Australians are beginning to think the unthinkable: Kevin Rudd could be the first prime minister in 80 years to be voted out after just one term in government. The Labour leader, last year trumpeted as the most popular prime minister since opinion polling started, is now unloved enough that some sniff a push to replace him with his deputy, Julia Gillard.
Half the respondents to a poll published this week thought Rudd should continue in the top job, but one-third reckoned his coolly competent education minister should be given a go at improving Labour's fortunes in time for the parliamentary election later this year. The poll dip is deep enough to oblige Labourites to swear allegiance to Rudd, who led them to their victory at the November 2007 parliamentary election.
"I'm absolutely happy and have no questions about fronting up to my voters on the basis of our record and our leader, Kevin Rudd, and saying this is why you should vote Labour," Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner said when discounting a change. Gillard, who would become just the first female prime minister in the world's sixth oldest democracy, has also felt the need to declare that Rudd will be striker at the election expected in November. This week's poll showing a further lurch in Rudd's standing follows one last week that revealed Labour neck-and-neck with the Liberal-led conservative coalition it replaced in 2007.
Despite the polling, Liberal leader Tony Abbott said he was "very, very confident" of entering the election campaign as the underdog - and has every reason for that confidence. Abbott is the third Liberal leader in less than three years and disenchantment with Rudd is also favouring the Greens.
"However good a job Abbott is doing as Opposition leader since he took over the position late last year, the team around him doesn't look nearly ready for government," said author and political commentator Peter van Onselen. The party is divided on climate change, which Abbott himself famously called "absolute crap." And, after three bruising leadership contests, the Liberal frontbench is short on talent.
Abbott could not take much comfort from a transfer to Gillard, Labour's best parliamentary performer and a gifted communicator. The Liberals are trying to paint her as co-author of Labour's fall from grace. "Both of them are in effect equally a part of it," Abbott said.
"Sure, a lot of people think that Julia Gillard is a more effective advocate, but it's the same dodgy policies." Rudd was riding high until December's Copenhagen conference on climate change ended in failure. He termed global warming the "greatest moral challenge of our time" but was punished when he shrank from that challenge after the Copenhagen collapse.
By dumping plans for a national emissions trading scheme, Rudd was called craven, gutless and a leader who either had no courage or no convictions. Tom Switzer, editor of the Spectator Australia, said "it's difficult to identify anything (he) seems genuinely to believe, other than his own political success" and that Rudd has "no sense of philosophical identity, conviction and inner core."
The condemnation is translating into poll free-fall. "Brand Rudd is looking tarnished and Gillard has that Teflon coat," the Sun Herald newspaper editorialised. "It is a blow to Rudd that before he faces his first election as leader, 34 per cent of voters - including 30 per cent of Labour supporters - want a switch to Gillard."
Labour heavyweights deny a move against Rudd, but analysts expect hints that a re-elected Rudd would make way for Gillard midway through his second term. Former Labour prime minister Bob Hawke warned in an unguarded moment that things looked bad for the side he led longer than anyoneelse. In a worst-case scenario, Hawke said, Gillard would replace Rudd in the lead up to an election she would go on to lose. He cautioned against Labour sacrificing two of its biggest stars for no electoral gain.