The End For Rudd? Better Ask Alan Jones.
The Liberal party's approval ranking seems to be intrinsically linked to the popularity of Alan Jones' radio show. Jones is a broadcaster you either love or hate, there's no halfway measure. Personally I'm not putting him on the same list as my family, a decent curry and a cocktail at sunset --- but you have to admit he is a man of influence. So much so that when the latest radio ratings are released next week we'll have a clearer idea who will be the next Prime Minister.
When it comes to far right opinion lightly disguised as current affairs Alan Jones is to Sydney what Fox News is to America. His breakfast tirades seem to have the power to change government policy and drive popular (or populist) opinion. When he went out hard against the emissions trading scheme (ETS) more people started to question whether humans contributed to global warming. K-Rudd didn't have the support to push through an ETS motion and was forced to back down on the whole issue. Now it's the mining tax. Vast sections of the population oppose the principle of a tax designed to level off the two speed economy because Jones has convinced many that it is, to use his words "a money grab by a government desperate to improve its future budget position after borrowing and wasting tens of billions of dollars."
Jones now says K-Rudd cannot be saved. His approval rating will continue to slide. "The public have had a gutfull" he said on one of his editorials last week, before managing to bring together his loathing for the mining tax, health reforms and, of course, that old chestnut, asylum seekers.
On a good survey Jones can attract as much as 20 per cent of the Sydney breakfast audience. It's an extraordinary success in a market of more than twenty radio stations. A bad result is 12 per cent. The interesting thing is, there seems to be a correlation between his success and that of the Liberal party to which he is clearly aligned, at least in sentiment.
In May 2008 the Liberal party was in disarray. Brendan Nelson was an opposition leader under attack. In these dark months their mouthpiece dropped in the breakfast ratings to 11.6 per cent. So did Jones' audience desert him because he didn't have a cause to fight for? Perhaps. A trawl through his editorials shows cyclists on our roads were annoying him as much as boat people at the time, hardly the rallying cause that would have his audience flocking back to him.
There was another tandem dip in the polls and radio ratings briefly in October last year when the OzCar affair backfired on Malcolm Turnbull. The fallout from that fake email from Godwin Grech was compounded by an attack on Turnbull's pro ETS stance by Jones, who had sided with visiting British climate change sceptic Lord Monkton. Jones was back in his stride, and his ratings built and Turnbull lost his gig as head of the Liberal Party. Didn't anyone tell him, you don't disagree with Alan?
Slowly the sheep have returned to the fold and, apart from that minor blip in October, last year saw Liberal approval and Jones' audience grow steadily in tandem. He reached 20 per cent of audience in the February ratings on a station that was grabbing almost a third of all listening for the over 55s.
With new radio ratings out next week, Kevin Rudd had better take notice. If Jones audience is up, his influence is increased and it must reflect a strengthening of support for the Liberal party. You don't listen to Alan Jones if you don't agree with him. It's bad for your blood pressure. You only listen if you agree or if you want someone to tell you what to think. Either way, a win for Jones is a win for the Liberal party and bad news for Rudd.
There's one bit of bad news for Jones' loyal listeners. They'll have to get by without him for the next few days while he takes one of his race horses over to compete at Ascot. Life's tough on struggle street. Kevin Rudd must be praying that an ash cloud will stop him flying back.
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