Coalition leader Tony Abbott suffered a double whammy in two successive days. On Monday, he was ejected by Parliament during a heated Question Time and the next day reports said support for Labor continued to rise despite the introduction of the carbon tax in July.

Mr Abbott has been waging a campaign against the $23 per tonne carbon price with the hope of becoming Australia's next prime minister built on repealing the carbon tax. However, latest survey by Newspoll showed that rather than lose support, Labor gained more with a 35 per cent voter support from 33 per cent two weeks ago and 28 per cent in mid-July.

In contrast, the Coalition's support was constant at 45 per cent as with the Greens' 11 per cent. Given this scenario, on a two party-preferred basis, the Opposition is still ahead of Labor 53 to 45 per cent.

But the turn of events, plus the release by the Gillard government of major policies related to the National Disability Insurance Scheme and education funding could turn the tide in favour of Labor.

One plus factor for Mr Abbott is that Prime Minister Julia Gillard's satisfaction rating went down 2 per cent to 27 from 29 per cent after she pushed for offshore processing centres for asylum seekers. Her dissatisfaction level was unchanged at 60 per cent.

In contrast, Mr Abbott's satisfaction rating went up 2 per cent to 34 from 32 per cent and dissatisfaction dipped 2 per cent to 54 from 56 per cent.

While everything remains fluid if Mr Abbott will become PM, on Monday, he made history by becoming the first Opposition leader in almost 26 years thrown out by Parliament during a debate on school funding.

The action was preceded by the announcement by Ms Gillard of plans to fund students consistently regardless of the type of school they attend. Mr Abbott, citing the economic climate, insisted the country could not afford the $5 billion spending for the changes to public and independent school funding formulas.

Mr Abbott pushed for cuts in public school spending since students there get 79 per cent of government funding as opposed to only 21 per cent for students in independent schools. The push for cuts in public school spending led Ms Gillard to compared the Opposition leader to Jack the Ripper who would wield a knife to cut money out of public schools.

Mr Abbott charged the prime minister of making lies which led Acting Speaker Anna Burke to ask him to unconditionally withdraw his comments. While Mr Abbott withdrew his statement, he still maintained that Ms Gillard's remarks were still untrue, which led to this ejection from the chamber for one hour.

In 1986, John Howard was ejected from Parliament and a similar action was imposed on Robert Menzies in 1949. Messrs Howard and Menzies were both Opposition leaders at that time and eventually became prime minister.

The question that political pundits are now making is - will Mr Abbott follow their footsteps and also become PM in 2013 or will he follow the footsteps of the three other Opposition leaders thrown out but did not become PM?

The three other Opposition leaders ejected by the Parliament in its 111 years were Andrew Peacock in 1984, Joseph Cook in 1914 and Doc Evatt in 1955 who was a Labor Opposition leader. The five others were Conservatives.