On with the show ... Julia Gillard
JULIA Gillard today hosed down suggestions she will launch a bid for the Labor leadership, while Tony Abbott warned voters against switching their allegiances from Kevin Rudd to the deputy prime minister.
Ms Gillard has dramatically closed in on Kevin Rudd as preferred Labor leader after the government failed to get any boost in its polling numbers from last week's budget, the latest Newspoll figures show.
The Coalition has maintained a clear primary-vote lead over Labor since the budget and kept consecutive 50 per cent or higher two-party-preferred support in Newspoll surveys for the first time in four years.
According to the latest Newspoll, the first taken since the budget and Tony Abbott's budget reply speech to parliament on Thursday, the Coalition's primary support remains at a four-year high of 43 per cent, with the Liberals' 40 per cent vote the highest since August 2006, when Kim Beazley was Labor leader.
Labor's primary vote went from a record low of 35 per cent before the budget to 37 per cent, resulting in a two-party-preferred vote, based on preferences at the last election, of 50 per cent to the Coalition's 50 per cent.
The real change in leadership support has been towards Julia Gillard, the Deputy Prime Minister and Education and Workplace Relations Minister, who has cut Mr Rudd's lead over her as preferred Labor leader from 25 points just three months ago to only five percentage points last weekend.
But this morning Ms Gillard said she was more interested in making Australia a better place than becoming prime minister.
"There's more chance of me becoming the full-forward for the Dogs [Western Bulldogs AFL team] than there is any chance of a change in the Labor party," she said. "What gets me up every morning to do my job is my passion and enthusiasm for making this a strong and fair country."
Mr Abbott, the Opposition leader, said a Labor leadership change would not bring an improvement to the Labor government.
"Both of them are in effect equally a part of it," he told ABC Radio this morning. "Sure, a lot of people think that Julia Gillard is a more effective advocate, but it's the same dodgy policies."
Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard did a deal in 2006 to remove Kim Beazley as Labor leader and replace him and his deputy, Jenny Macklin, with the team of Mr Rudd as Leader of the Opposition and Ms Gillard as his deputy.
Mr Rudd defeated Mr Beazley and Ms Gillard was elected unopposed in December 2006. In February, a Newspoll survey showed Mr Rudd with a commanding 25-point lead over Ms Gillard as the preferred Labor leader - 57 per cent to his deputy's 32 per cent.
Labor's most successful prime minister, Bob Hawke, last week floated the idea of Ms Gillard taking over from Mr Rudd as leader before the election because the polls were breaking his heart.
Jenny Macklin says the federal Labor party is fully behind its leader, adding Mr Rudd and his deputy are "a great team". "She's laughed it (polls) off," she told ABC Television. "Julia is doing a fantastic job, but I think we are incredibly lucky to have both Kevin and Julia in the top jobs."
With a fall in Mr Rudd's standing as preferred prime minister from 50 per cent to 49 per cent, the first time he's gone below 50 per cent, and a one-point rise in Mr Abbott's standing as better prime minister from 32 to 33 per cent, Mr Abbott is now the closest to Mr Rudd as preferred prime minister since the 2007 election.
Last weekend Mr Rudd's lead dropped to just five percentage points, 45 to 40 per cent, in a spectacular turnaround, and the closest Ms Gillard has ever come to Mr Rudd's standing.
In the latest Newspoll, published exclusively in The Australian, more people regard Wayne Swan's budget, in which he projected an earlier than expected return to a surplus of $1 billion in 2012, as good for the economy than bad.
Ms Macklin said the budget sent a "very, very important message".
"That we are serious about getting the budget back into surplus ...(keeping) Australians in jobs," she said, adding polls always tightened in the lead-up to an election," she said.
Parliamentary secretary Richard Marles said opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton's purchase of BHP shares showed opposition warnings about the impact of the tax was a scare campaign. "Peter Dutton's no dummy," he told Sky News.
But Liberal backbencher Jamie Briggs hinted it may not have been his colleague's decision to buy the shares. "I'm sure Peter's financial advisors had reasons for why they purchased those shares, but I'll leave Peter to explain that if he chooses," he said.
