Backing for Labor has fallen to 26 percent, a new low, from 27 percent, while support for the center right opposition has dipped to 48 percent from 50 percent, according to a Newspoll survey published in The Australian newspaper.
On a two party preferred basis, support for Labor nudged higher to 42 percent from 41 percent, while the coalition’s backing fell one percentage point to 58 percent.
Plans to introduce a carbon pricing scheme and a court ruling that blocked a move to process asylum seekers in Malaysia have sucked away support from Gillard’s administration even as a massive mining boom adds support to a patchy economy.
Gillard, who rules with a wafer-thin majority, faces near certain defeat in parliament on a mooted law change which would empower the government to process asylum seekers in Malaysia after the High Court rejected the plan. The center right opposition Liberal-National coalition also wants asylum seekers processed offshore, but wants the government to embrace its policy of using the Pacific Island of Nauru.
If a compromise cannot be reached Gillard could be forced to allow asylum seekers to be processed onshore, a move which may trigger a sharp increase in the numbers of so called “boat people” seeking refuge in Australia.
Analysts say if the poll results were returned in a general election the opposition would sweep to power. An election isn’t scheduled to be held until 2013.
The telephone survey polled 1,141 voters across the country and was conducted between September 16 and 18.
Gillard also faces hurdles in passing laws to introduce a fixed carbon price and raft of other renewable energy measures. Those plans are fiercely opposed by the Liberal-Nationals bloc and some sections of the mining and energy sectors, though they have broad backing in the services industry and others. The Greens party and non-party lawmakers who prop up Gillard’s administration have promised to support the measures, which are due to clear parliament by the year end.
