John Howard retains voter standing as best PM of modern era

Twenty years after John Howard won the 1996 election, voters have judged him the best PM of the modern era.

34 per cent of voters judge John Howard (1996-2007) as the best prime minister since 1972.

Twenty years after John Howard led the Coalition to victory at the 1996 election, voters have judged him the best prime minister of the modern era, followed by Bob Hawke and Gough Whitlam.

A new Essential Research poll provided exclusively to The Australian finds that 34 per cent of voters judge Mr Howard (1996-2007) as the best prime minister since 1972. Mr Hawke (1983-91) was selected by 13 per cent as the best, and Whitlam (1972-75) by 10 per cent.

Tony Abbott (2013-15) was again ranked last, with just 2 per cent of voters seeing him as the best prime minister. Malcolm Turnbull, who has been prime minister for six months, was rated highest by only 3 per cent of voters.

The poll, which has been run annually for The Australian since 2014, has seen Mr Howard consistently rated the best prime minister of the past four decades, followed by Mr Hawke. Whitlam, who died in 2014, was rated as the third best this year and last year.

In the middle of the prime ministerial pack is Paul Keating (1991-96) with 6 per cent of voters rating him the best. Kevin Rudd (2007-10; 2013) was also the choice of 6 per cent. Julia Gillard (2010-13) won the support of 5 per cent. And Malcolm Fraser (1975-83), who died last year, languishes on 3 per cent.

The online poll of 1017 respondents, taken in the last week of last month, showed some significant variations in support when the choices of respondents were broken down by party, gender and age.

Mr Howard was rated the best prime minister by 64 per cent of Liberal voters. Mr Hawke received the support of 7 per cent of Liberal voters followed by Mr Turnbull with 6 per cent support.

The favourite among Labor voters was Mr Hawke, with 23 per cent, ahead of Whitlam with 15 per cent. Mr Howard and Mr Rudd were voted by 13 per cent of Labor voters as the best.

Greens voters rated Mr Keating as the best prime minister, with 18 per cent support, followed by Whitlam (17 per cent) and Ms Gillard (15 per cent).

Although Ms Gillard is the only women prime minister, she was rated by just 6 per cent of women as the best since 1972. Mr Howard was favoured by 35 per cent of men and 34 per cent of women.

Mr Howard also led strongly in all age groups. Mr Rudd was the second most popular prime minister among respondents aged 18-34 and Mr Hawke was the second choice as the best prime minister for voters aged 35 to 54 and voters over 55 years.