Rudd's confidence taking beating one year out from elections

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Photo / AP

CANBERRA - The reality of a long, hard haul to next year's election has been brought home to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as he faces falling polls, rebellion in the Senate and a reinvigorated Opposition leadership.

The Government's popularity has been on a sliding trend for some months, but a Newspoll in the Australian yesterday revealed a sharp slump in Labor's primary vote.

The poll came as former Treasurer Peter Costello, who has sat as a backbencher since the Coalition lost power in November 2007, cemented Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull's position by announcing he would not stand at the next election.

Costello, the nation's longest-serving Treasurer and a frustrated would-be Prime Minister, has hovered in the background of Turnbull's leadership with continual rumours of a comeback to vie for the Liberals' top job.

After revealing his surprise decision in Parliament on Monday, Costello told MPs: "It is just possible that both sides of the dispatch box are happy with the announcement that I have made."

Although that has ended the possibility of having to fight a resurrected Costello at the next election and enables the Government to focus clearly on Turnbull, Rudd has little other joy in his political life.

Legislation to establish an emissions trading scheme - central to Labor's environmental credentials - is heading for defeat in the Senate, where it is this week being lashed by Opposition, Green, Family First and independent senators.

Rudd is also facing a bitter fight with unions over the strong coercive powers of the construction industry watchdog established by former Prime Minister John Howard, with opposition to their retention in a new body also showing among Labor backbenchers. The Government has been further embarrassed by the resignation of former Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon over failure to disclose donations and gifts.

Tens of millions of dollars have also been lost through tax bonuses paid to dead taxpayers and foreigners, and by allocating funds to schools about to close.

Yesterday's Newspoll reported that while the Government's standing in the two-party vote that decides Australian elections had slippedby two percentage points from Mayto 53 per cent, it continues at aboutthe level of its election victory.

The bite comes in a plunge in Labor's primary vote, falling from 46 per cent in early May to 41 per cent - only 1 per cent ahead of the Opposition, and below the primary vote recorded in the election.

Rudd retains a strong 57-25 per cent lead over Turnbull as preferred Prime Minister, but the Liberal leader's support has risen from 18 per cent in early April, and satisfaction with his performance has increased 5 percentage points, to 44 per cent.

Neither did too well in the annual Reader's Digest trust survey released yesterday, which, in a list of 100 prominent people ranked according to the level of trust held in them, placed Rudd 64th and Turnbull 94th.

But Turnbull can now focus on a job that since he won leadership from Brendan Nelson has been plagued by rumours of an impending challenge from Costello and accusations that supporters of the Howard old guard had been undermining his position.

No other likely challenger is in sight, and Costello was the final member of the big three of the former Coalition Government to step down.

Howard lost his seat in the election, and former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer resigned in July last year.

Costello had been anointed as Howard's successor but was blocked by the former Prime Minister's repeated refusals to step aside.