AUSTRALIAN GOVT’S POPULARITY FALLS

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32119, 15 October 1969, Page 15

AUSTRALIAN GOVT’S POPULARITY FALLS

(N.Z. Press A««n.—Copwriohti I CANBERRA, J October 14. A public opinion poll! has dramatically changed ! prospects in the Federal election in which Australians will vote on October 25. The poll shows a 4 per cent decline in the Government’s popularity between August and October. This, after a 3 per cent drift between June and August, suggests that the move is gaining momentum and that the Prime Minister, Mr John Gorton, will have to work desperately to check the slide ip the final two weeks of the campaign. The poll was taken after the Opposition leader, Mr ’ Gough Whitlam, had given ’ his policy speech at a . nationally-televised public , meeting, but before Mr Gori ton had put his case in a studio telecast before a hand- ' ful of devoted supporters. The two telecasts made the i election a battle of personali- ' ties. Mr Whitlam, confident

and forceful, held his audience with a series of care-fully-timed wisecracks. His critics thought the performance too slick and the Prime Minister set out to counter it with a deliberately low-key telecast. But the Prime Minister, who normally scores well in television interviews, was so pedestrian in reading a prepared script that many people switched off before he finished.

Political observers believe that, far from checking the drift to the Australian Labour Party, the speech might accelerate it.

Both policy speeches were promise-packed. To halt the drift, which, if continued, would cost him the Government, Mr Gorton will have to change the election from a battle of personalities to a battle of issues.

This may be difficult. The Government goes to the poll With a record majority of 38 seats in a House of 124 members and until the public opinion poll at the week-end was generally considered unbeatable—even though it was accepted he would receive a chastening cut in his majority. Theoretically, a swing of between 8 per cent and 9 per cent would be needed to de-l

feat the Government. But under the Australian system of preferential voting, the second preferences of smaller parties and of the record field of independents this year might endanger the Government if a smaller national swing were distorted by special circumstances in particular electorates. The situation has been complicated by a long-overdue redistribution of electorate boundaries the tactics employed by the Democratic Labour Party and the emergence of another splinter party—the Australia Party. Preference votes from the Democratic Labour Party have helped to keep the Government in power, notably in the 1961 election. The party has not succeeded in winning a House of Representatives seat, although it has four members in the Senate, where voting is by a complex proportional representation system. The Democratic Labour Party had 9 per cent of the total vote in 1961, but this slipped to 7 per cent in 1963 and the latest opinion poll puts it at 6 per cent. The party is an impassioned supporter of a forward defence posture in Asia and of Australian participation in the Vietnam war.

It was affronted by the August 14 policy statement in which the External Affairs Minister, Mr Gordon Freeth, said that Australia would “naturally consider with close Interest” Russian proposals for regional security in South-East Asia. Mr Gorton approved the foreign policy statement although the Cabinet so enraged the D.L.P. that the party threatened to switch its preferences in selected key The result was that in his policy speech Mr Gorton unequivocally repudiated the Freeth statement saying, “We will exert all the influence at our command to prevent Russian participation in such an arrangement. The D.L.P. has finally recommended that its preferences go to Government candidates, but its changing tactics might increase the

probability of a drift away from its recommended preferences. As the campaign enters its final fortnight, the Government appears to be concentrating its attack on economic issues. Ministers are claiming that the only way Labour promises could be financed would be by extra taxation or by violently inflationary policies. They have been particularly

critical of Labour’s proposals to abolish the means test on pensions of more than six years and of the Labour plan for a national health plan. The rival health plans appear to be developing into the most controversial domestic issue. Mr Whitlam wants a national insurance scheme financed by li per cent surcharge on income'tax which would entitle everyone to free public ward hospital accommodation and a rebate of at least 85 per cent of doctors’ bills. The Government wants to continue the present system of voluntary insurance with competing funds with the patient contributing a maximum of $5 for each medical service financed in part by higher insurance premiums.

The Government is taking the Australian Medical Association line that the Labour scheme amounts to “nationalisation.” So far these “hip pocket” matters like health and pensions seem to be overshadowing issues like the Vietnam war, one of the prime factors in the Government’s sweeping 1966 victory. Since then the Government attitude to the war has been modified to the extent that it expects Australian troops to be pbased into any continuing

reduction in United States forces. But it insists that for Australia to withdraw unilaterally would be to betray its allies and imperil Australia’s future security. The Democratic Labour Party is the most hawkish on Vietnam. The other sectional party, the Australia Party, and the Australian Labour Party, are both opposed to continued participation in Vietnam. Mr Whitlam has promised that under a Labour Government there would be no Australian troops in Vietnam after June 30 of next year. One domestic question which might flare up is education. The once decisive question of State aid for church schools is no longer an issue between the two main parties, both of whom are agreed on the principle. But there are fundamental differences between them on the way in which aid should be given and on the proportion of national income that should be spent on education generally. Sectional groups within the community have shown a deep concern with the inadequacies of education and it is likely that the poll findings will stir them into greater activity in the final weeks before the election.