Bill Shorten is struggling to break through in the two regions where he needs to win over voters if he has a chance at the July 2 election.
Galaxy Polls in Brisbane's Courier Mail and Sydney's Daily Telegraph, taken early in the first week of the two-month campaign, show Labor hasn't done enough yet to pick up enough seats in Queensland or western Sydney.
The Telegraph's poll of 500 voters in each western Sydney seat shows a swing back to Labor of 3.5 per cent, but it's not enough. The government is still ahead in the key seats of Lindsay, Gilmore and Reid and could retain Banks, where the two party-preferred vote is 50-50.
The parties are also deadlocked in the Central Coast seat of Dobell, but Labor is on track to pick up Macarthur from the Liberal's Russell Matheson following the redistribution.
"If these results are observed at the ballot box on 2 July then the Labor Party may pick up just one or two of the seats they need to win in NSW if they are to form government," Galaxy Research CEO David Briggs told the Telegraph.
"However, the poll confirms most of these seats are definitely in play and with seven weeks to go to election day there is still a long way to go."
Mr Shorten will take heart from Friday night's debate against Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in the marginal Liberal seat of Macquarie, which was not part of the Galaxy research.
Out of the 100 undecided voters at the forum, Mr Shorten won over 42, Mr Turnbull netted 29 while 29 others couldn't make up their mind.
Meanwhile, in Queensland - where Mr Shorten has spent every day of the campaign so far except Friday - the poll shows he has his work cut out for him.
The Galaxy poll of 1176 Queenslanders shows although Mr Turnbull's support has dropped, the LNP is still ahead of Labor 54 to 46 on a two party-preferred basis.
Mr Turnbull also spent the first two days in Queensland, blitzing several key Brisbane marginal seats.
The Courier Mail poll shows although Labor's support in Queensland has improved to 33 per cent, it's only a few points ahead of its 29.8 per cent primary vote in 2013, when it held just six of 30 seats.
The result, which assumes preference flows in line with the last election, represents a three-percentage-point swing towards Labor.
But this would only see Labor pick up the marginal Brisbane seat of Petrie and Capricornia if the result was replicated across the state.
Share
