Labor leads Howard government in Aussie poll

1.00pm

SYDNEY - Australia's opposition Labour party leads Prime Minister John Howard's government by six points in the latest opinion poll with a national ballot expected within weeks.

On a two-party preferred basis, Mark Latham's Labour leads the Liberal/National coalition by a 53 per cent-to-47 per cent margin, according to a survey in The Sun Herald newspaper.

Although there have been media reports that Howard might opt for a mid-September ballot and spring his 33-day campaign during the Olympics, the prime minister appeared to dampen such speculation.

Confessing to staying up until the early hours of Sunday to watch Australian swimmers win gold in Athens, he told Channel Nine television: "The public is pretty keen on watching the Games for the moment."

Howard, 65, said he was prepared to run for a fourth consecutive term and that he was confident his government's economic record would speak for itself.

"In an international climate of rising interest rates, one of the fundamental questions middle Australia has to ask itself is which party is more likely to keep interest rates down," he said.

The Reserve Bank of Australia has held its key cash rate at 5.25 per cent since December, whereas central banks in the United States, Britain and neighbouring New Zealand have all begun tightening monetary policy.

Australia's cash rate now stands at 5.25 per cent, which Howard compared with "interest rates of 17, 18 or 20 per cent" reached under his predecessor, Labour Prime Minister Paul Keating, in the early 1990s.

"I think it's going to be close," Howard said of the federal election he is expected to call in October or November.

"The longer you're in office, the more there is a disposition to think 'Well, we'll give the other bloke a go'. That's why it's important to point out some of the consequences of the other bloke."

Australian women and young people were increasingly supporting 43-year-old Latham's Labour party, according to the Aug. 10-11 poll of 600 people in New South Wales and Victoria.

Forty-two per cent of women said they preferred Labour, up from 32 per cent who voted for the opposition in 2001. An equal 42 per cent of those under the age of 35 said they preferred Labour to Howard's coalition, up from 29 per cent three years ago, the poll said.

- REUTERS