Federal election 2016: prize there for leader who dares

At the half-way mark of the election campaign, voters appear so uninspired by the major parties that they are tempted to vote in ­record numbers for micro-parties and independents to create a ­potentially powerful crossbench in both houses of parliament.

With today’s Newspoll showing the Coalition and Labor deadlocked at 50-50 in two-party-preferred terms, a hung parlia­ment cannot be ruled out.

It will depend on the battles in the marginal seats, where a host of factors will determine each ­outcome.

Now extra importance will fall on what previously had been viewed as the boutique battles, where Labor faces an assault from the Greens in its inner-city Melbourne and Sydney heartlands and the Liberals are under siege from the Nick Xenophon juggernaut in Adelaide.

If all else is equal, these results could decide who governs.

Voters do not seem worried about a repeat of the hung parliament in 2010 when it took 17 days to decide who would be prime minister, despite Malcolm Turnbull ramping up the horror story of revisiting the “chaotic unstable alliances” it created.

And the Newspoll suggests that despite the ridicule of the Senate crossbench from the last parliament for resembling the dysfunctional characters from the Mos Eisley cantina in Star Wars, and the double-dissolution election to throw them out, voters want to send some of them back to ­Canberra and to add some new players.

With four weeks down and four to go of the marathon campaign, Labor, the Coalition and the Greens all have a primary vote lower than when they began.

The Prime Minister has grown more unpopular as the campaign goes on, while an initial spike in support for Bill Shorten has ­vanished like a puff of smoke, leaving him as unpopular as when he started.

Labor has never won an election with its primary vote at the 35 per cent mark where it stands today, down from 37 per cent a month ago. It needs to be at least back to 39 per cent, as it was 10 months ago when the contest was Shorten against Tony Abbott.

The only time the Coalition has won with a primary vote of 40 per cent or lower was in the 1998 GST election when it polled 39.5 per cent and lost the national vote but won enough marginals. It now stands a losing 5.6 points below Abbott’s election-winning primary vote from 2013.

Who will heed the warning from voters? The polls open in eight days and a record number of voters is tipped to cast a ballot before July 2.

There is urgency for both sides to lift their primary vote and the status of their standard-bearer.

Will either leader dare to be brave and throw away the focus-group-tested talking points?

If neither can inspire, voters will call it an unsatisfactory draw and effectively put the crossbench in charge.