Breakthrough for Coalition

MICHELLE GRATTAN AND PAUL AUSTIN THE Abbott Coalition has broken through for the first time to a clear election-winning lead of 53-47 per cent in an Age/Nielsen poll that will rattle Labor and intensify pressure to change its increasingly unpopular mining tax.

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The government is losing the resource tax debate, with support for the tax down 3 points to 41 per cent and opposition up 2 points to 49 per cent during the past month. Labor's two-party vote has fallen 3 points - a dramatic swing of nearly 6 per cent since the 2007 election that, if uniform, would wipe out 29 seats. That would push it from government and give the Coalition a big majority. But voters are flocking to the Greens rather than to the Coalition - and they are turning off both leaders, who are polling almost equally on approval and disapproval as their support plummets. More...