Labor continues to be in the doldrums; the Liberal Party is increasing its vote at the expense of the Nationals; and the Greens are continuing to hold their own, according to our latest omnibus poll.

The poll was conducted between the 21st and 26th April, just before the government back-down on the ETS. Newspoll suggests that there may have been a strong reaction to this. I suspect that this may result in an increase in the Greens vote at the expense of Labor, but not change the two-party preferred vote too much.

Perceptions of the direction of the country continue to deterioriate

There has been a statistically significant increase in those who think the country is heading in the wrong direction, and essentially no movement in those who think it is heading in the right direction.

As with the last poll, most are still happy with their personal circumstances.

There is a small change, but within sample error.

Both leaders have deteriorated in their standing. Rudd has had a slight, statistically insignificant decline in approval, but a significant three point increase in disapproval.

Abbott experiences a strong increase in his net disapproval, as a result of a decline in approval and an increase in disapproval.

But the vanity polls do not seem to matter that much with Abbott gaining on Rudd on the question of preferred PM. September 2008 our sample favoured Rudd over Turnbull by 65% to 26%. A net 7% of this preference has moved across to the Liberal leader and the figures are 58% against 33%.

Given the heavy Labor investment in Rudd, this decrease in his standing must be a concern. I wouldn't be surprised to see Labor start to emphasise the team more strongly, and perhaps we are seeing that with the dominance of Wayne Swan on the issue of the budget and Bowen, Tanner and to a lesser extent Emerson on the Resource Rental Tax.

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