Isramart : Support down for Australia's Rudd, CO2 scheme -poll

Isramart news:
Support for Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and a carbon emissions plan backed by his government is slipping ahead of elections this year, but Rudd's Labor remains clearly ahead, a poll showed on Monday.

Forty-five percent of people polled preferred a less comprehensive emissions scheme proposed by Rudd's conservative opponents, while 39 percent backed Rudd's plan to force major companies to pay to pollute, a Nielsen poll in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper showed.

Rudd's rating as preferred prime minister had fallen nine points to 58 percent since the last poll, taken before the December world climate summit in Copenhagen, while support for new Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was up 10 points at 31 percent.

The survey backed another major poll last week showing a sharp fall in support for Rudd's Labor government ahead of elections later this year. [nSGE6102NM]

Australia's parliament is expected to vote this month on a emissions scheme already rejected twice in the upper house Senate, giving Rudd a reason to call early elections if he chooses.

The poll showed support for the government in the two-party preferred terms which decide elections was at 54 percent, ahead of the 46 percent for the conservatives, giving Rudd a comfortable eight-point buffer.

Australia's financial market have offered little reaction to the opposition's recent poll gains as policy differences between the two sides are not deemed major enough to move markets.

The rival Newspoll last week had Rudd's centre-left Labor ahead 52 percent to 48.

Rudd will most likely call an election in the second half of 2010, and is strongly tipped to govern for another three years on the back of a growing economy that has emerged largely unscathed from the global financial crisis.