Labor Leader Kevin Rudd Ahead of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott by 17% as Preferred Prime Minister in New Poll
The Australian Labor Party's leadership challenge on Thursday night is paying off in spite of the move causing a rift in the party in power as key ministers resigned to sympathise with the defeat and step down of Julia Gillard as prime minister. Another poll showed that the move is paying off as the ALP appears headed for a victory in the national election.
A Galaxy poll made for News Limited dailies found that 51 per cent of respondents now prefer returning Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as the country's leader versus Coalition leader Tony Abbott who trailed by 17 per cent with his 45 per cent vote.
The dramatic change came overnight after the leadership spill.
The Opposition led by a measly 2 per cent after it got 51 per cent vote in a two-party preferred system versus Labor's 49 per cent.
The numbers are a big improvement for ALP since Ms Gillard was trailing in March with only 33 per cent vote as preferred PM in March versus the 37 per cent that Mr Abbot then got.
Another 75 per cent of Labor voters supported the change in party leadership, and 57 per cent said the caucus was right in replacing Ms Gillard with Mr Rudd.
Taking advantage of the momentum created by Mr Rudd's return to office, the reinstated PM stepped up his attack on Mr Abbott's stop the refugee boats policy because of its potential to cause conflict with Indonesia and the Coalition's hard spending cuts which could result in Australia going into a recession.
In the first survey done right after the leadership spill, a Mr Abbott victory was considered having a high chance with at least 20 majority seats expected, but a separate Fairfax poll showed a turnaround of 10 per cent for Labor in key seats. These are in Maridymong and Chisholm in Melbourne and McMahon and Blaxland in Sydney, mainly due to Mr Rudd's return to power.
These developments could cause Mr Abbott's dream to become the 29th prime minister of Australia to go kaput from almost sure victory when Ms Gillard was his main opponent while Mr Rudd was considered then a political lameduck.
