Third party will lead way on inner-city seats in play

THE latest Victorian Newspoll shows that it's game on.

GAME on. After a protracted cold war in which the parties patiently waited for voters to recover from their federal election hangovers before dragging them into another campaign and bombarding them with policies, the latest Newspoll should trigger the starting gun.

The fall in Labor's primary vote to 35 per cent - 8.1 percentage points lower than when the party was re-elected in 2006 - is far from good news for the ageing Victorian government seeking a fourth term on November 27.

Neither will Premier John Brumby be happy to see the Coalition back making gains after the previous poll taken in July and August.

Whatever warm and fuzzy feelings towards new Prime Minister Julia Gillard that coloured that result appear to have worn off.

The Liberals once again have a higher primary vote than Labor and the Coalition is four points ahead.

But the most interesting part of this Newspoll is the continued rise of the Greens.

With a high of 19 per cent of the primary vote, they now represent a real headache for both sides of politics.

Labor faces a repeat of the federal election and the potential loss of four inner-city seats to the Greens. Labor already knows this, as shown by the significant resources being thrown at the campaigns for the inner city.

The Greens are also causing grief for the Coalition over potential preference deals. Any inner-city Greens victory is dependent on Liberal preferences but the Greens are refusing to give anything to the Coalition in return.

Former MPs and party figures have already voiced anger over the party's decision to preference the Greens in the federal election and deliver Adam Bandt the seat of Melbourne.

The Coalition has a very difficult decision to make.

It has two options. It can preference the Greens, lose Liberal voters in the process and potentially deliver the Greens as many as four seats. In a hung parliament, this could mean a Labor-Greens coalition.

Or it can preference Labor ahead of the Greens, which would mean the Brumby government would keep the inner city and most likely retain power.

The Greens and their associated complications will make the next few weeks weeks very interesting.