The tide just keeps going out...

There's more bad news for Kevin Rudd and Labor as the Australian Federal Election gets closer still. In fact by this time in two weeks, it's looking more and more likely that barring something remarkable, Australia will have a new government.

First-up, the Sydney Morning Herald takes a look at the big picture, and it's pretty ugly for Mr Rudd and Labor; check this out:

Tony Abbott is on track to become the nation's 29th prime minister as support for Labor crumbles and the Opposition Leader draws almost level with Kevin Rudd as preferred prime minister.
With only a fortnight to go in the five-week election campaign, the latest Fairfax-Nielsen poll shows the Coalition extending its lead over Labor to 53-47 on a two-party-preferred basis.
It was 52-48 in early August, shortly after the election was called.

While both leaders have lost some skin in the campaign, Mr Abbott retains the lead as the more trusted leader, with a rating of 43 per cent to Mr Rudd's career-low 36 per cent.
Labor's primary vote has dropped to 35 per cent compared to the Coalition's 47 per cent, with the Greens steady on 10 per cent.
On the question of preferred prime minister, Mr Rudd's commanding 55-41 lead in July has been reduced to a statistically marginal 3 points on 48-45.
The clear trend suggests voters are considering just the seventh switch of governing party since World War II.
An overwhelming 70 per cent now believe the Coalition will win on September 7, compared to just 20 per cent who tip a come-from-behind result for Labor. Voters have answered that question correctly in the Fairfax-Nielsen poll ahead of every election since 1998.
The statistically weighted poll of 2545 respondents taken between August 18 and 22 included 972 voters in Victoria and 980 in NSW.
In Victoria, a Labor stronghold, ALP support has fallen 4 points since 2010, although that decline is off a very high base-vote of 55.3 per cent.
It means Labor's hopes of retaining knife-edge seats such as Corangamite, Deakin and La Trobe look like being dashed and others will now be vulnerable to Coalition attack.
However, the ALP still leads narrowly in the state with 51 per cent after preferences, a marginal improvement on the poll a fortnight ago.
Mr Rudd's advantage as preferred prime minister is also strongest in Victoria with 51 per cent to Mr Abbott's 39.
In an encouragement for Adam Bandt, the Greens' sole lower house MP, support for the minor party is at 15 per cent in Victoria.
In NSW, where Labor had hoped to keep losses to one or two seats in western Sydney, offset by expected gains in Queensland, Labor's primary vote is down to 34 per cent, a
drop of some 5 points since the election was called.
On a two-party-preferred basis, Labor's share of the vote in NSW has slumped to 44 per cent to the Coalition's 56, putting a swag of Labor seats in peril, including Greenway (0.9 per cent); Robertson (1.0), Lindsay (1.1), Banks (1.5), Reid (2.7), Parramatta (4.4) and Kingsford-Smith (5.2).
The result shows Labor's prime-time election campaign advertisements warning of the threat of an Abbott government slashing essential services and cutting public spending ''to the bone'' have failed to bite.

If even Victoria, a long-time Labor stronghold is in danger of falling, Mr Rudd is going to be vacating the Prime Minister's residence after the election. And it looks as though Labor is going to get an absolute bath in New South Wales.

But wait, as they say in the infomercials; there's more. A second poll has confirmed that Kevin Rudd is in clear and present danger of being out of a job; check this out:

Kevin Rudd faces a fight to avoid becoming the third prime minister in the nation's history to lose his own seat.
A second poll in a week has shown Mr Rudd narrowly trailing his Liberal National Party opponent, Bill Glasson, in Griffith, prompting the Prime Minister to declare he was campaigning as hard as he could.
Long-serving prime minister John Howard lost his Sydney seat of Bennelong to Labor's Maxine McKew as part of the Ruddslide in 2007, the first time an Australian PM had lost his own electorate since Stanley Bruce in 1929.

A Newspoll published by The Australian on Saturday suggested Dr Glasson was leading Mr Rudd by 52 per cent to 48 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis. The poll was reportedly based on a sample of 500 voters in Griffith, in Brisbane's south.
It mirrored a Guardian Lonergan poll of 958 Griffith voters on Wednesday night that put Dr Glasson ahead of Mr Rudd 52 per cent to 48 per cent after preferences, with a stated margin of error of 4 per cent.
Mr Rudd attracted 58.5 per cent of the vote after preferences at the 2010 election.
Latest polling suggests Queensland will not provide the big boost that Labor had hoped for with Mr Rudd's return to the leadership. The party also faces losses in western Sydney.
Nationally, the latest Fairfax-Nielsen poll shows Mr Abbott's Coalition is poised to win the election in two weeks' time with a lead of 53 per cent to 47 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis.
Mr Rudd sought on Saturday to brush off the latest poll results, saying he would keep campaigning with a focus on the national broadband network, school funding and health as compared with Mr Abbott's "unaffordable and unfair" paid parental leave scheme.
"I'm in the business of fighting an election and fighting as hard as I can," he said as he flagged a return to Canberra for briefings on the Syria crisis.
"What the Australian people ultimately decide in a couple of weeks' time is a matter for them."
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said Mr Rudd had a spring in his step as the Prime Minister believed Labor's negative attacks may begin to work.
"As for the polls, frankly I don't believe them," Mr Abbott said while campaigning in Adelaide.
"I think this is a very, very close race."

It would be the ultimate indignity if Kevin Rudd was not only booted out of the Prime Ministership in two weeks time, but booted to touch completely. But that is looking increasingly likely.

And the Coalition expects Rudd to go down fighting:

Mr Abbott, who is due to launch the Liberal campaign in Brisbane on Sunday, said there were still two weeks to go and Labor would unleash "the mother of all negative campaigns" in the remaining time.

As good fortune would have it, we are going to be in Australia at the end of the week. As campaigning intensifies, it is going to be fascinating to be there amongst it all, and hopefully if technology and time permits, we'll be able to bring some insights.

In the meantime, we wonder how low Kevin Rudd is prepared to go; almost subterranean, we should think.