Dick Smith would easily beat Bronwyn Bishop, poll shows

EMBATTLED Mackellar federal Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop is facing an electoral wipe-out, according to secret new polling obtained­ by the Manly Daily.

EMBATTLED Mackellar federal Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop is facing an electoral wipe-out, according to secret new polling obtained­ by the Manly Daily.

A staggering 69 per cent flat out believe Ms Bishop should just retire after a lengthy career in politics tainted by the Choppergate expenses scandal.

And if businessman Dick Smith did run against her in this year’s Federal Election, as he has suggested, he would win 54 per cent of the primary vote.

Dick Smith

The poll of 877 people in Mackellar done on March 21 by MediaReach said Ms Bishop’s primary vote would be just 21 per cent.

MediaReach concluded that if Ms Bishop was preselected by the Liberal Party, Mr Smith would be “very hard to beat” and that his high profile would make it “very hard to structure a campaign against him”.

“Smith, with a net favourability of 59 per cent, means [voters] like him a lot,” it said.

Jason Falinski

Mr Smith has already said he would only run in Mackellar as an Independent if Ms Bishop was preselected and 52 per cent of respondents said they would be more likely to vote Liberal if the former Speaker was ditched as the party’s candidate.

That means that if preselectors chose a different Liberal candidate, the Party could hang onto what has always been regarded as a safe seat.

“Ms Bishop has very bad net negative favourabilities and a very low vote with Liberals voting elsewhere, as indicated by the willingness to vote for an unnamed someone else if they were running instead of Bishop,” the pollsters concluded.

Walter Villatora

In addition, 69 per cent of respondents to the poll said it is time she retired, while 48 per cent said she had not done enough to deserve re-election to Parliament.

The bad polling piles more pressure on Ms Bishop to step aside, coming as it does after recent reports from Liberal Party sources that preselectors were turning away from Ms Bishop and towards former Warringah councillor Jason Falinski­ and Liberal Party heavyweight Walter Villatora.

Even before the poll was undertaken, Mr Falinski and Mr Villatora were considered the frontrunners for preselection.