| Submit your comments on this article |
| Down Under |
| Trump-Style Australian Populists Gain in Polls as Turnbull Flounders |
| 2017-02-28 |
| [BLOOMBERG] Anti-immigrant populists and the opposition Labor party advanced in opinion polls as Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s government descended into infighting. One-in-10 people surveyed by Newspoll backed Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party, more than double its support base late last year, amid her attacks on Moslem immigration, free trade and foreign investment in Australia. Labor climbed 1 percentage point to 37 percent, while the incumbent Liberal-National coalition fell 1 point to 34 percent, according to the survey published by the Australian newspaper Monday. The poll showed that, on a two-party preferred basis, Labor would trounce the government 55 percent to 45 percent in an election. Turnbull is being undermined by his hard-line conservative predecessor Tony Abbott, seven months after scraping an election victory with a razor-thin majority. Abbott last week conducted a media blitz calling on Turnbull to slash immigration, scrap a renewable energy target to lower electricity prices, abolish the Human Rights Commission, reform the upper house of parliament and cut government spending to undercut One Nation’s supporter base. Turnbull said the "outburst" was "sad" and wouldn’t distract him from governing; Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, once a loyal Abbott supporter, described the comments as "deliberately destructive" to his colleagues. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #5 Sadly Hanson is not bright. She is not Trump she does stupid polarising stuff all the time Trump does polarising like a boss. Pauline does polarising like an ignoramus. |
| Posted by: anon1 2017-02-28 07:31 |
| #4 Turney and Dubya can go walkabout. Without a canteen. In summer... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2017-02-28 07:28 |
| #3 I hope Tony Abbot pays back that backstabbing SOB Turnbull with interest. |
| Posted by: Raj 2017-02-28 01:49 |
| #2 Everyone needs to purge these liberal marxist islamist loons from all leavers of power. They are not a legitimate political party or power. They are over, or you are over. |
| Posted by: newc 2017-02-28 01:44 |
| #1 One Nation's problem is that Hanson is an intellectual lightweight and over the years has attracted some wacky fringe types. We have a state election in a couple of weeks in Western Australia and Hanson's party will pick up some upper house seats (under our PR system). |
| Posted by: phil_b 2017-02-28 01:05 |