Calamity John: Howard faces massive defeat
Jason Koutsoukis
November 18, 2007
PRIME Minister John Howard is headed for a calamitous defeat on Saturday, according to the latest Sunday Age poll, which shows that mortgage-belt voters have turned sharply against the Coalition.
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Taverner Research managing director Philip Mitchell-Taverner said the results were disastrous for the Coalition. "The findings are again calamitous for the Liberals, who would be very disappointed to have lost so much support from middle Australia, who have backed (John Howard) for so long," he said. "They won't return for a long while, unless Labor creates a disaster scenario and doesn't fix the inflation and interest rates problem and doesn't deliver at least a reasonable amount of what it has promised."
He said that based on the latest poll Labor was cruising towards a comfortable win.
"With Kevin Rudd neither pressed nor making big errors, he remains the voters' clear and unchallenged choice and can look forward to a good majority in the lower house," Mr Mitchell-Taverner said.
"The Coalition is paying the penalty for not listening, yet imposing policies that the voters don't recognise as necessarily good for them."
Mr Rudd, the hot favourite to be elected prime minister on Saturday, told The Sunday Age that the last week of the campaign would be "very tight and tough", but said he had plenty of petrol left in the tank. "Fighting and raring to go, mate," Mr Rudd said. "I'm moving from fourth to fifth gear, and certainly in my own personal engine there is capacity to move into sixth gear as well."
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http://www.theage.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/pm-faces-massive-defeat/2007/11/17/1194767024647.html