, as is often the case with her, and had she consulted, wiser heads might have prevailed. This is only one of many instances.
She is not helped by the fact that the MSM are indeed all pro-Abbott and there are too many people willing to let the media make the judgment calls. Only blogs and social media can give a different picture, but they can't help overcome Gillard's unpopularity. The media's soft-pedalling on the Coalition failings is very destructive for the country, because there's barely one capable person among the lot of them, and they will be a disaster.
The government's poor handling of the minimg tax is one of the biggest strikes against them - Christine Milne was quite right on that score (and I'm no fan of Ms Milne). To put the issue behind her as quickly as possible, Gillard made compromises that she shouldn't have made, and we all know the result. For Wayne Swan to continue talking up the surplus for two years when he must have known it was an impossible target has not only blown an enormous hole in the budget, it makes the government look incompetent. Which, in fact, they have been. Their intentions were good - Gonski, the NDIS as prime examples - but they had to have a tax that worked put in place to pay for it. Now it's likely to be those on the margins who will be hit, because they're powerless. This is not what Labor should be about, and the most savage cuts to welfare are never going to be enough to make up the shortfall. The economic stimulus was Rudd's idea, and Swan took the credit, but his actions since Rudd's knifing have proved that he's not the right man for the job. The best economist Labor has is Craig Emerson, and he should have taken over long ago, but when Swan backed Gillard, he backed Rudd, so he's never been considered.
Tony Abbott should never, ever be considered as a leader of any group, let alone a country. But that a man without policies, who is economically illiterate and would sell his soul for power, is so far ahead simply points to a huge vacuum at the heart of Labor.
And yes, there is Kevin Rudd. What happened to him was unforgiveable in the eyes of many, and the truth is that Gillard hasn't been forgiven. Kevin was supposed to resign from parliament and slip quietly away, but he spoiled their plans. Now Labor has to live with him, alwlays there, and if they weren't so small-minded, they'd use his popularity and give him a meaningful role. But they won't, and they haven't been a good enough government to overcome the fallout from that.
Our best hope is that the Greens will continue to hold the balance of power in the Senate and will be able to stymie Abbott's most lunatic plans. If he then tries to call a double dissolution, we can only hope that by then the country will have woken up to him and will refuse to give him absolute power.
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