Australia PM Gillard dampens leadership challenge
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Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has insisted she will lead Labour into the next election, even as new a poll Monday showed she is less popular than predecessor Kevin Rudd.
Gillard heads a fragile Labor coalition government after the party failed to win a majority in the August 2010 election and there is mounting speculation that Rudd, now foreign minister, could challenge her for the top job.
The prime minister, who removed Rudd in a brutal Labor Party room showdown in mid-2010, said she would not be calling a leadership ballot because there was 'no need'. "I'm very confident in my leadership," Gillard said late Sunday.
The defiance comes as Gillard is enjoying a boost in ratings according to a Nielsen poll published Monday, which shows she is ahead of opposition leader Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister for the first time in months.
Some 48 percent of those polled said Gillard was their preferred leader, a six point increase since December, while Abbott was steady at 46 percent, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
The poll showed that Labor would lose government if an election were held now, attracting only 47 percent of the vote compared to the opposition's 53 per cent, but it revealed Gillard's support was on the rise.
However, asked who they preferred as Labor leader, some 57 percent of the 1,400 voters surveyed said they wanted Rudd while only 35 per cent backed Gillard.
Gillard, who rallied Labor caucus at a meeting in Parliament House in Canberra on Sunday, said while questions about her leadership status were 'endlessly fascinating' to some, they did not consume her.
She said she intended to lead the party into the 2013 election. "I'm not someone who wilts under pressure. I'm not someone who obsesses or agonises, I'm someone who gets things done," she said.
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