CANBERRA, 16 March 2005 — More than half of Australians are opposed to Prime Minister John Howard’s decision to send more troops to Iraq and the move — combined with a rise in interest rates — has made him less popular, a poll showed yesterday.
Voter satisfaction with Australia’s second-longest serving prime minister has dropped eight points to 54 percent during the past month after reaching highs near 70 percent earlier this year, the A.C. Nielsen poll found. But Howard was unconcerned by the survey.
“You have to bear in mind that opinion polls taken five months after the last election are fairly meaningless ... but it’s a sobering reminder to all of us that politics is a competitive business,” Howard told Australian radio.
“I acknowledged at the time that our decision would not be popular and the polls would indicate that it’s not got popular support. But occasionally governments are required to take decisions that involve unpopularity.”
Howard announced last month that Australia would send an extra 450 troops to Iraq in about May. The country currently has about 880 personnel in and around Iraq helping to rebuild the country and protect diplomats. Just a week later Australia’s central bank raised the official cash rate to 5.5 percent from 5.25 percent earlier this month -- the first rise since consecutive moves in November and December 2003. “There were no broken promises about interest rates, I never promised that interest rates would not go up,” said Howard, whose conservative government campaigned on keeping interest rates low in the run-up to its fourth straight election victory in October.
The poll, published in The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, showed 55 percent of Australians opposed sending more troops to Iraq, compared with 37 percent who supported the move. But Howard still remained the preferred prime minister with 50 percent support compared with 40 percent support for Labor opposition leader Kim Beazley.
