There has been a slight shift from the Labor Party and undecideds to the Liberal Party and independents in latest Canberra Times-Datacol polling for the ACT election. Previously the major parties were line ball.
But the overall picture remains the same for seats in the new Assembly as previous polling, with six seats to each of the major parties (two in each electorate), one Green and Paul Osborne certain of seats. The other three seats are two hard to call.
It is now (with last week’s percentage in brackets): Liberal 22.9 (21.5), Labor 21.3 (22) minors and independents 21.5 (20.3), undecided 34.3 (36.2).
Of the three electorates, Brindabella is the most certain. With undecided distributed pro-rata, Labor and Liberal are on about 35 per cent each, giving them two seats each. Mr Osborne is on 16, giving him the fifth seat.
In Ginninderra, the majors are on 33 per cent each, giving them each two seats. The fifth seat is a fight between Osborne candidate Dave Rugendyke (on 8), the Democrats (9) and the Greens (7). Much will depend on how preferences flow, but most likely the Democrat will win.
Indeed, the last seat in Ginninderra is likely to determine who is Chief Minister. Labor leader Wayne Berry needs three Democrats or Greens to support his six to get a majority, though it is an even guess whether the Greens would support Labor. The Democrats are more likely to having committed themselves to support the major party with the most voter support, though on the present poll, that could be the Liberals.
In Molonglo, the Liberals are on 24 and Labor 20 without splitting up the 34 per cent undecided. This would give them two seats each. The Greens’ Kerrie Tucker has maintained her 10 per cent to guarantee her a seat (with a slice of the undecided putting her over the quota). The other two Molonglo seats would be fought over by the Democrats, a second Green, Independent MLA Michael Moore, the Osborne candidate Chris Ulhmann, independent Jacqui Rees, or a third Liberal, in that order of likelihood.
Molonglo is much harder to call because of the lower quota and the larger number of candidates, making it possible for someone to win off quite a low number of first preferences.
Also, there are still a high number of undecided.
This was the subject of some criticism from Opposition Leader Kim Beazley.
The head of Datacol, Malcolm Mearns, said it was a feature of ACT elections. When Datacol did polling before the federal election and Canberra by-election, the undecided rate was up to 20 percentage points lower. Exit polling after the 1995 ACT election showed that many people did not make up their mind until the ballot paper was in front of them on polling day.
The new polling was done from February 8 to 11. It has been added to the sample taken from February 1 to 8 to give an ACT sample of 1260.
The people polled will be revisited next week to gauge any swing. Results will be published on Friday.
The polling both last week and this has shown Opposition Leader Wayne Berry behind Chief Minister Kate Carnell on preferred chief minister and a range of leadership tests.
However, the polling also shows Mrs Carnell and the Liberals are not well liked by their own employees in the ACT public sector than in the wider community.
ACT employees have an undecided rate about 12 points less than the general population, all of it going in favour of Labor. About nine percentage points more of them (33) would prefer Mr Berry as chief minister than in the general population (24), though Mrs Carnell is still preferred by more than half ACT employees. The rest are undecided.