Australia's main opposition party Labor retains its election-winning lead over the ruling Coalition, but the gap narrows over the environment issue, shows a latest opinion poll released Tuesday.
As the six-week election campaign enters its fourth week, Labor holds a six-point lead over the Coalition after taking into account preference flows, shows the latest News poll which was conducted last weekend exclusively for The Australian, one of the country's leading newspapers.
Labor has kept its election-winning lead in the opinion poll, with a primary vote of 47 percent to the Coalition's 42 percent.
On a two-party preferred basis, using preference flows at the 2004 election, Labor is in front of the Coalition by 53 percent to 47 percent.
Although little changed since last week, it is the closest the Coalition has been to Labor since November last year, before Kevin Rudd became the opposition leader.
The poll finds the Labor party is squandering one of its key electoral strengths, with a series of blunders on the environment dramatically undermining its standing among voters on key green issues.
The support on Labor's handling the environment slumped 10 points in the past month to an 18-month low of 29 percent, only slightly higher than the Coalition.
This is due to a series of mistakes by Opposition environment spokesman Peter Garrett, coupled with Labor's endorsement of the pulp mill in the state of Tasmania, according to the newspaper.
However, Garrett is still preferred by voters as environment minister over the Coalition's equally accident-prone Malcolm Turnbull.
Source: Xinhua
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