Carbon tax hammers Gillard in polls

Prime Minister Julia Gillard's fragile minority Government continues to sink in the polls as Australians increasingly turn against her proposed carbon tax.

The outcry over the tax - which Gillard promised not to introduce during the campaign for last year's election - has joined a raft of other issues dragging down an Administration that survives only with the qualified support of independent MPs.

Gillard's personal stature has also continued to plummet, falling below that of predecessor Kevin Rudd in the latest Nielsen poll published in Fairfax newspapers yesterday.

The poll saw her party slump to its lowest standing in years.

The coup that ousted Rudd last year continues to cost Gillard dearly, with speculation that the former Labor leader may be angling for the top job again after his disclosure of Cabinet debates on climate change damaging to the Prime Minister.

Gillard now faces what the Opposition describes as a "widespread community revolt" against the proposed carbon tax, resurrected as a stopgap measure to maintain the Government's climate credentials until an emissions trading scheme becomes politically possible.

Unions have joined industry, business and farming groups to oppose the tax, which remains in the policy stage and has yet to be formally shaped by the Government.

But the rising clamour from opponents is hardening public opinion against the proposal, despite promises of exemptions and generous compensation schemes for households, business and industry, including major polluters.

Yesterday's Nielsen poll, confirming earlier trends, showed that Gillard has failed to convince Australians with her promises of generous compensation to soften the impact of rising energy, fuel and food prices.

It said almost two-thirds of voters rejected the tax, with opposition rising three points to 59 per cent against support of 34 per cent.

Support for Labor dropped to a 15-year low as the Coalition's primary vote rose two points to 47 per cent, putting the Opposition ahead by 56 points to 44 in the two-party preferred vote that decides Australian elections.

Labor has not struggled so badly overall since former Prime Minister Paul Keating was evicted by Liberal titan John Howard in 1986.

Gillard's standing was also hammered, with respondents naming Rudd as preferred Labor leader by 55 per cent to 38 per cent.

But there was some consolation.

Gillard still led rival Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister, while support for Abbott as Opposition Leader was also fading.

He slipped behind Malcolm Turnbull, the man he deposed in a coup as brutal as Rudd's axing, as preferred Coalition leader by 41 per cent to 28 per cent.

Support for Turnbull as Opposition Leader was strongest among Labor and Green voters.

Although retaining the support of the Greens - who hold one key seat in the Lower House and will control the Senate from July - Gillard is in deep trouble over the carbon tax.

"What you are seeing now is almost unprecedented," Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb told Sky News. "You have got a coalition of - or a consensus across - all the key unions, you've got construction, transport, energy and resource unions, you've now got the food sector, you've got agriculture generally, you've got manufacturing ... [and] you've got households generally up in arms.

"People have come to realise that a carbon tax is a job-destroying tax."

The Food and Grocery Council has added its weight to a coalition of 45 businesses demanding assurances from Gillard that they would not be disadvantaged by a tax they said would inevitably increase the cost of manufacturing and encourage cheaper imports.

Steelmaking giants Onesteel and BlueScope have warned that jobs would suffer if the industry was not "fully compensated" and the Australian Workers Union demanded special treatment for the industry.

National secretary Paul Howes said that if a single job was lost, the AWU's support would vanish.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions said the Government needed to explain how it intended to protect jobs and outline the future of affected industries in a low-carbon economy.

But Greens leader Bob Brown said the Government must hang tough in what would be a real test of its resolve: "I believe when the carbon price committee has done its work and that's agreed upon, there will be a turnaround in public opinion."

Canberra thinktank the Australia Institute yesterday accused major polluters of "crying wolf" over the impact of the tax, producing figures claiming the impact on major steel producers would equate to about 0.4 per cent of revenue.