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Record low support for PM Kevin Rudd
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's voter support has plummeted after he hit miners with a hefty new tax, a poll showed, revealing only modest backing for a measure that has raised fears for new investment.
The Neilsen Poll, published just months away from general elections, showed Rudd's Labor party losing its lead, running level with opposition conservatives on 50% - and giving ammunition to miners who want the 40% tax scrapped.
The survey follows a weekend warning from Australia's biggest miner, BHP Billiton, that it would be difficult to approve billions of dollars worth of projects on its drawing board until it better understood the impact of the complex tax.
The government sought to put a brave face on the new poll, which could add to pressure on the prime minister to at least water down the tax, and raised doubts over analysts' previously confident predictions that he was sure to win the next election.
The poll also reflects recent government backdowns on policy, including last month's shelving of its carbon-emissions scheme.
"Opinion polls come and go. What governments have to do is do the right thing for the long term," Treasurer Wayne Swan told reporters when asked whether the government had misjudged the popularity of the new tax.
The poll showed 47 percent of respondents disapproved of the tax, which is due to take effect from 2012 and has incensed resource companies and hit mining stocks hard amid wider market uncertainty caused by economic troubles in Europe.
In further possible fallout from the tax, US miner Peabody Energy cut its original $5 billion takeover bid for Australia's Macarthur Coal to $4.7 billion, a week after the tax was unveiled
BHP Billiton chief Marius Kloppers also suggested a plan to expand the firm's Olympic Dam uranium-copper mine in Australia - estimated by analysts to cost up to $27 billion - was among projects that needed studying in light of the tax.
"The uncertainty is in place. It would be very difficult to approve any of those projects. but obviously we're not going to come out, particularly while it's very uncertain of exactly what will happen, to make blanket statements about things that effect livelihoods of communities, people, employees and so on," Kloppers told Australian television.
'No frills' budget due out on Tuesday
Treasurer Swan said the money that flowed from the new tax would allow Australia to cut company taxation and in turn enable firms to boost pensions for all Australians, with the impost to be incorporated into a no frills national budget on May 11.
"The money that flows from the resource super-profits tax will go into the savings accounts of eight million workers, they will go to cutting taxation for 2.4 million small businesses," he said.
Monday's new poll showed Rudd's approval rating fell 14 percentage points to 45% while his disapproval rating jumped 13 points to 49% over the past month, with a general election expected to be held in October.
A Newspoll survey last week showed support for the Labor government was down five points to 49%, while the conservatives gained five points to 51% after Rudd dropped key policies that helped him win power in 2007, including a promised emissions trade policy.
"This is about the fact that the electorate has woken up to the fact that Kevin Rudd is not the sort of leader that they once hoped he might be," said veteran political analyst Malcolm Mackerras, of the University of New South Wales.
"I think three years ago the Australian people were so determined to get rid of (then conservative leader) John Howard that they looked for virtues in Kevin Rudd that were never there," Mackerras said.
REUTERS
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