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Australia's Rudd ends first year as PM strong in polls
AFP - 2 hours 45 minutes ago
SYDNEY (AFP) - - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Monday marked the one-year anniversary of his election with a strong showing in a latest opinion poll, despite growing concerns about the nation's finances.
The centre-left Labor leader, dubbed "Kevin 747" by the media for his frequent official overseas travel, has remained widely popular with the public since wresting power from John Howard in the November 2007 election.
Newspoll surveys show Rudd, who has ratified the UN's Kyoto Protocol on climate change and made a historic apology to Aborigines since being elected, has enjoyed the highest voter satisfaction of any prime minister in their first year in the company's 24-year history.
Their latest poll, published Monday in The Australian newspaper, shows 67 percent of voters are satisfied with the 51-year-old former diplomat's performance -- compared with 59 percent in January.
The survey, which polled 1,159 people over the weekend, also revealed that the government holds a 10-point lead over the opposition.
The one downside was growing fears about the nation's finances in the face of the global financial crisis -- with 56 percent of respondents saying they were concerned or very concerned about the budget going into deficit.
Rudd and his ministers have avoided the word 'deficit' but the administration has left itself open to Australia recording its first budget deficit since 2001-2002 because of the credit crunch.
Newspoll head Martin O'Shannessy said despite the concern, the financial meltdown had appeared to bolster the standing of Rudd, whose satisfaction rating hit a low of 50 percent in September before the worst of the crisis hit.
"To characterise this as a national security crisis, as Mr Rudd did, would have contributed, I guess, to that expected dynamic that once you've got a crisis on your hands, you get behind the leader," O'Shannessy told AFP.
"Clearly he hasn't upset too many people. But there's definitely a resurgence in his ratings since the economic crisis started."
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