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CANBERRA - Australian Prime Minister John Howard has brushed off a strong poll result for Labor leader Kevin Rudd
Howard said, he has never kidded himself about the difficulty of winning a fifth term.
Mr Rudd has also played down the poll which suggests he is ahead of Mr Howard in the preferred prime minister stakes and is now the most popular opposition leader of the past 35 years.
The first ACNielsen poll since Mr Rudd became Labor leader on December 4 last year puts his approval rating at 65 per cent, the best for an opposition leader in the history of the poll and higher than Bob Hawke's rating in March 1983.
Mr Rudd is leading Mr Howard as preferred prime minister by 48 per cent to 43 per cent, according to the poll published in Fairfax newspapers today.
Mr Howard's approval rating remains steady at 49 per cent.
Labor leads the coalition government on a two-party preferred basis by 58 to 42 per cent.
Mr Howard said nine weeks was not an unusually long honeymoon for a new opposition leader, but said he was under no illusions about how tough this year's election would be.
"I have never kidded myself about how hard it will be to win the next election," he told ABC radio.
"We have things going for us and we have things going against us and ultimately it's a matter for the public to work things out."
Mr Howard would not comment on why Mr Rudd was doing so well, saying voters would ultimately focus on Australia's prosperity.
Mr Rudd said he took no comfort from the results.
"I take zero comfort from today's polls, absolutely zero, polls come, polls go, they go up, they go down," he told Sky News.
"What I know is that history is actually against us.
"If you look at the pattern of the last decade often there is a resurgence in Labor polling in the six or nine months heading into the election and then what Mr Howard does is engage in the spending spree of the century."
Labor's treasury spokesman Wayne Swan said the poll was encouraging but anything could happen between now and the election, expected later this year.
"There's nothing inevitable in politics or in life, just ask the Australian cricket team," he told reporters.
"Of course we could win the ultimate prize but there's a long way to go. It's a marathon. Politics is tough.
"Elections are always close in this country and we know that John Howard is a clever politician and a vicious street fighter."
Frontbencher Robert McClelland, Labor's defence spokesman, said Mr Rudd's "reasonable and rational style" was resonating with voters.
"I think the rest of it they are putting on trust that they want to see from us constructive nation-building policies," he told reporters.
"If they see that I think they will elect us."
Labor's primary vote has risen five points to 46 per cent since Mr Rudd rolled Kim Beazley, its highest since April 2001, while the coalition's primary vote has fallen three points to 36 per cent, its lowest since May 2001.
The poll of 1412 voters was taken from last Thursday to Saturday, at the end of the first parliamentary sitting week for the year.
- AAP
