news, latest-news

Premier Daniel Andrews’ Labor government is clinging to a knife-edge lead over the Matthew Guy-led Coalition, just four months out from November’s state election, an exclusive poll for The Age has revealed. Labor leads the Coalition by 51 to 49 per cent of the two-party preferred vote in the survey of 1500 voters taken last week, maintaining the government’s election-winning lead by a slender margin. But on the key battleground issues of congestion, population pressures and crime, the Liberals have leads over Labor, with slightly more voters believing the opposition has the answers to the big questions facing the state. Primary votes for the two main parties are both down more than two-and-a-half points on their performances at the 2014 election, with Labor on 35.4 per cent of first preferences and the Coalition on 39.4 per cent. The ReachTel poll of 1505 voters across the state was conducted on Thursday, July 5 with respondents quizzed on the two big parties’ performances on crime, congestion, cost of living and population pressures as well as their views on Mr Andrews and Mr Guy. The Greens’ primary support among those surveyed was 10.5 per cent, down one point from the 11.5 per cent of first preferences they won in 2014. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, contesting a Victorian state election for the first time since 1999, polled 3.6 per cent of primary support, just ahead of the Shooters and Fishers who were on 2.8 per cent of first preferences. Elsewhere in the poll, the news was nearly all bad for Labor. Mr Andrews’ standing as 'better premier' has been whittled down to a sliver, with 50.6 per cent of respondents preferring the Labor leader to 49.4 who said they believed Mr Guy would do better job.With both sides looking likely to target their opponents’ leader in the coming campaign, Mr Guy just edged out the Premier on the question of trustworthiness, with 50.1 per cent saying the Opposition Leader was the more trustworthy of the two to 49.9 per cent for Mr Andrews. This could be evidence that the Coalition’s concerted campaign of attacks on the Premier might be cutting through in the electorate. But Labor believes Mr Guy’s past and his judgment are vulnerabilities to be exploited in the lead-up to November, setting the stage for a bitterly fought personal campaign by the two big parties. The Liberals had a very slight edge in the poll on their ability to tackle Melbourne’s traffic congestion, with 50.8 per cent of respondents saying they believed the opposition was better placed to do the job. The Coalition was also in front on the question of who could best manage the city’s booming population, with 51.6 per cent of respondents saying the Liberals were better placed to 48.4 per cent who preferred Labor’s approach. The polling was conducted after a week of big-ticket policy announcements from the Liberals on roads, infrastructure and city planning, part of an effort to match the massive program of transport building underway by the Andrews government that will see $13 billion spent this year alone on infrastructure. On the crucial question of cost-of-living pressures, which is set to feature prominently in both parties’ pitch to the electorate, Labor had a slight edge over their opponents with 50.2 per cent saying the ALP was better placed to relieve the pressure to 49.8 per cent nominating the Liberals. But the Coalition has a clear lead over the government on crime, with 55.8 per cent of those polled saying the Liberals were better placed to maintain law and order, considerably more than the 44.2 per cent who chose Labor. The poll results point to a tight, tense contest in the coming months with Mr Andrews’ government, which has a parliamentary majority of just one and holds nine of its 45 lower house seats by margins of 3 per cent or less, vulnerable to any swing against it. The Coalition, with it 37 lower house MPs, needs to win eight more seats to be able to form government in its own right.

https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/2aad5cd0-73ae-48bb-8897-b796d1559b92/r0_72_1412_870_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg