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By Renju Jose
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's conservative opposition coalition has pulled ahead of the Labor government for the first time since the May 2022 election, while ratings of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese fell to the lowest levels, a widely watched poll showed on Monday.
A Newspoll conducted for The Australian newspaper showed the Liberal-National coalition now leads Labor 51-49 on a two-party preferred basis under Australia's preferential voting system, where votes from minor parties are redistributed until a winner is elected.
Though the primary vote support for both the opposition and Labor remained unchanged at 38-31 on the previous poll, the slim lead for the coalition has come from a slight shift in preference over minor parties, the poll showed.
But the survey continued to predict a hung parliament as the opposition's current lead was not enough to win enough seats to return to power. A minority Labor government is still the more likely outcome, the poll said.
The poll findings are a blow to Albanese ahead of a national election expected in May even though his centre-left government has been rolling out a number of relief measures to families struggling with living costs and painfully high mortgage rates.
Headline inflation slowed to 2.7% in August, back in the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) target band of 2-3% but the central bank has said the monthly measure is volatile and it would look through the temporary impact.
Rates have been stuck at 4.35% since November last year though the RBA last month softened its hawkish stance slightly by saying a rate hike was not discussed.
Albanese's approval ratings fell to minus 14, the lowest since becoming prime minister. He suffered a three-point fall in his satisfaction ratings to 40% and a three-point rise in dissatisfaction to 54%. Opposition leader Peter Dutton has a slightly lower disapproval rating of 52%.
(Reporting by Renju Jose in Sydney; editing by Diane Craft)
