Australian PM faces struggle as popularity slides

AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s sinking popularity has plumbed new depths and her Labor Party faces electoral oblivion, an opinion poll revealed, a week after she suffered a major setback on immigration policy.

Gillard, who has been in the top job for barely a year, has been under siege from the conservative opposition over her plans for new taxes and for dealing with asylum seekers.

She is now fending off media speculation of an eventual leadership challenge.

The poll in The Australian newspaper found that nearly 70% of respondents were unhappy with her performance, the worst such rating of any modern prime minister since Labor’s Paul Keating during the deep recession of the early 1990s.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott now eclipses Gillard as preferred leader by 57% to 24%, said the poll, which was conducted just after a court struck down her policy of sending asylum seekers to Malaysia.

Political commentators say the only comforting facts for Gillard are that a general election is not due until 2013 and that her minority government retains solid support in parliament from independent and Greens.

In addition, they say, Labor party powerbrokers are reluctant to replace her little more than a year after tearing down her predecessor, Kevin Rudd.