Nats’ rising support may lift Libs over line

Nationals polling for the seat of Eden-Monaro shows the party’s vote has nearly doubled over the past two weeks.

Eden-Monaro Nationals Candidate Trevor Hicks in Queanbeyan, New South Wales. Picture: Sean Davey

Nationals polling for the seat of Eden-Monaro shows the party’s vote has nearly doubled over the past two weeks, increasing the chances of the Liberals clinching a surprise victory at Saturday’s ­crucial by-election.

The internal research obtained by The Australian shows Nationals candidate Trevor Hicks has ­increased his vote of 6 per cent a fortnight ago to 11.5 per cent, ­according to a poll of 630 residents on Thursday.

While it was a smaller sample than that taken in the earlier survey two weeks ago on June 12, ­Nat­ionals strategists said they were “confident in the trends” and Mr Hicks was cutting through with his push for a royal commission into the dairy industry “from the farm gate to fridge”.

The most recent poll indicated 63 per cent support in the seat for a royal commission.

Mr Hicks said the issues faced by dairy farmers in the community had “flow-on effects to the whole electorate”.

“One dollar a litre milk will see us importing dairy products within years unless we tackle the issue now,” Mr Hicks told The Australian. “I am only the only candidate that can deliver this royal commission. The Nationals delivered it into banks and we can do it into this.”

According to the Nationals polling data, the Labor vote has fallen from 36 per cent to 29.3 per cent while the Liberal vote has also fallen from 36 per cent to 34.3 per cent.

At the 2019 federal election, Labor’s Mike Kelly received 39.17 per cent of the vote over Liberal candidate Fiona Kotvojs, who received 37.01 per cent, with Mr Kelly going on to win the seat with 50.85 per cent of the vote after distribution of preferences.

The new polling suggests the Nationals are now out-polling the Greens, whose vote rose from 7 per cent to 8.7 per cent, while the Shooters Fishers and Farmers vote has dropped from 7 per cent to 4.6 per cent.

The increased vote for the Nat­ionals, if replicated on Saturday, means more preferences would be distributed to Ms Kotvojs, who is again running as the Liberal candidate, with most other parties, ­including the Shooters, preferencing Labor before the Liberals.

Nationals preferences flow typically about 70 per cent to the Liberals and 30 per cent to Labor and analysis from The Australian has revealed that Dr Kotvojs would have won the marginal NSW seat at last year’s election if more ­Nationals voters had directed their preferences to her instead of Mr Kelly.

Mr Kelly picked up 87 per cent of Greens preferences and almost 50 per cent from the two independents who ran last year, as well as nearly 13 per cent of ­Nationals voters’ preferences.

Had those 886 Nationals voters who put Labor before the Liberals on the ballot directed their vote to Dr Kotvojs instead, she would have finished some 87 votes ahead.

Labor ramped up its attack on Scott Morrison on Sunday over the review of the $70bn Job­Keeper payment, trying to link the issue to the by-election, with opposition Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers saying it was “being kept a ­secret until after the Eden-­Monaro by-election”.

Opposition education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek told Sky News the review should be ­released so the gov­ernment could be “up-front with Australians”.