Greens, minor party and independent voters are slightly more likely to direct their preferences to the Coalition now than during the 2013 federal election, new polling has found.
Using an aggregate of all political polling conducted since March, plus its own online polling, company MetaPoll found that the Coalition remained ahead of Labor in both the primary vote and two-party preferred stakes.
The Coalition’s primary vote was 43%, 10 percentage points ahead of Labor. The Greens and independent/other minor parties ranked at about 11% each, the analysis found.
Using preferences allocated according to the 2013 election, the Coalition was up 51.8% to Labor’s 48.2% on a two-party preferred basis.
But the Coalition got a slight boost when third-party voters were asked to direct their own preferences, 52.4% to Labor’s 47.6%.
MetaPoll surveyed 2,000 people on their voting behaviour and used data from Newspoll, Roy Morgan, Essential and Ipsos to reach its conclusions.
The last Newspoll, released earlier this month, had the government and Labor neck and neck on 50-50 of the two-party preferred vote.
The MetaPoll analysis was conducted before Senate voting changes were passed on Friday. Under the changes, voters will be able to vote from 1-6 above the line or 1-12 below the line, essentially allocating their own preferences rather than relying on deals struck between parties. The Coalition teamed up with the Greens and independent senator, Nick Xenophon, to pass the laws.
Metapoll also conducted a separate, smaller survey on whether the Safe Schools anti-bullying program should be taught in schools.
One in five of the 830 respondents thought the program should not be taught at all. Another one in four thought it should be taught only from high school, while the remainder – 55% – thought it should be taught from primary school.
Women are more likely than men to support the program, according to the polling.
Turnbull ordered a review of the program last month. On Friday the education minister, Simon Birmingham, responded to the review by recommending a number of wide-ranging changes, including limiting the program to secondary school.
Labor and the Greens have accused conservative members of the government, whose criticism of the program initiated the review in the first place, of being motivated by homophobia and bigotry.
