Rudd less popular but still has lead

The photos said it all yesterday.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was pictured spruiking his new children's book to bemused youngsters.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott was out on his malibu in the waves off Sydney.

It may have only been small political surf for Abbott, but at least there was a wave to ride as the nation heads for an election this year.

The first Newspoll for 2010 in the Australian showed that his tide has been rising as that of Rudd recedes, eating away at the Government's huge lead while reversing the Opposition's disastrous decline under former leader Malcolm Turnbull.

This was no tsunami: Rudd's popularity as Prime Minister may have slipped to its second-lowest level since the 2007 election, falling for the first time below 60 per cent - to 57 per cent - but he still had a more-than-healthy lead over Abbott's 25 per cent.

And Labor was still 8 per cent ahead in the two-party preferred vote that decides Australian elections.

But that advantage had eased 2 per cent since the last Newspoll in December, and while the Opposition remained steady, Labor's primary vote had fallen three points to 40 per cent.

Satisfaction with Abbott's performance as Opposition Leader also rose to 40 per cent after the deep slump of Turnbull's leadership.

Satisfaction with Rudd fell six points to 52 per cent.

Yesterday's Newspoll continued a trend noted in an earlier Morgan poll, also showing a small rise in Abbott's popularity at Rudd's expense, and slippage in the Government's lead.

Significantly, Morgan also showed that support for Rudd's key climate change initiative, a greenhouse emissions trading scheme, had fallen since the climate summit in Copenhagen.

For the first time approval for the scheme fell below 50 per cent - to 46 per cent - with almost one-third of voters saying that concerns about global warming were exaggerated.

Abbott has stepped outside the Opposition's traditional safe ground to challenge the Government on the environment, pushing it as an election issue and riding hard on developments such as the revelation that United Nation's projections of glacier meltdown were based on suspect data.

The Opposition, supported by minor parties, will again block the ETS when it returns to the Senate for a third time next month.

It will build on the arguments of climate change sceptics and play on the doubts and fears of others who are concerned that Rudd may damage the economy by moving further and faster than the rest of the world.

Abbott is also bringing the impact of an ETS to suburban hip pockets, demanding the Government spell out the costs for household budgets and small business, the increase in the price of staples such as milk, bread and other groceries, and the effect it will have on pensioners.

History and the polls suggest none of this is likely to dump Rudd this time around.

Even with a normal narrowing of the polls as the election nears, Labor still has an overwhelming advantage, and no Government has failed to win a second term in the past 60 years.

But Rudd could be in for a bumpier ride than expected.