Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard gestures during question time at Parliament House in Canberra in this May 10, 2011 file photo. [Photo/Agencies]

CANBERRA - Voter satisfaction with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has plunged to a new low, while Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has outstripped Gillard as preferred prime minister, latest poll showed on Tuesday.

Newspoll published in The Australian newspaper on Tuesday showed voter satisfaction with Gillard dropped six points to a record low of 23 percent, with dissatisfaction jumping seven points to 68 percent.

Only former prime minister Paul Keating had worse personal support with a satisfaction level of 17 percent back in August 1993.

Gillard's net satisfaction rating, the difference between voter satisfaction and dissatisfaction, is now minus 45 percent.

To add to Gillard's woes, the man she deposed as leader, Kevin Rudd, is surging ahead as the best person to lead Labor government, with 57 percent of participants preferring Rudd to lead Labor, compared to only 24 percent preferring Gillard.

It is also the sixth Newspoll in a row to show Abbott as preferred prime minister over Gillard. The poll showed Abbott has a clear nine-point buffer over her as the preferred prime minister, with a rise in support from 39 percent to 43 percent. Gillard's support to be prime minister fell four points to a new low of 34 percent.

On primary votes, Labor remains steady on its lowest level of 27 percent, compared with the coalition's 50 percent and the Australian Greens on 12 percent.

On a two-party preferred basis, Labor lost two points to 41 percent, while the coalition gained two to 59 percent.

Newspoll CEO Martin O'Shannessy said Labor would lose as many as 40 seats "if an election was held today."

"That would displace nine ministers [on a uniform swing]," he said in a statement released on Tuesday.

"Maybe two-thirds [of the 40-seat figure] is more likely but that would still be devastating for Labor, losing 30 seats, taking them down to somewhere around 44 [seats] or less in a 150-seat parliament."

Opposition frontbencher Sophie Mirabella seized on the latest results as proof Australians were sick of Labor.

"I don't think you have to be a genius to realize that Australians have had enough," she told ABC Television.

"It is the Labor Party that is dysfunctional. People are anxious that it's not just a bad government, people get a sense that there is no government."

Despite the glooming poll result, federal Finance Minister Penny Wong reaffirmed her support for Gillard's leadership, which has come under increasing pressure since the High Court rejected the government's proposed asylum seekers swap deal with Malaysia.

"We have a prime minister, Prime Minister Gillard, and she's doing the right thing by the nation and she'll be leading us until the next election," she said.

"These are difficult times. We have a very large set of reforms. Many of them are highly contested but Julia Gillard, Prime Minister Gillard, is pressing ahead with those and that's the right thing to do."

Defense Minister Stephen Smith also said the latest Newspoll reflected recent events, such as the High Court overturning the government's Malaysia deal on asylum seekers.

"I strongly support the prime minister and her very determined efforts to work the government and the country through a series of difficult policy challenges that we have," Smith said.

The survey, conducted over the phone, was based on 1,152 interviews among voters.