Labor Party’s own polling finds 3% swing back to Liberal-National Coalition
LABOR faces the horror prospect of failing to pick up any extra seats in Queensland and may even go backwards as nervous voters return to the Government after the Brexit economic shock.
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LABOR faces the horror prospect of failing to pick up any extra seats in Queensland and may even go backwards as nervous voters return to the Government after the Brexit economic shock.
The Liberal National Party is likely to hold its most marginal seat in the country, the north Brisbane seat of Petrie, according to Labor-commissioned polling that shows a 3 percentage point swing away from the Opposition.
The poll, conducted by Galaxy and commissioned by Queensland Labor, surveyed 400 voters in Petrie by phone on the weekend as the global economy reeled from Britain’s shock decision to leave the European Union.
Labor’s primary vote has slumped by three per cent with most of this shifting to bolster the LNP’s support base.
Minor parties attracted about 20 per cent of the vote, with Family First and the Greens the biggest winners although preferences from these parties may cancel each other out.
The results deliver a significant boost to the LNP and suggest it will be almost impossible for Labor to win the seat.
LNP sources said their own polling suggests they are in a reasonable position in Petrie but stopped short of chalking the seat up as a win.
Despite previously talking up their chances of winning several seats in Queensland, Labor strategists now reckon their best outcome will be four extra seats to hold a third of the 30 in the state.
But pessimists in Labor fear they could lose up to two of their current seats — Griffith and Moreton — and the most likely outcome could be no net gain in the state.
Labor has not yet written off its targeted LNP seats in Brisbane but multiple party sources confirmed they had downgraded their chances of winning.
“The worst outcome would be to go backwards by two,” a senior Labor strategist said. “The best would be to pick up four. The truth might be somewhere in between.”
Three of the four most likely Labor gains are in central Queensland — Capricornia, Flynn and Dawson — where the mining downturn has hit towns hard. But Labor strategists are not confident of winning any of these seats.
One Labor source said the party was “throwing the kitchen sink” at the Gladstone-based seat of Flynn, where they have picked up a swing against MP Ken O’Dowd.
In a sign of his hope of snatching the seat, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten (left) made a flying visit to Gladstone on Sunday for the second time of the campaign.
Labor insiders claim their best hope for a gain in Brisbane is in Wyatt Roy’s seat of Longman, but they concede this could be a stretch.
A surging vote for One Nation in Longman will advantage Labor because Pauline Hanson’s party is preferencing the Opposition in the seat.
One Nation is running split tickets in other seats but is directing preferences to Labor ahead of the LNP in Longman, where the minor party is attracting about 10 per cent of the vote.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull yesterday campaigned in the inner city seat of Brisbane and in Petrie, where he mingled with shoppers at the North Lakes shopping centre.
Originally published as Labor Party’s own polling finds 3% swing back to Liberal-National Coalition
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