February 6, 2012
Climbing the polls ... Julia Gillard has pegged back some of Kevin Rudd's lead as preferred leader. Photo: Andrew Meares
KEVIN RUDD has a healthy lead over Julia Gillard as preferred Labor leader, but among Labor voters Ms Gillard is ahead by a nose.
The latest Herald/Nielsen poll shows that, after a week of fevered leadership speculation, 57 per cent of all voters prefer Mr Rudd as Labor leader compared with 35 per cent for Ms Gillard.
Ms Gillard has made up some ground on the Foreign Minister. When the question was last asked, in October, Mr Rudd was ahead of Ms Gillard by 61 per cent to 30 per cent.
However, among Labor voters, support for both is more evenly split, with 47 per cent backing Mr Rudd and 50 per cent backing Ms Gillard.
Mr Rudd is strongly backed by Coalition voters, with 61 per cent preferring him as leader, whereas 26 per cent of Coalition voters back Ms Gillard.
Despite Ms Gillard negotiating a deal with the Greens to put a price on carbon, Greens voters prefer Mr Rudd to Ms Gillard by 58 per cent to 38 per cent.
Of the 57 per cent who back Mr Rudd, 72 per cent believe Labor should change leaders, while 23 per cent believe the party should stick with Ms Gillard.
In Mr Rudd's home state of Queensland, where federal Labor desperately needs to pick up seats, he is preferred over Ms Gillard as Labor leader by 65 per cent to 27 per cent, the largest lead he has in any of the states.
In NSW, Mr Rudd leads Ms Gillard as preferred Labor leader by 59 per cent to 34 per cent and in Ms Gillard's home state of Victoria, Mr Rudd leads by 50 per cent to 39 per cent.
The poll of 1400 voters was taken from Thursday night to Saturday night, amid feverish speculation about a leadership change.
The boost for Labor and Ms Gillard should buy her breathing space given her detractors have warned there would be a move unless the polls improved. Senior MPs and ministers warn the improvement must continue if Ms Gillard is to survive.
One who is sympathetic towards Ms Gillard said she had run out of time and had to start turning around Labor's fortunes.
''She has got to do something soon,'' he said, adding the party needed more than yesterday's pep talk. He said if she could not succeed it would be best if Ms Gillard stood aside.
''If not, she's got to be honest with herself about that,'' he said.
Although Mr Rudd is not actively campaigning for the leadership, Ms Gillard's camp blames him for a passive program of destabilisation.
Senior ministers, including the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, described the media speculation as a beat-up, but the opposition is watching carefully. The Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, said yesterday it did not matter who led Labor.
''In the end the government doesn't have to change leaders - they have to change policies because if they have Rudd or Gillard they'll still have the carbon tax, they'll still have the mining tax, they'll still be a government which is addicted to spending,'' Mr Abbott told Network Ten.
