The ruling Labor Party is set for a narrow victory in upcoming elections, two new opinion polls showed yesterday, as speculation grew that Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard could call an election as soon as this week.
While the robust economy, in its 17th year of growth, should be a winning ticket for Gillard, voters believe the opposition is the better economic manager, the polls show.
Gillard has also been seeking to reframe government policy in key areas such as climate and asylum seekers.
Opinion polls published in Fairfax and News newspapers put Labor ahead of the conservative opposition at 52 percent versus 48 percent.
“They’re in front and they’ve got a primary vote that can deliver victory,” John Stirton, research director with pollster Nielsen, told local radio.
Gillard, 48, is the nation’s first woman prime minister. She replaced Kevin Rudd on June 24, in a move that has resurrected Labor’s electoral standing and reshaped Australian politics.
Speculation Gillard might be set to call an election grew after Governor-General Quentin Bryce delayed leaving for a trip to Europe by a day until Saturday, sparking talk that Gillard could ask the representative of Australia’s head of state, Queen Elizabeth, to dissolve parliament as early as this week.
Gillard declined to comment on the timing when questioned by reporters on a trip to Adelaide, but said in a speech: “In the days to come I will be putting forward more detailed arguments about some of the biggest challenges facing our nation.”
“I will be explaining the steps I think we need to take and asking for people’s consideration of those steps. I will ask for the Australian people’s trust to move Australia forward,” she said.
Political commentators said Gillard’s words meant she might seek to call an election on Thursday or Friday. They warned, however, that Labor still risked losing an election expected late next month.
“The coming of Julia Gillard to the Labor Party leadership appears to have stopped the decay in her party’s fortunes,” said Tony Wright, the Age newspaper’s national editor. “She has stopped the Rudd rot, though she hasn’t been able to make any serious inroads into Labor’s loss of the disaffected to the Greens.”
Labor took power in 2007 promising to tackle climate change, but under Rudd failed to implement a carbon trading scheme, a disappointment that saw Green voters desert Rudd.
Labor needs to woo them back to ensure victory over the Liberal-National opposition.
Gillard has acted quickly on key policies, ending a three-month row with mining companies over a new tax that was hurting the government in the polls, and proposing a regional asylum-processing center to curb boatpeople arrivals.
The tax deal has been generally accepted by voters, but her asylum policy has received criticism for being in its infancy.
The Cabinet is scheduled to meet today and a new climate policy is on the agenda, but it is not clear whether Gillard will go as far as announcing a carbon tax as an interim measure before a full carbon trading scheme can be created.
She has said a carbon price is inevitable, probably via a market-based scheme, but that any decision on such a scheme would not be until 2012 and not without community consensus.
But voters want quick action on climate change, according to opinion polls and public comments in local media.
Until now the political risk of announcing a carbon price ahead of an election has been the threat of rising power bills. But two new surveys suggest power bills will rise and energy investment will fall because of a lack of a carbon price.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese