Gillard Government also polarised: approval ratings of Gillard and Abbott both improved following the speech. Julia Gillard mounted a leadership challenge against Kevin Rudd as leader of the Australian Labor Party and Prime Minister of Australia in June 2010. Rudd remained within the government, initially as a backbencher. Following the 2010 election, Gillard appointed Rudd as Foreign Minister in her minority government. The unusual circumstances of Rudd's replacement by his own party prior to completion of his first term in office, the subsequent circumstances of Labor operating without an outright Parliamentary majority, persistent two-party-preferred polling results favouring the Liberal-National opposition, and some
Historical rankings of Prime Ministers of Australia Paul Keating has had the lowest high-mark satisfaction rating at 43%. Voters are asked the question: 'Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way -name- is doing his/her job as Prime Minister?' Since Newspoll began in 1985, the lowest satisfaction rating of any Prime Minister is by far Paul Keating's at 17% in August 1993, with a 6% difference between Keating and the nearest low rating of Julia Gillard at 23% in September 2011. John Scales, of JWS research, in May 2011 polled 2141 people in the 10 most marginal Labor seats and the 10 most marginal Coalition seats. Asked