The latest Newspoll, taken exclusively for The Australian this week, suggests the rapid re-emergence of One Nation will hinder Premier Colin Barnett’s attempt to win a third term on March 11.
The result will increase pressure on Mr Barnett — the nation’s longest-serving leader — to negotiate a preference-swap deal with One Nation, which could be his only chance of hanging on to power.
The ALP leads by 54 per cent to 46 per cent in two-party preferred terms — up from 52-48 in the last Newspoll in October — which would deliver the party 14 more seats at the election and make Mr McGowan premier.
The Liberal Party’s primary vote has slumped to just 30 per cent — its worst result in the Barnett era. Labor’s primary vote also went backwards, from 41 per cent to 38 per cent.
But One Nation’s share of the statewide primary vote soared from 3 per cent to 13 per cent, making it more likely the party will hold the balance of power in the upper house.
One Nation’s leader in the state, businessman Colin Tincknell, claimed last night that internal party polling was showing it could win more than 30 per cent of the vote in several seats in regional and outer-suburban areas, where the state’s economic downturn was hitting hard.
The end of Australia’s high immigration economic model is nigh.
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
