UPDATED: Rudd's rural popularity on the slide

The rural communities are the only ones that really understand the effect of the ETS, and it is showing in recent polls. Green policies and environmentalism are fine when you live in the city, working in air conditioned offices, insulated from the harsh realities of those policies' effects.

An opinion poll shows public support for Labor has fallen in regional areas as well as in Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's home state of Queensland.

The latest Newspoll figures, published in today's Australian, show an increase in support for the Coalition from voters outside capital cities.

In regional areas, the Coalition now leads Labor 44 per cent to 39 per cent in primary figures and 51 per cent to 49 per cent in two party preferred terms.

The figures can be at least partly attributed to a boost in support for the Nationals, who are leading a strong anti-emissions trading campaign in regional areas.

The Coalition's primary vote in Queensland was higher by four percentage points to 42 per cent, only one point behind Labor.

Read it here (this page has disappeared from the ABC web site for some reason, so this is the Google cache)

UPDATE: Barnaby Joyce sums up the effect of the ETS very succinctly:

"People just didn't understand it, and now that they do get it they just hate it,'' he told ABC Radio today. (source)