Gillard’s popularity up

PM sexism comments go viral and win praise

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s popularity has surged following her aggressive speech calling the opposition leader a misogynist and a sexist

SYDNEY: Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s ( pic) popularity has surged following her aggressive speech calling the opposition leader a misogynist and a sexist, a poll showed.

In the latest Fairfax-Nielsen poll, Gillard has a 10-point margin as preferred leader over the man she savaged, Tony Abbott, in comments that went viral and won praise around the world.

Gillard, the nation’s firstwoman leader, is now seen as as preferred prime minister by 50% of voters, up three points, while Abbott has slipped four points to 40%. It is her biggest lead in 20 months.

While Gillard’s popularity has jumped, her ruling Labor party continues to lag the opposition in the two-party vote by 48% to 52%.

The nationwide telephone poll of 1,400 people was conducted a week after the dressing-down of Abbott and showed Gillard picked up numbers among both men and women.

Before the controversy, 48% of men rated Abbott the best prime minister to Gillard’s 43%.

That has now reversed with more men favouring Gillard, who also has a 15 percent lead among women.

Elections are due in Australia next year.

A fired-up Gillard accused Abbott of hypocrisy this month, saying she had been offended by many of his remarks over the years and she would not be “lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man”.

“I’ve had enough, Australian women have had enough.

“When I see sexism and misogyny I’m going to call them for what they are,” she said.

Her speech prompted a leading dictionary last week to broaden its definition of the word misogyny as debate raged about whether Abbott really had a pathological hated of women, which is the current basic definition.

Neither of the political leaders wanted to comment on the poll yesterday. — AFP