Kevin Rudd has turbocharged Labor’s vote, propelling it to equal favourite status for the election by eliminating virtually every advantage Tony Abbott had enjoyed over Julia Gillard.
The recycled Prime Minister has single-handedly wiped out the Coalition’s two-party preferred lead to be dead-level at 50-50, the monthly Fairfax-Nielsen poll has found.
Mr Rudd has also left Mr Abbott in his wake as preferred prime minister with 55 per cent of voters giving him the nod to just 41 per cent for the Opposition Leader. And the Prime Minister has become the first leader from either side in 2½ years to have more voters approving than disapproving of their performance.
At plus-8 per cent, Mr Rudd convincingly leads Mr Abbott, whose net rating has drifted south to be minus-15 per cent.
The monthly survey of voting intentions shows a tidal shift of support back to Labor, its share of the two-party-preferred vote jumping 7 percentage points, and the Coalition’s share dropping by the same amount.
It comes as Labor signals plans to scrap the carbon tax by going to a floating price a year early, ( Tim Blair, Telegraph: Shallow grave for ugly, unloved cast-off carbon ) and as it may reverse other unpopular Gillard-era decisions.
The poll is likely to fuel a renewed focus on Mr Abbott’s low popularity and coincides with an admission by Malcolm Turnbull, the man Mr Abbott replaced as leader, that he is more popular.
‘‘There are a lot of people out there who would rather I was leading the Liberal Party; it is ridiculous to deny that that’s not happening,’’ he told the Nine Network.
Much of the Labor recovery has come in NSW and Queensland, where the ALP brand has suffered most in recent years but where the potential exists to make the seat gains needed to secure a third term.
Labor’s primary vote was a statistically significant 40 per cent in NSW and 42 per cent in Queensland. Its bounce-back comes despite the Coalition being more trusted to manage the asylum seeker issue with 20 per cent more voters favouring Mr Abbott’s uncompromising ‘‘stop the boats’’ approach.
While the Coalition’s primary vote has fallen three points since June to 44 per cent, Labor’s has leapt by a staggering 10 points to 39 per cent, according to the survey of 1400 voters taken from July 11 to 13.
On a two-party-preferred basis, the main parties are locked at 50-50 – a situation pollster John Stirton described as ‘‘too close to call’’.
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The Greens also lost ground to Labor, the minor party’s 12 per cent primary vote at the 2010 election slumping to 9 per cent – a two point deterioration since June.
Read the sull story, with full links, here: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/rudds-pulling-power-puts-poll-on-knife-edge-20130714-2pyea.html#ixzz2Z2yeypO2
