Little change in polls despite campaign

Despite Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten being on the campaign trail for a fortnight, little has changed in the polls.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull tours Josef Chromy wines in the seat of Bass in Launceston, Friday, May 20, 2016. Mr Turnbull is in Tasmania to talk about the government's free trade agreements with Asia.   (AAP Image/Lukas Coch) NO ARCHIVING

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Source: AAP

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's popularity has slipped again but most voters expect his government to win a very tight July 2 election, two new polls show.

The latest polls show little change in voters' intentions since the election campaign started two weeks ago.

A Seven News-ReachTEL poll has the coalition and Labor unchanged on 50-50 on two-party preferred, while a Fairfax-Ipsos poll has the government leading Labor 51-49.

The polls, published after the first two weeks of campaigning by both leaders, also show Mr Turnbull losing support although he has a healthy lead over Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.

The Fairfax-Ipsos poll of 1497 voters published on Saturday shows Mr Turnbull 47-30 in the head-to-head contest over Mr Shorten but he had been as high as 67-21 in October.

His personal approval rate of plus 10 (the number of voters who approve minus those who disapprove of his performance) is now lower than Julia Gillard's was in the deadlocked 2010 election but Mr Shorten is also struggling on minus six.

The Seven News-ReachTEL poll paints a similar picture.

Mr Shorten is now favoured as prime minister by 44.4 per cent of voters, up from 25.1 per cent in February, while Mr Turnbull has dropped to his lowest level.

The poll shows Mr Turnbull's popularity has dropped slightly with 55.6 per cent preferring him over Mr Shorten but in January he had the support of 80.8 per cent while Mr Shorten languished with just 19.2 per cent.

However, voters still expect the coalition to retain government.

Mr Shorten was keen to remind voters his party was still the underdog while acknowledging picking up 20 extra seats in the upcoming election was a "big climb".

But Labor was putting up real choices, he said. "As I go around Australia... there is a distinct awakening of interest in an alternative," he told reporters in Sydney on Saturday.

The Fairfax-Ipsos survey shows 57 per cent believe the coalition will win, an increase of four points since the campaign began, while just 20 per cent believe Labor will win, a drop of four points.

Labor needs to secure a swing of 4.3 per cent to win an extra 21 seats to return to government, while the coalition can afford to lose 14 seats on a swing of three per cent.


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Published 21 May 2016 12:10pm
Source: AAP


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