from Crikey ….

Essential: voters like Rudd more than Abbott, Coalition still leads

Labor's primary vote under Kevin Rudd remains at 38%, according to new polling from Essential Report, but unlike Julia Gillard he has a significant lead over Tony Abbott on almost all personal attributes in the eyes of voters.

With the Coalition still on 46% and the Greens dropping a point to 8%, the two-party preferred result on voting intention remains at 52%-48% - the same outcome as after the leadership switch to Kevin Rudd the week before last.

Rudd has a big lead on personal attributes over his predecessor: for example, 77% regard him as intelligent versus 69% for Gillard; 39% believe he is out of touch with ordinary Australians compared to 57% for Gillard; 58% see him as a capable leader (44% Gillard); 57% say he understands the problems facing Australia (42% Gillard); 42% say he is trustworthy (30% for Gillard). He thus has big leads on Abbott across most attributes.

Only 10% of voters want Rudd to retain Labor's current approach on asylum seekers, with 21% wanting him to dump Labor's entire policy and 51% wanting him to change it. Half of voters want him to keep the NBN as is; 59% want him to keep the NDIS as is; 44% want him to keep the education funding reforms as they are. But only 25% want him to keep the carbon price as is, with 39% wanting him to dump it entirely and 23% wanting to see it changed. Less than a third of respondents supported keeping the mining tax as it is, but 29% want it dumped entirely.

And almost 40% of voters want the election held on the same date as promised by Gillard; 27% want it earlier and only 16% want it later.