Australia PM Gillard gets popularity boost after sexism speech

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s popularity has surged following her aggressive speech calling the opposition leader a misogynist and a sexist, a poll showed on Monday.

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

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

While Gillard’s personal popularity has jumped, her ruling Labor party continues to lag the opposition in the two-party vote by 48 per cent to 52 per cent, according to the poll conducted a week after Abbott’s dressing down.

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”.