-
Kevin Rudd - Source: Reuters -
Related
Support for Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has fallen as conservative opponents rally behind a new leader, a leading opinion survey showed on Tuesday, but he remains well-placed to win an election later this year.
The closely-watched Newspoll in the Australian newspaper showed support for Rudd's centre-left Labor had slipped two points to 54% in the two-party terms that decide elections, while the conservatives were up by the same margin to 46%.
Rudd's party is facing setbacks on a promised emissions trading scheme rejected twice by the Senate and due before parliament again in February, as well as a surge in asylum seekers arriving in boats on Australian shores that has divided voters.
Satisfaction with Rudd's performance was down six points to 52%, while satisfaction with new opposition leader Tony Abbott was at 40%, up four points following a conservative decision to switch leaders in early December.
"Worrying about your popularity in the end is bad for your popularity, and I think that's what Mr Rudd is starting to find," Abbott told local radio.
Rudd will most likely call an election in the second half of 2010, and is strongly tipped to govern for another three years on the back of a growing economy that has emerged largely unscathed from the global financial crisis.
But Abbott, a former champion boxer and pugnacious social conservative who once trained for the priesthood, has targeted the emissions trade scheme and government borrowing as key election battlegrounds, warning they will bring higher interest rates in a country obsessed by home ownership.
Abbott's blunt-speaking approach has also won over many voters, sharpening political differences with the government and contrasting with Rudd's often technocratic style of speech, which many Australians find hard to understand.
The Newspoll fall was the second worst voter satisfaction result for Rudd since his election, although he was still preferred prime minister for 57% of survey respondents, down three points.
Rudd's Labor won in 2007 with 52.7% of the vote against 47.3 for the conservatives.
"I think that people are going to be very, very anxious about just where this government is going and I think we're starting to see some signs of that in the polls," Abbott said.
Abbott has repeatedly warned that the contentious emissions scheme, which would force big companies to pay for permits to pollute, will also bring a "massive new tax" for all Australians, driving up living costs.
"Tony Abbott has secured the base. He has basically made a reasonably good start as Opposition Leader," Newspoll Chief Executive Martin O'Shannessy said.
Australia is the world's biggest coal exporter and the developed world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gas per person. Rudd has promised a broad target to curb carbon emissions by between five and 25% of 2000 levels by 2020.
