Fed: Govt accused of taxpayer funded party research

AAP General News (Australia)
12-08-2000
Fed: Govt accused of taxpayer funded party research

CANBERRA, Dec 8 AAP - The government has finished the year's parliamentary sittings
facing accusations it used taxpayers' funds for political polling.

Labor said it had received leaked research that included political polling about the
government's standing in rural and regional areas.

But Prime Minister John Howard denied seeing them and suggested the documents held
by Labor may be fake.

The research by the Department of Transport and Regional Affairs cost $200,000 and
was designed to examine perceptions and attitudes in the bush.

Part of it included the electoral backlash the government was facing at the time in
rural Queensland, finding support for the National Party was down to just three per cent
compared to a healthy 17 per cent for One Nation.

Opposition Senate leader John Faulkner said the government should have paid for the research.

"What would normally happen is that this sort of information would be paid for by political
parties, not the Commonwealth taxpayer," Senator Faulkner said.

Mr Howard read a letter from Quantum Market Research denying it had carried out any
party political investigations as part of the report.

"If this communication is to be believed, and I have no reason to doubt it, what the
leader of the opposition said was just false," Mr Howard told parliament.

Mr Beazley said from many findings contained in the report it was clear it had a political
agenda.

"It looks awfully like it to me," Mr Beazley said.

AAP sw/gmw/de

KEYWORD: RESEARCH DAYLEAD

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