Poll
Labor's poll timing is a time for prayer all round
Mark Kenny Julia Gillard was wise to avoid a clash with those great secular festivals, the AFL and NRL grand finals, when setting the election for September 14.
Poll bias can be educational
John Warhurst Efforts should always be made to take these preconceptions into account if a balanced outcome is to be achieved.
Making a poll win a breeze
John Warhurst Pressure groups and organised interests are the weathervanes of political shifts.
Penchant for picking a winner is poll waffle
John Watson Here's an odd thing: the ''doomed'' Gillard government's standing in the polls is about par for the course six months before voting day.
Demoralised Labor hangs on every poll
Peter Hartcher The life of the Gillard government has become so precarious its survival prospects are recalibrated by some of its own members, and by some in the media, on a poll-by-poll basis.
Bruce Guthrie
Tussle for bravery awards on smoke and poll dancing
Bruce Guthrie And this week's prize for political boldness goes to a) Prime Minister Julia Gillard, b) Melbourne City Councillor Richard Foster, or c) Premier Ted Baillieu?
Live TV crosses, true believers but no poll dance
Jacqueline Maley It was not supposed to be a campaign launch. But it looked a lot like a campaign launch.
US looks Down Under to stop poll rot
Peter Hartcher Unwittingly, Australia supplied a couple of the colourful cultural touches to the US presidential election campaign.
Michelle Grattan
US poll gives Labor audacity of hope
Michelle Grattan Good heavens - now Barack Obama is getting in on the misogyny act.
Michelle Grattan
Positive poll results give Gillard breathing space
Michelle Grattan Politics looked sweet to Julia Gillard when she woke up today to face the penultimate week of the full Parliament.
Josh Gordon
Baillieu's poll hope could be spinning out
Josh Gordon If the government can't sell itself to voters, what chance has it got?
Poll dancing in the dark with Wayne Swansteen
Tony Wright Call it the Malcolm Fraser effect. Or Swannie's magical invocation to The Boss. As poll-watchers puzzle over how it might be that Newspoll could give the Gillard government a 5 percentage-point...
Misha Schubert
NT poll a judgment on intervention from the people most affected
Misha Schubert In the desert, it's personal experience that matters, not statistics.
Michael Gordon
Poll shows Gillard on slow road back
Michael Gordon Modern improvement should harden resolve of MPs who believe decision should come later, not sooner.
Phillip Coorey
Holed by carbon tax, good ship Gillard limps towards poll iceberg
Phillip Coorey THE Gillard government resembles a dinghy being dragged along the bottom of the sea. It bounces up and down as it is being pulled along, but ultimately, it is sunk.
Lenore Taylor
Unions go neutral as poll hopes dry up
Lenore Taylor IN THE showdown in February with the former prime minister Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard had almost unanimous support from MPs who owe their position to the union movement.
Sean Nicholls
Poll history repeats with trust at its heart
Sean Nicholls NSW voters will have been hit by a strong sense of deja vu watching the Queensland election result. Here was a female premier leading state Labor to a huge defeat after more than a decade in power -...
Michelle Grattan
Labor borrows Liberal poll ploy
Michelle Grattan Julia Gillard has borrowed from the John Howard 2004 election playbook to try to counter her trust problem, which Anna Bligh's spectacular demise has highlighted.
Phillip Coorey
Gillard has faith in poll resurrection
Phillip Coorey Julia Gillard is not one to bemoan her lot publicly, nor is she prone to reacting to the potshots her detractors take at her personal life.
Rudd keeps Wilde-est dreams to himself
Judith Ireland Irish author and poet Oscar Wilde wrote that ''life imitates art far more than art imitates life'', muses Judith Ireland.











