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Australians support war now { March 25 2003 }

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   http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,6184348%255E2702,00.html

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,6184348%255E2702,00.html

More Australians support war
By Dennis Shanahan, Political editor
March 25, 2003
MORE Australians for the first time now support the war on Iraq than oppose it, as John Howard recaptures his high levels of approval after the Bali bombing last year.

Support for military action against Saddam Hussein has reached 50 per cent after large reversals in the thinking of women, younger people and ALP supporters.

Simon Crean's handling of Labor's opposition to the war has seen his standing drop to a new low point, and the Coalition has opened its biggest lead over the ALP since last November.

In the past few weeks, support for military action in Iraq has more than doubled to 50 per cent, and opposition has dropped from 75 per cent to 42 per cent.

The turnaround in sentiment is mirrored in polling for British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush.

In Britain, Mr Blair, who faced a revolt from his own party over the war, now has 56 per cent approval for his actions, and Mr Bush's approval was up 19 points to 70 per cent in just 10 days. As Australians joined US and British forces in combat, and Bob Carr overwhelmingly returned Labor to power in NSW, support for the Howard Government rose to 45 per cent while federal Labor's fell to 34 per cent.

According to a Newspoll survey, taken exclusively for The Australian last weekend, the Coalition now has a clear election-winning lead on a two-party-preferred basis of 53 to 47 per cent.

Although Mr Howard is facing protesters daily, and hecklers in parliament, the number of those polled who were satisfied with his performance rose last weekend from 48 per cent to 56 per cent, and the number dissatisfied fell eight points to 35 per cent.

Mr Howard also opened a 41-percentage-point lead over Mr Crean as the preferred prime minister as his rating rose nine points to 60 per cent and Mr Crean's fell 3 to 19 per cent.

Satisfaction levels with Mr Crean have now dropped to the lowest he has ever had, 26 per cent satisfied with the way he is doing his job and 58 per cent dissatisfied.

The gap between dissatisfaction and satisfaction with the Opposition Leader is now virtually the same as that Mr Howard had when he was removed as Liberal leader in 1987.

Mr Crean and the Labor Party appear to have lost support to not only the Greens and Australian Democrats, but also to the Coalition. The Greens have risen to a new high of 9 per cent after campaigning on an anti-war theme for months and beating Labor in the by-election for the NSW federal seat of Cunningham in last year.

The Democrats have also increased their anti-war rhetoric and rose from just 1 per cent a week ago to 3 per cent last weekend.

But within the survey on attitudes to war, there are also signs that Labor supporters are shifting to the Coalition position.

In the past few weeks, younger people, women and Labor voters have registered the highest levels of opposition to the war.

Since the war began last week, those in favour of the war in the 35-49 age group have jumped nine percentage points to 50 per cent, women's support rose seven percentage points to 45 per cent and ALP supporters went from 26 per cent in favour to 33 per cent.





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