The latest Fairfax/Nielsen poll shows Julia Gillard is in front of Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister for the first time in nine months.
With speculation swirling about a possible leadership challenge from Kevin Rudd, Ms Gillard's preferred prime minister rating has jumped six points to 48 per cent, ahead of Mr Abbott's 46 per cent, which is unchanged.
But when compared with the man she deposed as prime minister, Ms Gillard still trails Mr Rudd as preferred leader.
More than one in two voters - 57 per cent, which is four points down since October - preferred Mr Rudd compared to 35 per cent - up five points - who favour Ms Gillard.
But nearly a quarter of the Rudd supporters do not want to rock the boat and say Ms Gillard should stay as leader.
On the party front, the poll, which surveyed 1400 voters between Thursday and Saturday, showed that Labor's primary vote rose four points to 33 per cent since December while the coalition lost four points to 45 per cent.
Labor also improved its two-party vote by four points to 47 per cent, still behind the coalition's 53 per cent, which is down four points.
Fairfax said the coalition would win an election held now on a swing of about three per cent.
On Sunday Ms Gillard read the riot act to her caucus team in a bid to hose down leadership speculation, saying people did not join the Labor Party to "help the Liberals".
About 80 Labor members and senators out of 103 met at Parliament House for a three-and-a-half-hour planning session, as speculation continued about a leadership comeback by Mr Rudd, who was overseas.
Ms Gillard ended her 20-minute speech - in which she outlined the government's achievements and plans for 2012 - telling the meeting that people joined the ALP for a variety of reasons, but one of the things that motivated all of them was "building a stronger economy and a fairer society".
She told the Seven Network on Sunday that she won't call a leadership vote because there is "no need".
"I'm very confident in my leadership," she said.
While she acknowledged questions about her leadership status were "endlessly fascinating" to some, she said she didn't wake up in the morning thinking about it.
"I'm not going to define what I do as prime minister about the politics around the government.
"I'm going to define what I do around what really matters."
