One Nation is set to reshape the ACT's political landscape and would take a significant share of votes away from the Canberra Liberals if the next territory election was held now, new polling shows.
The DemosAU/PremierNational poll showed 14 per cent of Canberra voters would give their first preference to One Nation, while the support for independents would grow 6.1 per cent to 19 per cent, nearly two years since independents returned to the Assembly for the first time since the millennium.
ACT Labor's primary vote would slip to 32 per cent compared to the last election, a swing of 2.1 per cent.
The Canberra Liberals would face a swing against them of 12.5 per cent and achieve a primary vote of 21 per cent, while the Greens would suffer a 1.2 per cent swing against them, falling to an 11 per cent primary vote.
ACT Labor leader Andrew Barr is voters' preferred chief minister, with 46 per cent of respondents backing the long-serving premier. The Liberals' Mark Parton was the preferred chief minister of 32 per cent of respondents, while 22 per cent said they did not know.
The poll suggests voters have not yet made up their minds on Mr Parton, who became opposition leader in November, as 26 per cent of voters rated him positively and negatively. Forty-eight per cent of voters were neutral.
The polling suggests support for One Nation in the ACT is about half the level recorded nationally, with a series of recent political polls putting primary support for the far-right populist party about 30 per cent.
Mr Parton last month used a bilingual video posted to social media to say One Nation leader Pauline Hanson could "go to hell, honestly" after she declared Australians "must be monocultural" at the National Press Club.
DemosAU's head of research, George Hasanakos, said the Liberals already faced a hard task to remove a 25-year-old Labor government but would now face One Nation, which was likely able to take seats from the opposition.
"With the Canberra Liberals only guaranteed to win one MLA in each of the five electorates on these poll results, a One Nation contingent in the Legislative Assembly would make attracting enough independents to form government an almost impossible task," Mr Hasanakos said.
"However for Labor to retain office it will likely have to deal with independents as well as Greens given the rise in the independent vote in this poll a single majority was out of reach on the poll results but Labor was most likely to retain government."
Mr Hasanakos said Labor could still hold its 10 seats but should be concerned in electorates where it did not secure two quotas in 2024, such as Yerrabi.
Despite the growth in support for independents, voters' positive and negative impressions of Thomas Emerson, the independent for Kurrajong, and Fiona Carrick, the independent for Murrumbidgee, were broadly the same.
Both independents had a 12 per cent negative share of voters' opinions, with Mr Emerson narrowly ahead on 14 per cent positive view of Ms Carrick's 12 per cent. About three in four voters had a neutral view of the pair.
Leanne Castley, the former opposition leader who quit the Liberals for the crossbench, had the lowest agreement level, with 21 per cent of voters holding a negative view, 10 per cent rating the Yerrabi independent positively and 69 per cent neutral.
Mr Barr is also the territory's most divisive politician, with 38 per cent of respondents having a negative view of the chief minister and 33 per cent holding a positive view. Just 29 per cent of respondents had a neutral view of Mr Barr, the lowest of all politicians tested in the poll.
Newly installed Greens leader Jo Clay had a negative approval rating, with 29 per cent of voters holding a negative view of the second-term Ginninderra MLA. Just over half of voters were neutral and 20 per cent had a positive view of Ms Clay.
The polling showed 65 per cent of Greens voters supported a Labor government if no party won a majority in the Legislative Assembly, while only 6 per cent backed a Liberal government.
Nearly half of One Nation voters supported neither Labor or Liberal forming government, but 41 per cent would support the Liberals. Just 7 per cent of One Nation voters wanted Labor to form government.
The self-commissioned poll of 979 ACT residents aged 18 and over was conducted between July 2 and 16 and had an error margin of 3.8 per cent. DemosAU is a member of the Australian Polling Council.
