Labor clings to winning lead

The Coalition is set to win back two marginal seats but has yet to make up enough ground for a win.

Bill Shorten takes a short break from campaigning to take part in the Mother’s Day Classic. Picture: Sarah Matray

The Coalition is set to win back marginal seats in NSW and Queensland but has yet to make up enough ground against Labor nationally to hold on to government as the election campaign ­enters its final week.

An exclusive Newspoll conducted for The Australian also shows an upswing in popular support for Bill Shorten, whose net approval ratings have hit a four-year high.

With both sides preparing for a final electoral assault, with a $10 million advertising war starting today, Labor remains in the box seat to win government and retains its 51-49 per cent lead over the ­Coalition on a two-party-preferred­ basis.

In a contest that remains tight, core support for the Coalition rose one point to 39 per cent, equal to the best result it has ­recorded since September 2016. However, it remains­ 3.1 points down on the last election, which resulted in the number of ­Coalition seats being slashed and left the Turnbull government with a one-seat majority.

Labor has also improved its position, with a one-point gain to 37 per cent, which party strategists admit would be likely to deliver only a narrow victory.

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and Clive Palmer’s United Aust­ralia Party have a combined 8 per cent of the popular vote, a conservative force on par with the Greens, who remain at 9 per cent.

A special Newspoll conducted across four marginal seats shows the Coalition now poised to win back the Queensland seat of Herbert and the western Sydney seat of Lindsay, while losing the Victorian seat of Corangamite and falling short of picking up Bass in Tasmania despite a strong swing against Labor.

The greatest movement in sentiment in the past week has been for Mr Shorten, who has struggled to win over voters since the early days of his leadership, but has closed the gap on Scott Morrison in the race for who would make the better prime minister, with a gap of just seven points separating them.

The results follow the release of Labor’s policy costings on Friday, which the Coalition believed would be the weak link in Mr Shorten’s campaign. They also are likely to reflect the impassioned public response from the Opposition Leader to newspaper reports last week suggesting he had been selective when citing his late mother’s career achievements.

With the national poll remaining largely unchanged for the past three weeks, party strategists from both camps agree a significant cluster of undecided voters could swing the result either way. But these voters are unlikely to make up their mind until the final two days of the campaign. The marginal-seat poll conducted for The Australian between May 9 and May 11 shows a surge in support for the Coalition in several key seats.

News poll from P 1

The Liberal Party is now likely to win back the western Sydney seat of Lindsay, with a three-point rise in its primary vote to 44 per cent in three weeks, with Labor down a point to 39 per cent.

Having trailed Labor 49-51 in the poll conducted on April 20, the Coalition new leads 52-48 in a seat where Mr Shorten is ­deeply unpopular and the former Labor MP Emma Hussar resigned in the wake of bullying allegations.

Lindsay has changed hands five times since 1984. Mr Morrison is more than twice as popular in the seat as Mr Shorten, holding a 57 per cent to 25 per cent lead as the preferred prime minister.

The Coalition is now also tipped to win back the country’s most marginal seat of Herbert in north Queensland, where minor parties and independents command 35 per cent of the primary vote in an electorate held by Labor on a majority of just .02 per cent.

The Newspoll shows the LNP’s primary vote lifting four points since the midway point of the campaign to 35 per cent and now holding a commanding lead over Labor of 52-48 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis. This marks a two-point turnaround since April 20 when the first Newspoll showed the major parties locked on 50-50. Labor MP Cathy O’Toole is in a desperate fight to defend the seat against the LNP candidate Phillip Thomson.

Mr Shorten also suffers an image problem in Herbert, with Mr Morrison leading as preferred prime minister by 51 per cent to 32 per cent. The Newspoll also shows a collapse in support for Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party in the Townsville-based seat. A primary vote of 14 per cent on its first outing has since been halved.

While mostly moving into the LNP ledger, some of UAP’s votes appear to have also peeled off to the Katter Australia Party, which rose three points to 13 per cent. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation slipped from 9 to 7 per cent.

Labor’s primary vote also improved a point to 30 per cent along with a two-point rise in the Greens vote in a seat heavily influenced by the Adani mine project and the closure of Mr Palmer’s nickel ­refinery.

In Victoria, Labor is poised to win the seat of Corangamite held by Liberal MP Sarah Henderson, who is battling public school teacher Libby Coker as well as a redistribution which has given the seat notionally to Labor with a margin of 0.03 per cent.

Labor, according to the poll, leads 51-49 per cent. Mr Shorten still trails Mr Morrison in popularity with a 45-39 split.

In Tasmania, Labor has also suffered a significant 3.4 per cent swing against it in the northeast seat of Bass, but is still tipped to hold it, albeit on a reduced margin at 52-48. The Coalition is hopeful of still winning the seat with internal party polling suggesting it could be closer to 50-50.

The Newspoll survey of 1644 voters nationally across capital cities and the regions was conducted between May 9 and May 11 and has a 2.4 per cent margin of error.