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Aussie PM struggles with election campaign
AFP - Monday, August 2
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Aussie PM struggles with election campaign
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) - – Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard struggled Sunday to put her election campaign back on track after a poll showed her heading for defeat following a series of damaging leaks.
But just as she moved to re-focus attention for the August 21 election on policy, her campaign was overshadowed by claims her predecessor Kevin Rudd was once used by rival politicians as a "double agent" to leak information about his own party.
Gillard, Australia's first woman prime minister, who came to power just five weeks ago in a party coup against Rudd, unveiled plans Sunday for a low-fee pensions scheme that would help boost flagging retirement funds.
"It's part of the sharp contrast between a re-elected Gillard government and what (opposition leader) Tony Abbott would do if he was elected prime minister," she said.
The centre-left leader pledged that if her Labor Party is re-elected, workers on average incomes would see their retirement savings grow by 40,000 Australian dollars (36,000 US) under the new superannuation scheme.
Gillard, who is seeking a mandate of her own after facing criticism over the manner in which she seized power, conceded that her battle to keep conservative Abbott out of power was a tough one.
"This is the fight of my life," Gillard said late Saturday after the new poll suggested Abbott's Liberal Party had for the first time picked up an election-winning lead over Labor.
Labor's support slumped to 48 percent against the Liberal/National coalition's 52 percent, Saturday's Nielsen poll showed, a six-percentage point shift away from Labor which had until Saturday led in all polls.
Gillard's plunging popularity came in a week peppered by leaks from the cabinet room that undermined her position on introducing paid parental leave and raising pensions.
Rudd, who is recovering in hospital from gallbladder surgery, has denied claims he was behind any of the leaks.
But his spectre hung over Gillard's campaign when ex-Liberal foreign minister Alexander Downer was quoted as saying his party "mercilessly" used Rudd to leak compromising information to media about Labor a decade ago.
Rudd threatened legal action over the claim, while his former deputy Gillard lambasted the opposition over what she branded a "disgraceful political attack" on the ailing Rudd.
"These are serious allegations... they are completely and utterly false," a spokesman for Rudd said.
Downer issued a statement saying his comments had been "misinterpreted" and that he or his party had not used Rudd as "a so-called 'double agent' to leak material against other members of the Labor Party."
But the latest political bombshell overshadowed Gillard's superannuation announcement, which was intended to be a return to business-as-usual.
Unleashing another blow against her, a group of smaller mining firms launched a new advertising campaign against Gillard's 30 percent resources profits tax that she agreed with three giant mining companies last month.
The smaller firms -- which say the scheme is unfair to them, a position supported by Abbott -- however said the campaign was not politically motivated.
Abbott, a devout Catholic and former health minister, has seized on the flow of leaks to say Labor "does not deserve to be re-elected" after three years in office during which he claims it bungled policies.
An election defeat for Gillard would put paid to plans to introduce the tax on iron ore and coal mines, to introduce carbon-trading to fight climate change and to build a 43 billion Australian dollar broadband network.
Abbott meanwhile brushed off criticism of his constantly shifting positions on policy, including whether climate change exists, on paid parental leave and on industrial relations.
"I don't apologise for growing out of old-fashioned positions and coming into better positions," Abbott told Nine Network television, adding he had been growing into the role of party leader and controlling his famed verbal gaffes.
The country's Greens Party launched its election campaign, pledging support for legalising gay marriage and euthanasia and to fight for the environment and dismissing both Labor and the Liberals for their "failure of vision".
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