Mark Kenny reports in the Brisbane Times (1.7.16) on the final poll result from the eight week-long election campaign, which shows Labor and the Coalition evenly placed in two-party preferred terms.
‘Fewer than one in five voters think Bill Shorten will win the election, yet around half intend to give his party either their first or second preference, according to the final Fairfax-Ipsos poll on the eve of the election.
‘The contradiction points to a looming dead heat that has lifted the potential for Saturday’s election to deliver either a shock Labor win, a narrow Coalition victory, or a hung Parliament with no side commanding a majority in the House of Representatives.
‘A massive 27 per cent of voters remain intent on supporting Greens and other crossbench parties and independents, as support for the major parties threatens to erode further.
‘The tightness of the contest has the parties scrounging for every last vote especially in key marginal seats and prompted Malcolm Turnbull to use his final televised pre-election speech to the National Press Club to again plead with electors not to risk independents or a Labor protest vote, declaring: “Australians won’t want to end up next week with a result they didn’t see coming”.’
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