Julia Gillard's lustre dims for more

JULIA Gillard continues to lead Tony Abbott on the net satisfaction ratings, but the advantage is a false one.

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JULIA Gillard continues to lead Tony Abbott on the net satisfaction ratings, but the advantage is a false one.

The Prime Minister's rating - the number of voters satisfied with the leader minus those who are dissatisfied - is +3 while the Opposition Leader sits in negative territory at -2.

However, Abbott is knowingly sacrificing his personal ratings with a relentless negative campaign to discredit the government, and it is paying dividends on the party votes.

Labor's primary vote is down to just 32 per cent, according to yesterday's Newspoll, published in The Australian. The Coalition's is up at 44 per cent, effectively a two-party-preferred lead of 52 to 48 per cent.

Labor won't mind trailing on the party vote because it is playing a long-term game, hoping to do what John Howard so often did and narrow the gap closer to election time.

Labor had better hope MPs stay healthy and happy to avoid unwanted by-elections.

But the government should be worried about Gillard's diminishing standing. Although she continues to register positive net satisfaction ratings, since the election, undecided voters have broken against her six to one. Twenty per cent of voters chose not to answer the satisfaction question in September last year, but that has dropped to 13 per cent. Six out of seven people casting a judgment on Gillard's performance have joined the dissatisfied group. It is a bad trend early in the life of a re-elected government and that of a new PM. Abbott's decision to go negative so soon after a narrow loss is something he has linked to a hope that doing so will help terminate the government, perhaps persuading the rural independents to switch sides.

But that view is dividing the Libs. Abbott's press secretary, Claire Kimball, recently quit in part because she opposed her boss's view that a change of government could be just around the corner. She isn't alone.