Labor-held Braddon tipped to fall to Liberal Gavin Pearce

Braddon — a key Labor-held marginal seat in northwest Tasmania — is poised to return to the Liberals, a new poll shows.

Liberal candidate for Braddon Gavin Pearce near Devonport in Tasmania. Picture: AAP.

Braddon — a key Labor-held marginal seat in northwest Tasmania — is poised to return to the Liberals, a new poll shows.

The uComms poll, for a forest industry group, puts Liberal challenger Gavin Pearce ahead of incumbent Labor MP Justine Keay by 51 to 49 on a two-party-preferred basis. Its survey of 861 voters on Monday night shows preferences determining the outcome, with the United Australia Party on a 5.3 per cent primary vote, One ­Nation on 3.9 per cent and the ­Nationals on 3.5 per cent.

Preferences to the Liberals from those candidates would ­appear to be more than negating the traditional flow of preferences to Labor from the Greens, whose primary vote stands at 6.3 per cent.

Similar polling for the neighbouring northern seat of Bass ­earlier in the campaign, also conducted for the Australian Forest Products Association, shows that Labor-held seat also falling to the Liberals.

The Liberals held both seats, as well as sprawling Lyons, until the 2016 election, and are focusing resources on winning them back.

 

Labor has complained that the kind of automated telephone polling associated with uComms favours the Liberals, but even so the polls are a major boost to Liberal hopes of securing seats in Tasmania, where it currently holds none.

The Braddon poll puts Labor’s Ms Keay on 33.5 per cent of the primary vote; the Liberals’ Mr Pearce on 38.2 per cent; the Greens’ Phill Parsons on 6.3 per cent; UAP’s Karen Spaulding on 5.3 per cent; One Nation’s Graham Gallaher on 3.9 per cent; the Nationals’ Sally Milbourne on 3.5 per cent; other minor parties or independents on 4.8 per cent, and 4.5 per cent undecided.

Braddon, which takes in the state’s west coast and parts of its northwest, including King Island, was retained by Ms Keay at a by-election last July, but she faces a new challenger in Mr Pearce, a beef farmer and RSL figure.

The electorate has traditionally been the state’s most conservative and contains a stronger anti-Green sentiment than other electorates, born of conflicts over logging, mining and access to conservation areas for off-road vehicles. The seat, which includes the cities of Devonport and Burnie, changed hands between the major parties in 2016, 2013, 2007, 2004 and 1998.

Labor secured the seat at the by-election, triggered by Ms Keay’s British citizenship, thanks largely to strong preference flows from popular independent Craig Garland. This time, Mr Garland is running for the Senate.

Both major parties are expected to make significant announcements related to the timber industry in either Braddon or Bass today. Labor frontbenchers Anthony Albanese and Joel Fitzgibbon will be campaigning in the state’s north, where Mr Albanese will “launch” the campaign of sitting ALP Bass MP Ross Hart.

All three Tasmanian Labor-held marginal seats — Braddon (1.7 per cent margin), Bass (5.4 per cent) and Lyons (3.8 per cent) — are considered by both major parties to be “in play”.

Two weeks ago, a uComms poll of 847 Bass voters had George Town Mayor Bridget Archer — Liberal candidate — leading Mr Hart 54 to 46 after distribution of preferences.