Federal election 2019: Curtin candidate Louise Stewart ‘put out fake poll’

Independent candidate Louise Stewart allegedly distributed a fake poll showing a 20 pc swing to her.

Louise Stewart has been accused of putting out a fake poll. Picture: Colin Murty.

The race for Julie Bishop’s blue-ribbon seat of Curtin has been up-ended by claims an independent candidate put out a fake poll showing a 20 per cent swing to her.

Independent candidate Louise Stewart released a poll last week, which she claimed was from polling companies UComms and ReachTEl, showing she had eaten into the Liberal Party’s margin in Perth’s high-end western suburbs and posed a real threat to government candidate Celia Hammond.

But ReachTEL founder and UComms co-owner James Stewart told The West Australian today that it has no records of such a poll being conducted.

“We don’t have any records for a poll conducted in that electorate on those dates,” Mr Stewart said.

“While there’s a very small part of me that’s flattered they’re trying to leverage one of my old brands to get credibility in the marketplace, the vast majority of me is very concerned about the fact we have got a doctored poll out there in the marketplace and they think they can get away with it.

“It would be very interesting to get down to the bottom of this, someone obviously has got the ability to doctor up a poll and what’s ReachTEL today is a Newspoll tomorrow.”

Ms Stewart now claims a “third party” sent her the fake poll and she is working out how the bungle happened.

“The Louise Stewart campaign has committed two polls from ReachTEL/Ucomms before election day,” Ms Stewart told The West Australian.

“The campaign was supplied with polling data from a third party, the results of which matched our experience on the ground in Curtin.

“The campaign accepted those results in good faith.

“We are working with Reach-TEL to ascertain if and how an error has occurred.”

The Liberal candidate Ms Hammond, the former vice-chancellor of Notre Dame University, has faced pressure in Curtin over claims she is too right-wing for the seat. But the fake poll scandal is the latest bungle in attempts to take the safe WA seat off the Liberals.

A fortnight ago, former Labor MP Melissa Parke was forced to withdraw from the Curtin race due to criticisms over her pro-Palestinian stance and her unfounded claims Israeli soldiers forced a pregnant woman to drink a bottle of bleach at a military checkpoint.