All polls now showing a swing Labor cannot ignore.
LABOR risks losing its next generation of leaders and some of its wiliest veterans as perilous polling points to a massacre at the next election.
Newspoll puts the ALP's two-party-preferred vote at 44 per cent, down six points on the 2010 results.
A uniform swing of this size would see Wayne Swan and as many as two dozen other Labor MPs lose their seats.
Trade Minister Craig Emerson would lose his Brisbane electorate, as would Peter Garrett in Sydney, Stephen Smith in Perth, one-time ALP national secretary Gary Gray south of the city, Warren Snowdon in the Northern Territory and southern NSW MP Mike Kelly.
Such a swing would also end the parliamentary careers of rising stars Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury and freshly minted parliamentary secretary Melissa Parke.
Former caucus chairman Daryl Melham would also lose his Sydney seat.
A uniform swing of this size would cost Labor 25 seats nation-wide. But double-digit swings against the party in internal polling of the Sydney suburbs show a whole generation of potential future leaders and high-profile members of the NSW Right could also be defeated, adding to the toll of talent.
Ministers Chris Bowen, Tony Burke and Jason Clare are all at risk. So is another rising NSW star, Ed Husic.
NSW members Michelle Rowland, Deborah O'Neil, John Murphy, Laurie Ferguson, Chris Hayes and Julie Owens would also be under threat.
Suspended Labor member Craig Thomson could lose his NSW central coast seat of Dobell.
Barton, being vacated by former attorney-general Robert McClelland, is also vulnerable.
Veteran electoral analyst Malcolm Mackerras noted that the lack of a Liberal Party infrastructure in many of these electorates could aid the ALP.
But he added that this had not counted against the Coalition at last year's NSW local government elections, where the Liberals even won positions in blue-collar strongholds such as Wollongong.
Labor looks likely to win back the seat of Melbourne from the Greens, but a swing of 6 per cent would see it lose the Victorian seats of Corangamite, La Trobe, and Deakin. At least two Tasmanian seats, Bass and Braddon, are under threat and there is speculation at least one more, Lyons, could fall.
A string of Queensland MPs would also be vulnerable with a 6 per cent swing, including Bernie Ripoll, Shayne Neuman and Yvette D'Ath.
Another Labor seat, Capricornia, being vacated by Kirsten Livermore, looks likely to fall to the LNP, although Katter's Australia Party preferences will be a wild card.
A defeat of the magnitude would rewrite the political science textbooks.
Julia Gillard was keeping up a brave face today, even though her polling numbers have collapsed barely six months out from the election
18 February 2013 2:38 The Australian
