Australia\u2019s opposition Labor Party retained a narrow lead over the conservative coalition government, a closely watched poll showed on Monday while the Labor\u2019s leader popularity hit a four-year high days ahead of a general election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prime Minister Scott Morrison officially launched the \nparty\u2019s campaign on Sunday, plugging his party\u2019s economic credentials, \nand calling Labor\u2019s plans to cut tax benefits and boost outlays for \nhealth and education \u201creckless spending\u201d.However, Labor has promised \nbigger budget surpluses than the government, with plans to cut generous \ntax concessions aimed at the country\u2019s wealthiest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Newspoll \nshowed voters\u2019 net approval of Labor leader Bill Shorten climbed eight \npoints to his highest since March 2015, although his rating still trails\n Morrison\u2019s, by 10 points.The Newspoll showed Labor ahead of the \nLiberal-National coalition, 51 per cent to 49 per cent, unchanged from \npolls over the past two weeks on a two-party preferred basis, where \nvotes are distributed until a winner is declared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Based on the \npoll, Labor would end up with 77 seats in Australia\u2019s lower house, above\n the 76 needed to form government, against 68 for the coalition and 6 \nfor other parties. Currently, Labor holds 69, the coalition 73 and other\n parties 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shorten found popular support last week from voters \nwho objected to a conservative tabloid\u2019s report about the life of the \nopposition leader\u2019s late mother. The report described Shorten\u2019s account \nof his mother\u2019s career struggles as inaccurate, which some, including \nthe prime minister, saw as an unfair attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Morrison, who turned\n 51 on Monday, had an egg thrown at him on the campaign trail last week \nby a young woman apparently protesting Australia\u2019s treatment of asylum \nseekers. The egg grazed his head without cracking. Morrison called the \nact \u201cthuggery\u201d.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Australia\u2019s opposition Labor Party retained a narrow lead over the conservative coalition government, a closely watched poll showed on Monday while the Labor\u2019s leader popularity hit a four-year high days ahead of a general election. Prime Minister Scott Morrison officially launched the party\u2019s campaign on Sunday, plugging his party\u2019s economic credentials, and calling Labor\u2019s plans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61174,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61172\/revisions\/61174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}