REPLACING Julia Gillard with Kevin Rudd would take Labor from confronting a landslide defeat to a potentially election-winning position, according to an Age/Nielsen poll that also finds a slump in the PM's approval to her lowest ever.

Labor's two-party vote, steady on 42-58 per cent from last month, would jump to 52-48 per cent under Mr Rudd. The former prime minister, ousted more than a year ago, is preferred by 44 per cent of voters as ALP leader, more than twice Ms Gillard's 19 per cent support.

Age/Nielsen latest poll

Mr Rudd would take Labor's primary vote of 27 per cent (down 1 point since last month) to 42 per cent, according to the poll of 1400 taken from Thursday to Saturday.

Ahead of special cabinet and caucus meetings this morning to deal with the asylum seeker policy crisis, some Labor MPs will be concerned that Ms Gillard's determination to change the law to validate the Malaysian people swap is out of sync with public opinion. Only 25 per cent said people should be sent offshore to be processed (down 3 points since August), while 54 per cent (up a point) believed people should be allowed to land in Australia to be assessed. Sixteen per cent said the boats should be sent back out to sea.