Today we report a new Morgan Poll on Australian voting intentions: Labor’s two-party preferred vote is down just 0.5% to 61%, still 22% ahead of the Coalition. Clearly the mud ain’t sticking, so far at least.

Of course, we all know about the only poll that counts. But today we stumbled across another kind of poll — the prediction market run by website newsfutures.com  (“It’s time to trade uncertainty for collective wisdom”). Here are some of their predictions:

The US will catch Osama bin Laden while Bush is President: probability 30%

Tony Blair will remain as British Prime Minister beyond May 2: probability 96% Al Gore will win a 2007 Nobel Peace Prize: probability 43% Segolene Royal will be the next President of France: probability 27% There will be fewer than 100,000 US troops in Iraq in April 2007: probability 1% Fidel Castro will return to power in Cuba: probability 22% Harry Potter will survive The Deathly Hallows: probability 71%

  Unfortunately, there are no predictions at newsfutures about a little election at the bottom of the world later this year. But we’re prepared to fill that vacuum:

Kevin Rudd will become Prime Minister of Australia in 2007: probability 50%.