Bennelong anyones to win

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Via The Australian:

Malcolm Turnbull’s grip on ­majority government has been weakened by new polling that shows tennis ace John ­Alexander and former NSW premier Kristina Keneally level pegging in the contest for Bennelong.

Labor’s Ms Keneally and Liberal candidate Mr Alexander are equal at 50-50 on a two-party-­preferred vote in the Saturday Telegraph/Galaxy Research poll.

Mr Alexander’s primary vote is only three points ahead of Ms ­Keneally’s, 42 to 39 per cent.

The poll shows a huge 10 per cent swing in the north Sydney seat since last year’s federal election, when Mr Alexander had improved his margin. Support for the former Liberal member, who was forced to resign over his dual British citizenship, has dropped 8 per cent since the last election, when he held the seat with a primary vote of 50.4 per cent.

Labor’s primary vote has ­increased from 28.5 per cent to 39 per cent, the Saturday Telegraph reported.

 And Domainfax:

A ReachTEL poll commissioned by Fairfax Media found the Liberals’ John Alexander, who resigned last weekend over the dual citizenship scandal, leads at the end of the first week of campaigning with 53 per cent compared to Ms Keneally on 47.

But that represents a swing of almost 7 per cent against the 2016 election, when the former tennis champion comfortably secured a third term with a solid 59.7 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote. The seat is held on a margin of 9.7 per cent.

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Good time for a protest vote.

About the author
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.