CANBERRA, Aug 24 — Australia’s opposition Liberal-National coalition widened its lead over the Labour government in an opinion poll, signalling leader Tony Abbott may replace Kevin Rudd as prime minister after the September 7 election.

Support for the coalition rose to 53 per cent on a two-party preferred basis this week from 52 per cent two weeks earlier, while those voters backing the ruling Labour party fell one point to 47 per cent, according to a Herald-Nielsen poll published in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper today. Support for Rudd as preferred prime minister fell to 48 per cent from 50 per cent while 45 per cent of those surveyed backed Abbott, up from 42 per cent.

“I don’t believe in the polls, it’s a very, very close race,” Abbott told reporters in Adelaide today. “This campaign still has a long, long way to run.”

Both sides’ ability to promise pre-election sweeteners has been hit by falling government revenue as they each have put management of the world’s 12th-largest economy at the center of their campaigns for the Sept. 7 election. The Labour government is pressuring the coalition to release details of the costs of its policies, including Abbott’s proposed paid parental leave system.

The Nielsen poll interviewed 2,545 voters by telephone from August 18 to 22 and had a margin of error of 1.9 per cent. If the level of support for each party in the poll was maintained until the election, Labour would lose 10 of its seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives in Australia’s parliament. The coalition only needs to win four additional seats to form government and for Abbott to become prime minister.

Griffith poll

A separate poll of voters in Rudd’s Brisbane electorate of Griffith showed the prime minister is at risk of losing his own seat, a Newspoll published in the Australian newspaper today showed. Support for Labour was at 48 per cent in Griffith, compared with 52 per cent for the coalition on a two-party preferred basis, according to the poll of 500 voters conducted on August 21 and 22, with a margin of error of as much as 4.4 percentage points.

The Liberal Party will tomorrow hold a rally in Brisbane to officially start its election campaign. The Greens party will begin its official campaign today.

Rudd returned to the top job on June 26 after defeating Julia Gillard in a leadership ballot, winning support in a party vote as the best person to help Labour avoid a resounding election defeat. While Rudd initially narrowed the margin in opinion polls, Abbott has since regained the upper hand in the most recent surveys.

Tough campaign

“Election campaigns are often tough and this one is particularly tough and we’ve always said we’re the underdog,” Finance Minister Penny Wong said in an e-mailed transcript of a press conference in Melbourne yesterday. “And Tony Abbott, were the election to have been held when it was called, would be the prime minister today, which is why it makes it all the more important that he levels with the Australian people.”

Rudd last weekend pledged A$500 million (RM1.5 billion) to help the nation’s car industry after producers cut jobs and announced plant closures as low tariffs and a strong Australian dollar make imported models cheaper. The coalition announced plans for a parental leave system to start from 2015 that would give mothers 26 weeks leave at their full wage, funded partially by cutting Labour’s existing programme.

Opposition savings

The opposition needs A$30 billion of savings in addition to the US$13.5 billion it has announced by fiscal year 2017 to ensure the budget won’t be worse off than the government’s most recent forecasts, Saul Eslake, chief Australia economist for Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch division, said in a report on August 22. The coalition has promised revenue measures costing US$28.5 billion over four years to fiscal year 2017, and new spending totalling US$14.75 billion, he said.

Rudd’s attempts to diffuse concerns about a jump in asylum seekers under Labour failed to reverse the slumping support for the party. While Rudd toughened Labour’s stance after retaking office by pledging to send undocumented asylum seekers to camps in developing nations such as Papua New Guinea, voters prefer Abbott’s plan to put a military commander in charge of executing his “stop the boats” edict, according to a Newspoll earlier this month.

Rudd today denied a report in the Australian newspaper that Papua New Guinea has suspended talks with Australia on resettling refugees and halted work expanding a detention centre on Manus Island. PNG’s Chief Migration Officer Mataio Rabura complained that local authorities weren’t being consulted by Australian officials and work tenders were advertised only in Australia, the newspaper said, citing a confidential letter.

“That correspondence is a week or so old and, based on a statement overnight by the PNG foreign minister, I think you’d be aware that all of those matters have been dealt with,” Rudd told reporters in Sydney today. — Bloomberg