Australia PM Julia Gillard sinking one year after rise

A year after taking power as Australia’s first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard leads a minority government under attack over its major policies while failing dismally in the polls.

In the run-up to the anniversary of the party room coup that gave her the leadership a year ago on the date, support for her Labour Administration is at a low not seen in 40 years and her personal popularity is plunging.

“It is in danger of going down as one of the worst governments of all time,” Australian National University academic John Wanna said of Ms Gillard’s first year in The Lodge.

“Almost everything they get involved in seems to unravel and damage them more.”

Welsh-born Ms Gillard asserts she is confident in her position, but waiting in the wings is the man she deposed, globe-trotting Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, who led Labour to victory in 2007 before falling out with factional bosses.

Mr Rudd’s decision to give a series of interviews to mark the anniversary of his dumping, including issuing what some saw as a mea culpa for his high-handed behaviour, was taken as proof he was keen to mount an unlikely return to power.

“Have no doubt: Mr Rudd is waging a comeback campaign,” wrote former Labour leader Mark Latham in the Australian Financial Review this week.

“He is going over the heads of Labour MPs and appealing directly to the people.”

Under attack over her proposed carbon tax and a plan to send asylum-seekers to Malaysia, Ms Gillard’s government is attracting a lamentable 27 per cent of voters’ support, the lowest level in the Nielsen poll’s 39-year history.

The flame-haired former industrial lawyer’s personal approval rating is a miserable 37 per cent, with Mr Rudd overwhelmingly preferred as Labour leader by 60 per cent to Ms Gillard’s 31 per cent.

She enjoyed only a brief honeymoon with voters after gathering the numbers to force an out-of-favour Rudd, criticised by his Labour caucus for being autocratic, out of his job a year ago.

Within weeks she had called an election but voters were stung by the sudden removal of the prime minister and Labour lost its majority in the polls, which resulted in a hung Parliament.

“The way she knifed Rudd left a lot of people unimpressed,” Mr Wanna said.

After 17 days of fraught post-election negotiations, Ms Gillard had won the support of one Greens MP and three independents to form a minority government, resulting in her having a slender one-seat hold on power.

The independents have remained supportive of the Prime Minister since, knowing that being part of her coalition gives them their best shot at influence.

They indicated this week that their handshake was with Ms Gillard and any change of Labour leader would see them reassess their position

Ms Gillard herself admits that it has been a “testing” year but said her colleagues backed her and understood the long-term goals of her government.

She said she wanted voters to see reforms completed, “not just in contemplation”.

Monash University politics lecturer Nick Economou said Ms Gillard had been interesting for being “hard at it on a series of really contentious matters” after stitching up the deal with the independents.

“They are doing things, it’s not as if they’re sitting back on their haunches, but that may be their problem,” he said.

He added: “Quite frankly I think she’s gone, I can’t see her recovering.”

But Rodney Smith, associate professor in government at Sydney University, said there was every chance that Labour could improve its position before the next election in 2013.

“There’s plenty of time for a government to recover its standing in the polls,” he said.

“Julia Gillard may never be as popular as she’d like to be as a Prime Minister, but that may not matter.”