Rudd quits Australian Labor leadership race

BRISBANE - Australian Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd said last night that he would not stand for the Labor leadership against Kim Beazley.

Rudd told reporters in Brisbane that he phoned leadership contender Beazley to tell him his decision.

"The reason I have taken that decision is very simple - I do not have enough votes," Rudd said.

Former leader Beazley is the only declared candidate so far for the Opposition leader's job left vacant by Mark Latham's resignation last week.

But Rudd and Opposition health spokeswoman Julia Gillard have both considered running against Beazley at Friday's caucus meeting.

Beazley's backers say he has the 44 votes needed to claim victory but Rudd's backers have disputed their numbers.

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie said earlier that there was a strong chance Rudd would one day become prime minister but now was not the time for him to lead Labor.

"I think Kevin has enormous ability and I think one day there's a very strong possibility that he will be prime minister of this country," Beattie told reporters. He said what Labor needed most was a healer - and that healer was Beazley.

"I just think at this time the party needs to be brought together and I think that Kim is the best person to do that and I'll be working hard to help make him prime minister at the next election."

Beattie's Education Minister, Anna Bligh - a Rudd supporter - said she would like to see the foreign affairs spokesman in a leadership position.

"I think now is a good time to run. Peter [Beattie] has a different view. These are not issues on which we have any vote and I suspect very much influence," Bligh said.

The instability in the Labor Party has helped Prime Minister John Howard to his greatest public support since coming to office, according to a new poll.

Howard has increased his approval rating to 67 per cent following his response to the tsunami crisis and amid the Labor changes, according to the Sydney Morning Herald poll.

Howard's rating poses a daunting challenge for Beazley, who topped the poll as the public's choice to lead the Labor Party.

The newspaper poll found Labor's primary vote slumped from 38 per cent at the October election to 34 per cent.

The party's after-preferences vote had fallen from 47 to 34 per cent.

But the Coalition is enjoying remarkable success under Howard, whose present approval rating is one percentage point higher than his support after the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, and six percentage points higher than during the Australian response to the East Timor crisis in 1999.

- AAP