Howard in a hole with Bush and Blair Dennis Shanahan, comment November 08, 2005
TWELVE months after the last election, John Howard has fallen into a large polling hole. The Coalition's support is bouncing around and Howard's personal standing has been sliding for two months.
The Government is finding it difficult to fight on broken terrain and the Labor Opposition is finally defining the issues on which it intends to campaign.
Because of the electoral pressure over the proposed industrial relations changes, the political impact of every other event is magnified.
Superficially, the Prime Minister's decline in popularity in recent weeks has reflected the problems his successfully re-elected partners in the Iraq invasion have suffered.
US President George W. Bush, who is now polling disastrously, has been under pressure over an increasing American death toll in Iraq ever since his re-election at almost the same time as Howard.
But unlike Howard, Bush has been battling a burgeoning deficit and was then hit with the literal disaster of Hurricane Katrina. Katrina tipped the scales for a president already under enormous pressure in his last term. Bush has become a lame duck early.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has also had a decline in authority and stature as he goes into what is his self-declared last term.
The terror attacks on the London transport system have created a sense of uncertainty in Britain and the need for much tougher anti-terror laws.
For Howard, who may be in his last term, the challenges have been far less onerous than those faced by Bush and Blair -- and are also self-inflicted.
With control of the Senate, Howard is determined to pursue industrial relations reforms he has sought for more than two decades in parliament.
But the tardiness with which the legislation was disclosed, only coming into parliament last week, and the massive union-funded advertising campaign have set the Government back.
Indeed, there is a view forming that the Coalition's $50million advertising response has created more confusion and uncertainty about the workplace changes.
Simultaneously, the Government is pushing through counter-terrorism laws with provisions that echo wartime measures.
While popular with most people, the uncertainty about the legislation and the rushed announcement of a plot on Australian soil last week have clouded the issue and a melding between industrial relations and terrorism is taking place.
Howard's not where Bush and Blair are at the moment -- but the potential is there.
