Fed: Beazley plays down record voter dissatisfaction

AAP General News (Australia)
08-01-2000
Fed: Beazley plays down record voter dissatisfaction

HOBART, Aug 1 AAP - Opposition Leader Kim Beazley today played down his worst ever
level of voter dissatisfaction, saying the polls show he's set to win government despite
three weeks of bad headlines.

Divisions over GST rollback and the smoother than expected introduction of the tax
have seen voter dissatisfaction with Mr Beazley climb to 47 per cent in The Australian
newspaper's Newspoll.

However, that's only one point worse than Prime Minister John Howard's disapproval
rating and with support for the government and ALP level on 44, Mr Beazley says the poll
is hardly a disaster for Labor.

"After three weeks of solid battering, both personally and in party terms, the Labor
Party, according to the Newspoll, would win the next election," he told reporters on the
second day of the ALP's national conference in Hobart.

"Now if I was Mr Howard I would be perhaps a little less complacent than he's been
on the view that people are cheerful about the tax he's just put in place."

Outgoing ALP President Barry Jones agreed the poll showed Labor could not afford divisions.

"That's hardly a very original observation. No doubt it's correct," he told reporters.

Newly-elected ALP President Greg Sword said the poll results are understandable in
view of the bad headlines Labor had suffered in the past few weeks.

Labor frontbencher Martin Ferguson said the poll was no surprise given the media's
treatment of the ALP and Mr Beazley in recent weeks.

"When you look back over the last couple of weeks I think the media's done a fairly
good job to actually paint a fairly negative picture of Kim Beazley," he told reporters.

"What more do you expect in the polls?"

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KEYWORD: ALP POLL

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