CANBERRA, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- Australian Prime Minister and Leader of the ruling Labor Party Kevin Rudd's personal support slumped into negative for the first time since he resumed the leadership in June, the latest Newspoll showed on Monday.
The survey found that Labor starts the campaign with its support virtually unchanged in the past fortnight at 37 percent to the Opposition Coalition's 44 percent, down one percentage point.
Rudd on Sunday announced Australia would hold the election on September 7. The poll of 1,147 voters, conducted this weekend for The Australian newspaper, showed that although Rudd is still more popular than the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, his support as preferred prime minister is at its lowest point.
According to the figures, voter satisfaction with Rudd dropped four percentage points in the past two weeks from 42 percent to 38 percent and dissatisfaction jumped six points from 41 percent to 47 percent. Since the end of his first week as Prime Minister at the beginning of July, satisfaction with Rudd has fallen five points and dissatisfaction has risen 11 points.
Rudd's net satisfaction rating - the difference between satisfaction and dissatisfaction - is now minus nine, the first time he has had a negative rating since his return at the end of June.
The Opposition Leader's satisfaction rating continued its run for all of this year at 34 percent, down a point from two weeks ago, as dissatisfaction remained an unchanged 56 percent for a net satisfaction rating of minus 22.
On the question of who would make the better prime minister, Rudd's support dropped from 50 percent two weeks ago to 47 percent for a fall of six percentage points since the start of last month.
And support for Tony Abbott was steady at 33 percent, down a point in two weeks, leaving Rudd with a lead over the Opposition Leader of 14 percentage points.
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