Voters in key seats torn over who can handle issue of cost of living pressures

A key issue facing everyday Australians that might decide the federal election is dividing voters in the country’s most marginal seats.

Voters are split in key battleground seats over whether Labor or the Coalition is best placed to tackle cost of living pressures, according to polling that sharpens the close state of the federal election race.

Ahead of next week’s budget, which is expected to include targeted measures to help stretched households, the Herald Sun can reveal the Coalition is preferred to handle cost of living in Chisholm — Victoria’s most marginal seat — as well as Flynn and Longman in Queensland and Gilmore in New South Wales.

According to the polling by KJC Research, more voters believe Labor will do a better job on the crucial issue in Reid in Sydney and Swan in Perth, where the Liberal Party’s primary vote has crashed.

The opposition is also favoured on cost of living in the Victorian seat of Dunkley, Boothby in South Australia and Bass in Tasmania.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese. Picture: AAP

The polling data — commissioned by the Herald Sun and based on surveys of about 800 voters in each seat on Thursday and Saturday last week — also reveals the Coalition’s campaign on national security and the economy is working to its advantage in Chisholm, Flynn, Longman and Gilmore.

The two issues are central to Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s re-election narrative, with the Liberal Party running an aggressive negative campaign directed at Labor leader Anthony Albanese on both.

In Chisholm, 48 per cent of voters said they trusted the Coalition to keep Australia safe and secure and to better manage the Australian economy, after the Herald Sun revealed on Wednesday that the Liberal primary vote was defying the expectations of both sides by improving slightly on the 2019 federal election result.

The Coalition is strongly preferred on the economic and national security in Gilmore, where the Liberal Party is hoping to pinch the seat from Labor, and in the two Queensland seats the government is seeking to hold.

But voters in Reid and Swan were more likely to nominate Labor to keep the country safe and secure, and were evenly split on which major party was the better economic manager.

The results were more mixed in Bass, Boothby and Dunkley, where the KJC Research survey found Labor was in a position to stretch its lead in the marginal seat.

The polling data revealed by the Herald Sun on Wednesday showed that Labor’s advantage in national two-party preferred polls was not translating in all of its target seats, and that while the Coalition’s primary vote had slumped in some areas, many voters were instead shifting to minor parties, including One Nation and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party.

Originally published as Voters in key seats torn over who can handle issue of cost of living pressures