SYDNEY, July 31 (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is heading for a shock defeat at elections on Aug. 21, a new opinion poll showed on Saturday, as government infighting and damaging cabinet leaks threatened to derail her campaign.
Defeat for Gillard, though still considered unlikely by most other opinion polls and political experts, would sink her plans to slap a 30 percent tax on iron ore and coal mines, to introduce carbon-trading and to build a $33 billion-plus broadband network.
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| Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard (L) is kissed by a well-wisher (R) while campaigning at a shopping centre in the Melbourne suburb of Ringwood. AFP |
Gillard took the leadership barely five weeks ago from unpopular premier Kevin Rudd, who was dumped by his own Labor MPs, but their gamble on the country's first woman prime minister leading them back to government is looking riskier by the day.
The latest Nielsen poll, published in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers, showed that support for Gillard's Labour party had dived six percentage points to 48 percent, behind the conservative opposition with an election-winning 52 percent.
Opinion polls have been erratic but, on balance, they have favoured Gillard. The Reuters Poll Trend, a statistical analysis that aims to smooth out the volatility of differing poll results, shows Gillard winning a slightly increased majority.
The new Nielsen poll shows two-thirds of voters still expect Gillard to win, despite many shifting to opposition leader Tony Abbott, but it will still come as a shock for Labour which is struggling to heal the wounds of Rudd's dumping.
The new poll, conducted over two days this week, followed leaks of cabinet discussions to newspapers which said they showed Gillard, the then deputy prime minister, had opposed decisions to boost the state pension and paid paternity leave. |
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