Kevin Rudd with his then Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard on his left.

In the US, confidence in President Barack Obama is on the slide because of the weak economy while in Australia the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd resigns despite economic good fortune.

Americans are more pessimistic about the state of the country and less confident in President Barack Obama's leadership than at any point since Obama entered the White House, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The survey also shows grave and growing concerns about the Gulf oil spill, with overwhelming majorities of adults favouring stronger regulation of the oil industry and believing that the spill will affect the nation's economy and environment.

The Journal says sixty-two percent of adults in the survey feel the country is on the wrong track, the highest level since before the 2008 election. Just one-third think the economy will get better over the next year, a 7-point drop from a month ago and the low point of  Obama's tenure.

Amid anxiety over the nation's course, support for the President and other incumbents is eroding. For the first time, more people disapprove of Obama's job performance than approve. And 57% of voters would prefer to elect a new person to Congress than re-elect their local representatives, the highest share in 18 years.

In Canberra today, a tearful Kevin Rudd said that he had "given it my all" and sugnalled that he is interested in retaining a key position in the new Australian government of his former deputy, Julia Gillard, who was born in Wales.

Gillard would be a “good PM,” Rudd said, as he committed to working in “any manner in which I can be of assistance” and recontesting his parliamentary seat.

"I will be dedicating my every effort to ensure the re-election of this Australian Labor government. It is a good government with a good program,” he said.

“As for serving this government in the future, I will of course serve it in any manner in which I can be of assistance,” Rudd said.

The outgoing prime minister, a former diplomat who is fluent in Mandarin, referred in particular to his reforms in health and his own condition, which required an aortic valve transplant.

A bungled plan to introduce a 40% resource tax on the key mining sector felled Rudd and Australia's first female prime minister said she had asked her colleagues to oust Kevin Rudd because she did not believe Labor would win the next election.

A first-term Australian government has not lost an election since the 1930s. Rudd became prime minister in a landslide, in November 2007 after 12 years of conservative rule.

Australia has 3-year parliaments and the next election is due this year.

Gillard offered an olive branch to the mining industry, saying she would scrap Labor's A$38m mining tax advertising campaign and the government needed to do more than “consult” with the resources sector to end the uncertainty caused by the profits super tax.

“We need to negotiate,” she said. “That is why today I am throwing open the government's door to the mining industry and I ask that in return the mining industry throws open its mind.”

Matthew Kidman, non-executive director at Wilson Asset Management, says Australia's new leadership gives the government a chance to take the resource tax back to the drawing board. He speaks to Kelvin Tay, chief investment strategist at UBS and CNBC's Karen Tso, Martin Soong, Bernard Lo and Sri Jegarajah: