Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has snatched back a narrow election-winning lead from her rival Tony Abbott,but next week's vote remains on a knife edge,two new polls showed today. The latest Newspoll survey for The Australian newspaper ahead of the August 21 election showed the country's first woman prime minister had turned around her vote to outpace the conservative opposition leader by 52 per cent to 48. Gillard,whose disaster-strewn campaign has seen her strong lead evaporate as signs of infighting emerged in her centre-left Labour Party,has improved her rating from 50-50 a week ago,the survey said. A Galaxy poll produced a similar result,showing Labor ahead of Abbott's Liberal-National coalition by a tight 51 per cent to 49 - up from 50-50 some 12 days ago prompting both major parties to declare themselves the underdogs. "This is like a nil-all draw,with Labor being slightly ahead on penalties," said Newspoll head Martin O'Shannessy,warning that the latest results - the first in two weeks that put Gillard ahead - should be treated with caution. The shift to Labor was a "very minor change" and not statistically different from the previous week's poll,he told Sky News. The latest results came after a Nielsen poll Saturday indicated the unmarried atheist was trailing devoutly Catholic family man Abbott by 49 per cent to 51 per cent,a one point improvement for Gillard from a week earlier. Her buoyed numbers came after she announced last week she was throwing away the rule book and bring out the "real Julia" to run a more natural and less stage-managed campaign. She also moved to staunch a series of damaging cabinet-level leaks against her and to publicly reconcile with former prime minister Kevin Rudd,who Gillard and the party brutally ousted six weeks ago. "We are the underdogs," said Labor spokesman Chris Bowen,in a campaign where both main parties have focussed on attacking their opponents rather than formulating policy. "What is clear . is as the election (draws) closer people will be focusing more and more on Tony Abbott's lack of economic judgement,his lack of an economic plan and the stark alternative with Julia Gillard on these matters," Bowen told ABC Radio. But while the new polls put Labor ahead after complex electoral preferences were taken into account,they both indicated its primary vote still lagged behind that of the coalition by 38 points to 42.
