A Herald /Nielsen telephone poll conducted June 14-16 has very few positives in it for prime minister Julia Gillard in particular and the Labor government generally.
The results show a 3% drop in the two party preferred figure to 41% as compared to the Coalition's figure of 59%.
Of particular concern for the PM are the Carbon Tax and Asylum seekers issues.
The carbon tax result is self evident but the report does not indicate whether dissatisfaction with Asylum seekers issues is general or more particular only concerning the recent choice of Malaysia as a destination for detention processing . It is my feeling that it is more about destination rather than general policy of housing asylum seekers offshore.
Whatever the issues of contention are among the electorate one can not help but feel that this is a backlash of sorts not against Labor party policies but Julia Gillard herself.
The Australian public has not warmed to Julia Gillard. She really did not even have a honeymoon period.
I have considered this long and hard. As our first female prime minister one would have thought she would have had been cut some slack but no. The manner of her gaining the top position, I believe, does not sit well with a majority of Australians.
Firstly, Australian's do not feel they "elected" her. Despite the fact that only her electorate actually elected her to parliament and it was the Labor Party who elected her to the top job, Australian's feel they elected a Labor party headed by Kevin Rudd. If anyone was going to get rid of Kevin Rudd it should be them not backroom boys of the Australian Labor Party.
Secondly, the ousting of Kevin Rudd was seen, I believe by many, as being "UnAustralian", to coin that oft used but ambiguous term. Australian's don't stab their mates in the back. Kevin Rudd may have been getting up the nose of some in the country but that's not how you handle getting rid of him.
Apart from that there are other reasons I feel for the lack of connectivity between Ms Gillard and the people.
Is the fact she is a woman an issue with her acceptance? I feel it is. I would describe mainstream Australia as leaning more to being matriarchal rather then patriarchal so one would think that having a woman leader would not be an issue. But whilst I have this view generally for day to day Australian life I don't think it holds true in the case of national leadership.
A degree of sexism it could be said exists but it is coming from both men and women. Australian's, I quite frankly think, don't see the country being led by a woman.
Then her lack of connectivity is to a degree a result of her heritage. She is not the fair dinkum, knock about, knock you down then shake your hand, Aussie type that we have been use to in our political history.
She is not the hard living Bob Hawke calling people "mongrels". She is not the Mao like figure of a Menzies or the say it as you see it Gough Whitlam standing on the steps saying "God save the Queen....", the Billy Hughes' the Jack Langs the Jo's.
The culture has not had enough generations to embed itself. In other words she does not come across as "Australian" enough.
It is blatantly apparent that Ms Gillard is on a losing streak from which she is very unlikely to recover from and the Australian Labor Party is on a loser, not as a person, but as a leader and a winner at the next election..
Few positives for Gillard in horror poll
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