The Downturn

It turns out that the Galaxy poll at the start of this month was more than just a statistical anomaly. The 53 to 47 two-party preferred result was the lowest Labor have had since the promotion of Golden Boy Kevin. Surely a glitch, an error. Perhaps the 1000 or so people called in the poll were all AWA-holding, 200-grand a year Western Australian miners? Newspoll’s 60-40? That’s more like it.

We were spoiled for Newspolls in May, and the fortnight or so that we’ve done without it has forced the newspapers to dwell on the results from Galaxy. And then one from Morgan. Were an election held today, Labor would still win, albeit narrowly, and despite losing seats in WA. But the results of this month have taken the wind out of their sails, and allowed Howard to avoid a suggested tap-on-the-shoulder, or from another perspective, allowed Costello to avoid a hospital pass.

Save for the Keating interview on Lateline, there hasn’t really been anything lately to bring Labor down in the polls. So why the bad results?

The only argument I can think of is that perhaps the ‘union bosses’ campaign of the Coalition is beginning to stick. It isn’t much of a valid concern. Kevin Rudd has less of an union affiliation than Paul Keating did. Much, much less than Hawke. When interviewed on Insiders during the ALP National Conference, a look of fear crossed Rudd’s face when questioned about his own union membership. The implication was that he was unsure about whether he was still a member of the union that he used to be a part of.

If Latham was unappealing because he was volatile, then Rudd may become unappealing because he is nice. The way Joe Hockey has been talking about union bosses implies that they would be far too brutish for little Kevin Rudd to handle. All of a sudden voters do mind that Rudd is calm, bookish and mild-mannered.

Polls from AC Nielsen and Newspoll will come out in the next few days. We’ll get a better impression on June’s results once we get a consensus from all the pollsters. In the next few weeks, Rudd and the unions need to have a dispute, and Rudd needs to come out triumphant.