KEY POINTS:
A new poll has confirmed that John Howard is heading into this year's election at his lowest point in six years, losing his former rock-solid standing as preferred prime minister to Labor leader Kevin Rudd.
His Government is also bouncing on the ropes, with a Newspoll in The
Australian supporting the finding by earlier polls that the Opposition is at present in a comfortable election-winning position.
Voters have turned against Howard in his two most pressing national security issues - the war in Iraq and the five-year incarceration of Australian terror suspect David Hicks in the American military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
National security and the economy are the only two areas in which the Coalition commands a strong lead in voter opinion polling.
Howard has switched stance on Hicks, overturning the Government's previous lethargy and refusal to push Washington on the nature and timing of his trial that contrasted with the successful demands for the release of their nationals by other US allies such as the United Kingdom.
With anger mounting, Howard spoke yesterday with U.S. President George W. Bush, urging a speedy trial that would either clear Hicks - arrested as a Taleban fighter during the initial invasion of Afghanistan - or convict him and allow his transfer back to an Australian prison to serve out his sentence.
Howard said he had left Bush in no doubt that a fast and fair trial was an issue of great importance to Australians.
"His assurance was - and it was a very direct assurance - that he would again reinforce to the authorities in the US the need for the matter to be dealt with with all possible expedition," he said.
But Howard has continued to risk the wrath of voters by not only refusing to set a deadline for the withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq, but on Monday announcing that up to 70 more military instructors would be sent to help train the Iraqi army.
They will join 30 trainers and more than 500 combat troops already deployed by Canberra in the war-torn country.
Yesterday's Newspoll said 68 per cent of voters now believed it had not been worth sending Australian troops to Iraq, and only 30 per cent agreed with Howard's view that they should remain "as long as necessary".
In sharp contrast to Government policy and, as yet another indicator of the growing unpopularity of the war, 45 per cent demanded Howard set an exit date, and 27 per cent wanted the diggers brought home immediately.
Labor has promised to withdraw the troops if it wins the election, but only after consultation with Washington.
The swing against Howard on Iraq mirrors a major shift towards Labor in voting intentions, shown earlier in a Sydney Morning Herald ACNielsen poll that both placed Rudd ahead as preferred prime minister and Labor in the lead in the two-party preferred vote that determines elections under Australia's preferential voting system.
The latest Reuters' poll trends, which analyses Australia's three major opinion polls, said the Government was at its lowest election-year slump since 2001, trailing Labor by 13.4 points, with Howard slipping behind Rudd as preferred prime minister.
A Morgan poll also found that Labor was leading Howard by 55 per cent to 45 per cent in the prime minister's previously unshakeable Sydney seat of Bennelong, hit by an electoral redistribution that has weakened Liberal support.
Yesterday's Newspoll confirmed Howard's deepening nightmare.
It showed that 47 per cent of voters preferred Rudd as prime minister, opening a 10-point lead over Howard in the leadership stakes. Rudd's approval rating of 68 per cent was also well ahead of Howard's 44 per cent.
More voters, in fact, were dissatisfied rather than satisfied with the job Howard is doing.
The Government is in similar dire straits, with Labor leading the two-party preferred vote by an election-winning 54 per cent to 46 per cent.
But while all appears black for the Government, previous elections have shown Howard's skill in rising from an apparent electoral grave to hammer the Opposition at the polling booths.
History has also demonstrated the fragility of strong polling by new Opposition leaders early in an election year: both Mark Latham and Kim Beazley were thrown to Earth after initially soaring in public esteem.