Trendy young voters shun PM

THE young, progressive voters who made the Kevin07 brand famous and helped rocket Kevin Rudd into The Lodge are deserting the Prime Minister in droves.

THE young, progressive voters who made the Kevin07 brand famous and helped rocket Kevin Rudd into The Lodge are deserting the Prime Minister in droves.

Long-term tracking of the 350,000 members of the influential activist group GetUp! reveal that Mr Rudd's most vocal supporters at the last election have turned off him.

The "favourable" rating of Mr Rudd has more than halved, from 98 per cent soon after his election in 2007, to 43 per cent last month.

That figure has been in freefall since October last year, dropping from the high 70s, as his unfavourable rating rose to 47 per cent, exceeding favourable rating for the first time.

It is the first time that GetUp! has released its trend polling, which tracks attitudes to Mr Rudd among "progressive voters" by sampling 5000 random members each month, across all age groups and voting habits.

"Many GetUp! members had a very positive attitude to Kevin Rudd, particularly after the apology to the Stolen Generation," Get Up national director Simon Sheik said.

"That did stabilise around mid-2008 and strengthened during the GFC. Post-Copenhagen, opinions changed."

Mr Rudd's popularity had plummeted with changes to refugee laws and the deferral of the emissions trading scheme.

"Kevin Rudd needs all the votes he can get and he's not going to get them without taking action on climate change before the next election," Mr Sheik said.

The tracking polling also shows the number of GetUp! members who think Australia is heading in the right direction has also gone into freefall.

In February, 75 per cent of GetUp! members felt positive in this regard. But in this month's survey, only 28 per cent did.

This polling will only add to a Labor dilemma that, party strategists suggest, will take months to fix, dashing chances of an early election in August.

A senior Labor source told The Sunday Telegraph that the polling was a chance to take stock and focus the mind.

"The weekend was a shock, but it may have come at a good time," the source said.

"People have a right to complain, but it gives us a chance to fix things."

Of recent mainstream polls, the source said that the swing against Labor was "to third parties, not to the Libs, so it's recoverable".

As Mr Rudd's popularity with his party rests on his popularity, electorally, the poll slump has sparked discussion about his leadership.

"There's no turning on Kevin Rudd," another senior Labor figure said. "That's just hype."

This view was backed by a senior caucus member, who said: "This leader doesn't have the death rattle."

But the swing away in numbers that Labor is experiencing is being described as "diabolical".

Mr Rudd's strategy is to watch and wait for resurgent Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to make a mistake, so he can get a leg-up in the polls.