Australia’s conservative coalition government are going to be re-elected before the year ends – and I’ll tell you why. Because they’ve got the ‘underdog’ status. Australians love two things: barracking for the underdog and cutting down tall poppies. And that Kevin Rudd is looking mighty tall and that John Howard is really quite the underdog.

You and I know that the Coalition have the election almost stitched up. They’ve got a near unbeatable hand – 87 seats to Labor’s 60. Yeah – TWENTY SEVEN more seats. They can lose heaps of seats and still be the government. It’s a grand position to be in. They are the true tall poppies of Australian politics, but somehow, they’ve managed to get away with positioning themselves as the underdogs.

I say “somehow” as if I don’t know, but I do. Because I watch the ABC, where John Howard has already lost the election:

PM Warns of Election Loss – Tuesday, 22 May , 2007

Election will be Tough, Howard says – Tue Sep 11, 2007

Poll Shows Howard to Lose Seat - Mon Sep 17, 2007

I don’t know why organisations like GetUp are helping the coalition’s cause with media releases like this one:
NEW GALAXY POLL: COALITION SET TO LOSE SENATE MAJORITY ‘GETUP RELEASES RADIO AD CALLING FOR BALANCED SENATE’
But they are.

This is like the repeat of a bad movie – last election John Howard was a ’spent force’ and the Coalition were ‘looking vulnerable’. 87 seats to 60 later, those predictions were dead wrong. And if they helped anyone, I’d say they helped the Coalition.

So look out for the “SHOCK: FIVE IN A ROW FOR HOWARD” headlines in a newsagency near you, as the little PM that could goes on to prove ‘em all wrong again.