On Wednesday night the Victorian premier, Denis Napthine, and the Labor opposition leader, Daniel Andrews, will face 100 swinging voters in the hotly contested seat of Frankston, with the election less than two weeks away.
The marginal seat is held by the controversial independent MP Geoff Shaw, but the Liberal and Labor parties are confident they can wrestle it from him on 29 November. A redistribution of electoral boundaries marginally favours the Liberals by 0.4%, down from 2.1%.
Debate attendees were chosen by Galaxy Research through online and telephone polling. All identified as not being committed to a particular party, or indicated they might change their mind by election day.
Just under half the audience reported leaning more towards Liberal, and just under 40% said they were Labor-leaning. They are not all from the Frankston electorate – swinging voters across the state were invited.
Galaxy Research’s founder, David Briggs, said it was important to get an even balance of voters in the audience and that the unscripted event was a good opportunity for “average voters” to put the leaders on the spot.
“Hopefully we’ll see some curly questions directed at both leaders, and you would think that after weeks of campaigning and talking about their policies, they would be able to address those questions well by now,” he said.
Frankston sits on the eastern edge of Port Phillip Bay, 41km south-east of Melbourne. Key issues for the electorate include youth unemployment, which sits at 12.8%, and public transport – Frankston station is in dire need of an overhaul.
The exact location for the invitation-only event has not been disclosed to avoid large crowds. It will be broadcast by Sky News at 6.30pm on Thursday, and Guardian Australia will blog live from the debate.
