Australia's ruling Labor Party led by Premier Julia Gillard will win a four-seat majority over Opposition Liberals in Saturday’s general elections, according to a new opinion poll.
The JWS Research poll shows if the election was held last weekend, Labor would have lost 15 seats and gained six — a net loss of nine seats.
Labor notionally holds 88 seats, meaning it would have been reduced to 79, a majority of four in the 150-seat Parliament, The Age newspaper reported.
Australia's first woman Prime Minister Gillard and opposition Liberals chief Tony Abbott are locking horns in the elections for the top post.
This would put Labor 11 seats clear of the Coalition on 68 seats, with three seats occupied by independents.
The JWS poll showed Labor losses are looming in Queensland, NSW and Western Australia but it stands to gain in Victoria, regional NSW and South Australia.
The poll was conducted during the weekend and is the biggest and the most specific of its kind. The poll has sampled 22,000 voters in the 54 most marginal seats in the country. In each seat, 400 voters were canvassed. Another 6,000 voters from safe seats were also surveyed.
"This call obviously precedes events in the last week of campaigning that might influence this outcome either way. Local incumbency and candidate name identity also plays a role," JWS managing director John Scales, said.
Each election, more people tend to vote before polling day and Labor fears that its bad second week of the campaign cost it pre-poll votes. Scales’s research found that of the 28,000 people sampled, 4576 — or 15 per cent — had already voted but they favoured Labor on a two-party-preferred basis by 56.5 per cent to 43.5 per cent.
In the 54 seats, the Labor-Coalition split was 53.2 per cent to 46.8 per cent among those who have voted, the Age said. Labor's total primary vote in the 54 marginals is a lowly 35 per cent, the Coalition's 44.7 per cent and the Greens 14.3 per cent.
Labor trails on the two-party vote by 49.2 to 50.8. Among all 28,000 voters Labor leads by 51.6 per cent to 48.4 per cent.