Support for Australia's conservative Prime Minister John Howard remained near a record low this month, with no sign that pre-election tax cuts announced on May 8th had any impact on his government's popularity.
In a week when Mr Howard warned his government could be annihilated at elections due within six months, the centre-left Labour Party held a 16.9 point lead over the Liberal/National coalition government, the latest ReutersPoll Trend has found.
The figures were calcualted on a two-party basis, where minority votes are distributed to the two main parties likely to decide an election.
Labour's two-party support was 58.4 compared to 41.6 for the government, little changed from a month ago and up only slightly on the March result - which was the government's worst since it won power in 1996.
The poll found Labour's new leader Kevin Rudd, who was elected opposition leader in December last year, held an 8.4 point lead over Mr Howard as preferred prime minister, down slightly from a 9.3 points in April and 11.7 points in mid-March.
The results came after the May 8th budget detailed Aus$31.5 billion (€19.2 billion) of income tax cuts and more than $30 billion in new spending.
Mr Howard's coalition government has won four consecutive elections since 1996. The next election is due in the second half of 2007 and is widely expected to be called for October or November.
The ReutersPoll Trend is an analysis of the three main polls - Newspoll, published in The Australiannewspaper, ACNielsen, published in the Sydney Morning Heraldand Agenewspapers, and the Morgan Poll, published online.