The federal government may put little store in opinion polling that consistently shows it is on the nose with voters, but it’s a safe bet prime minister John Howard will not seek an election any time soon.

The latest Newspoll released yesterday showed last week’s federal budget was the most popular on record for the government, with 60% believing it was good for the economy.

But that didn’t stop a spike in popularity for the opposition, with Labor registering 59% on a two-party preferred basis – up 2% on pre-budget figures.

That support for the government could fall at a time when only 12% of voters thought its budget would be bad for the economy suggests the next federal poll will be more a vote against the coalition than support for Labor. That places the government in an unenviable position.

If the electorate has simply had enough of it, there is very little it can do to retrieve its fortunes. It certainly appears the electorate is willing to trust Rudd’s Labor with the treasury and unwilling to trust much of what the government says.

Every poll since Kevin Rudd’s ascendancy to Labor leadership has put the party ahead of the coalition. Margins have been maintained despite popular budgets for the government and bad-hair weeks for the opposition.

The 2007 federal election is shaping as one that Labor will have to lose. The voters are on the porch with baseball bats waiting for the government and only the actions of Labor, it appears, can convince them not to swing hard.

All of which would make for supreme irony indeed if Labor’s most popular state premier was to ultimately be the factor who destroyed Kevin Rudd’s tilt at the Lodge. The opposition leader may find all his best efforts, to not scare the horses, in vain if Queensland voters decide to use the federal poll to send a giant “get stuffed” to Peter Beattie.

With an election due within six months, Beattie’s unpopularity over dams and local authority amalgamations may yet prove decisive. There is certainly mounting cynicism and a belief that the Labor agenda in Queensland is fixed and more to do with servicing the demands of a powerful property development lobby than a real reflection of the state’s best interests.

Whether the coalition would campaign here on the basis of Labor’s uncomfortably close ties to development companies and amalgamations – aimed above all else at streamlining planning schemes for their benefit – is probably though, a moot point.

But it certainly has more to recommend it than workplace relations minister Joe Hockey’s hope that voters will come to realise the benefits to be received from the budget and swing back to the coalition.

Trust is the issue. The electorate no longer trusts or believes the government, but it is prepared to give Rudd a go.

With Queensland seats critical to the outcome, just how big a go could well depend on how much it continues to trust Peter Beattie.

Growth goes ahead
Despite all evidence to the contrary, the state government continues to promote exponential growth as evidence of its success. Unfazed by the need to develop horrendously expensive infrastructure to cater for that growth, it continues to actively encourage it.

Queensland’s Future, More People is a strategy that is proving less sustainable by the day but one the premier clearly has no intention of abandoning. Where that will leave the environment and our quality of life are questions whose answers may come from whatever shape Queensland takes when revised local government boundaries are due to be delivered on August 1.

The intention may well be to streamline the whole development process, but ultimately who makes the decisions that affect the future are subject to a democratic vote.

How that vote is exercised, whether a new game will attract higher calibre candidates to the wonderful world of local government, and whether the electorate will switch on enough to properly examine the issues, only time will tell.

What is certain though is that the future requires more than a continuation of the unfocused, ill-disciplined and opportunistic petty posturing that now infects that level of government.

A new playing field may be just what is needed to bring candidates better qualified to chart a course that offers more than the continued erosion of the environment and our lifestyles into the game.

If it can achieve that, amalgamations will be worth the pain.