The Australian government's popularity has declined in opinion polls weeks away from elections because of its disappointing policy on climate change and internal disunity, pollsters said Tuesday.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard ousted her predecessor Kevin Rudd in an internal Labor Party leadership challenge in June after his popularity plunged in opinion polls. Analysts blamed his decision to shelve until 2013 government plans to make polluters pay for the carbon gas they emit.
Labor's improved popularity under Gillard has fallen sharply since she announced the government's revised policy on climate change on July 22, according to opinion polls by Newspoll and Nielsen Company.
Gillard ruled out charging polluters before 2013 and proposed creating a so-called citizens' assembly of 150 ordinary people to seek community consensus over a year on how carbon should be priced.
The assembly has been widely criticized as disguised inaction aimed at postponing Labor's climate change response until after the Aug. 21 elections.
Newspoll chief executive Martin O'Shannessy and Nielsen director John Stirton agreed the government's falling popularity was caused by disappointment over the new climate change policy, and leaks to the media against Gillard that are blamed on Rudd loyalists within senior government ranks.
"Disappointment is a terribly difficult emotion to reverse," O'Shannessy said. "Julia Gillard has disappointed people with her citizens' assembly announcement and every backflip on the issue of climate change in recent times has resulted in a severe negative for the incumbent Labor leader."
The Australian Financial Review newspaper reported another leak on Monday that claimed Gillard had failed to discuss with her Cabinet colleagues the "politically disastrous idea" of the citizens' assembly before she announced it. Gillard said climate change policy was discussed at length with her ministers.
A Newspoll survey published Monday found Labor neck-and-neck with the coalition opposition. A Newspoll poll two weeks ago said 55 percent of those surveyed supported Labor, compared to the conservatives' 45 percent.
A Nielsen poll published over the weekend had Labor with only 48 percent support, trailing the conservatives with 52 percent. A Nielsen survey two weeks earlier had Labor at 54 percent and the opposition at 46 percent.
The Newspoll and Nielsen surveys were based on random telephone interviews of more than 1,000 voters nationwide and had margins of error of 3 percentage points.
"I think Labor is in really serious trouble," said Nick Economou, a Monash University political scientist. "The leadership change was one of a long line of panic-driven maneuvers."
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