The Labor MP for Batman, David Feeney, has criticised a poll which showed that the Greens could take the inner Melbourne seat with a primary vote of 41%.
The robocall poll of 1,631 voters was commissioned by the Greens and conducted by Lonergan research. The results placed Feeney’s primary vote at just 28%. The poll also found 66% of those surveyed would consider voting for the Greens candidate Alex Bhathal, including 30% of those who intend to vote Liberal and 52% of those who intend to vote for Labor.
Feeney took to Twitter to criticise the results, which he described as “unethical”.
“Greens party caught out running #unethical ‘push poll’ attack in Batman,” he tweeted, and included a definition of push poll with the tweet that read: “A so-called push poll is an insidious form of negative campaigning, disguised as a political poll. Push polls are not surveys at all, but rather unethical political telemarketing.”
However the member for the neighbouring electorate of Melbourne, the Greens MP Adam Bandt, told reporters during a press conference with Bhathal on Tuesday that the poll was legitimate.
“When you ask people who they’re going to vote for, if that’s push-polling, then every poll in the country is push-polling,” he said. “It’s conducted by a reputable firm.”
He went on to describe Feeney as “the Sophie Mirabella of the Labor party”.
“Increasingly, his own party is distancing itself from him,” he said.
Feeney had a difficult run in the first weeks of the election campaign after it was revealed he had failed to declare his $2.3m Northcote property on the register of members interests. He then blundered his way through an interview with Sky News where he failed to answer questions about key Labor policies, accidentally leaving Labor campaign strategy documents behind which were then leaked.
He did not attend the Labor party campaign launch in western Sydney on Sunday.
But a Newspoll published on Tuesday found Labor and the Greens tied at 34% of the primary vote. With Liberal directing its preferences to the ALP, Labor would hold the seat with a swing against Feeney of 7.6%, the poll found.
Guardian Australia has contacted Feeney for comment.
Bhathal maintained she was noticing “a huge swing in the seat” while out campaigning.
“I’ve been living and working in [Batman] for 30 years and I was well aware that in this seat we have more people who believe in human rights, in social justice and in democracy than anywhere else in the country,” she said.
“The people in Melbourne might be running second to us.”
She said voters in the electorate once “had a huge loyalty” to the Labor party but “they’re finding that party is moving away from their values”.
The traditionally working-class electorate in Melbourne’s north has seen the Greens finish second to Labor in the previous two elections, gaining more of the vote each time. The Greens are hoping that the increasing gentrification of suburbs like Northcote, Preston and Coburg North will see them gain more of the vote come 2 July.
