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CANBERRA - Former merchant banker and shadow treasurer Malcolm Turnbull is increasingly likely to depose Brendan Nelson as Australian Opposition leader following another disastrous poll.
Turnbull, who has not ruled out a challenge despite publicly calling for Nelson to be given longer to prove himself, thrashed his leader in a Galaxy poll in yesterday's Sunday Mail.
Nelson beat Turnbull by only three votes in the leadership contest following Last November's election and the electoral slaughter of former Prime Minister John Howard's 11-year Government.
But both Nelson and the Coalition have since been consistently pounded in the polls, with the Liberal leader suffering a series of record lows in personal standing.
His at times almost diffident style is in sharp contrast to the aggressively media-savvy Turnbull, and he has failed to gather the traction needed to convince the public or fellow Liberals that he is the man to lead a shattered party out of the wilderness.
Nelson was heavily criticised for his diluted support of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's parliamentary apology to indigenous Australians for the "Stolen Generations" of Aborigine children taken from their families, and for other policies. Many Liberals were also angered by his public dumping of Howard's industrial policies.
Nelson has also been in the firing line for his time as Defence Minister and for multibillion-dollar contracts that now may be axed.
Yesterday's Galaxy poll showed only 9 per cent of voters want Nelson to remain as Liberal leader - well behind Turnbull's 24 per cent, former deputy leader and Treasurer Peter Costello's 19 per cent, and present deputy Julie Bishop's 11 per cent.
Coalition supporters overwhelmingly want a new leader.
A Newspoll in the Australian last week put support for Nelson at a record low 7 per cent, with the Coalition's two-party vote plunging to 37 per cent.
Turnbull said: "He [Nelson] has got a very tough job [and] he has to be given a fair crack of the whip, a chance to prove himself."
