State poll threatens to reduce Labor to minor-party status

TASMANIAN Labor is on track to suffer the ignominy of not only losing office but also ceding official opposition status to the Greens.

TASMANIAN Labor is on track to suffer the ignominy of not only losing office but also ceding official opposition status to the Greens.

An analysis of the latest opinion poll, published in Hobart's The Mercury today, suggests the Liberals will win a clear majority of 14 seats in the 25-seat House of Assembly at the state election next week.

But there is worse news for Labor, with the electorate breakdown of the ReachTEL poll of 2680 voters showing it is on track to lose up to half of its 10 seats and will be reduced to five or six seats.

The same figures suggest the Greens will win at least four, probably five and potentially six seats, while the Palmer United Party may take one.

If the Greens finished ahead of Labor, it would form the official opposition for the first time in an Australian parliament, reducing Labor to minor party status. It is believed Liberal Party polling this week largely mirrors the latest poll, taken on Thursday night.

Greens leader Nick McKim, the first Greens MP to serve as a minister in an Australian government, has openly canvassed becoming the nation's first Greens opposition leader.

The poll shows a big surge in the Greens vote in its Hobart-based stronghold of Denison, from 24.7 per cent last month to 27.8 per cent, compared with Labor's 25.1 per cent. Under Tasmania's Hare-Clark system of proportional representation, with five electorates each returning five MPs, this means the Greens would be most likely to claim two seats in Denison, restricting Labor to one.

The statewide figures are also bad news for Labor, showing its support has fallen over the past three weeks to just 23.6 per cent, compared with the Liberal Party's virtually unchanged 47.4 per cent and the Greens' 18.2 per cent. The Palmer United Party has dropped to 6.7 per cent, but its surge to 9.6 per cent in Braddon means its support is increasing in the electorate where it is most likely to succeed.