Deadweight Shorten sinking fast
Malcolm Turnbull’s ascension to the prime ministership has so dramatically transformed the political landscape that senior Labor figures across the nation are bracing for a potential bloodbath at the next election.
Extensive Labor polling and focus group research undertaken by the party’s national secretariat before Christmas shows that up to a dozen Labor-held seats are at risk of falling to the Liberals as voters recoil at the prospect of a Bill Shorten prime ministership.
Yet the research has also given Labor hope that a strong anti-GST campaign will help to hold some seats. But it reveals that a tax scare campaign may not be enough to stem the Turnbull tide in predominantly middle-class seats with a strong aspirational and entrepreneurial voter cohort.
The polling undertaken by pollsters UMR in marginal seats — which included individual assessments of sitting members — has not been shared fully with MPs or with Shorten and his office. When combined with recent polling by several state branches, it makes for very bleak reading for Labor.
In NSW, the party faces the loss of Julie Owens’s seat of Parramatta and has cause to fear that Tanya Plibersek’s seat of Sydney and Matt Thistlethwaite’s seat of Kingsford-Smith are in danger. Richmond, held by Justine Elliot, is also a concern. There is no hope the party can win the marginal Liberal seat of Reid, held by Craig Laundy. But Labor is eyeing the Liberal seat of Dobell, held by Karen McNamara, and Nickolas Varvaris’s seat of Barton.
In Victoria, four seats are at risk: Chisholm and Bruce, both with retiring MPs; Isaacs, held by Mark Dreyfus; and Melbourne Ports, held by Michael Danby. The party is less concerned about McEwen, held by Rob Mitchell, and Bendigo, held by Lisa Chesters. Labor has not given up on winning back Sarah Henderson’s seat of Corangamite and Jason Wood’s seat of LaTrobe.
Elsewhere, the figures are not as bad. There are concerns that Labor’s Terri Butler is in a tight contest in the Queensland seat of Griffith and there is some worry about Wayne Swan in Lilley and Graham Perrett in Moreton. The Liberal-held seat of Hindmarsh in South Australia has been polled, showing Labor is competitive.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/troy-bramston/dead-weight-shorten-sinking-fast-in...
