Greens MP Adam Bandt has a strong chance of retaining his seat and may not have to rely heavily on preference deals to do so, a new poll has found.

A Galaxy Poll of 400 constituents in the federal electorate of Melbourne, conducted in late July, revealed a very high satisfaction rate for the Greens deputy leader at 68 per cent.

The figure is up from a similar Galaxy survey in 2011, which showed a satisfaction rate of 55 per cent.

Adam Bandt
Adam Bandt
The recent poll also showed a primary vote of 48 per cent for the Greens in the Melbourne electorate (up from 36.2 per cent at the 2010 election), with 29 per cent for Labor and 21 per cent for the Liberals.

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On a two-party preferred basis after calculating preference flows from the last federal and state elections, the Greens would retain the seat comfortably.

In the last federal election the Liberals preferenced the Greens ahead of Labor, but in the state election they preferenced Labor ahead of the Greens.

The survey was conducted after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced his hardline asylum seeker deal with Papua New Guinea.

Respondents were asked to rate their opinion of Labor's new refugee policy, with 62 per cent expressing opposition to it.

The Greens commissioned the survey and it was conducted independently by Galaxy Research's computer-assisted telephone interview polling, with phone numbers randomly selected. The data was then weighted by postcode, age and gender to reflect the latest ABS population estimates.

Galaxy's managing director, David Briggs, said the survey indicated that the Greens vote was definitely up in Melbourne.

''Adam Bandt has a particularly high satisfaction rate at the moment. That will have something to do with incumbency, but the poll also suggests that it has something to do with Labor's asylum seeker policy,'' he said.

''Primary support for him is so high that it goes beyond preferences to a certain extent. This is surprising because when you look elsewhere in national polls Labor has had a boost since it returned to Rudd. But there is a significant loss of the Labor vote in the seat of Melbourne since 2010 and much of that vote is going to the Greens,'' Mr Briggs said.

Mr Bandt, who was elected at the 2010 election following the retirement of long-time Labor member Lindsay Tanner, said he was pleased with the survey but he was taking nothing for granted.

''These results support what we've been saying for some time. Even if Labor and Tony Abbott conspire on preferences we can still hold the seat,'' he said.

''The results of this survey reflect the values of people in Melbourne, who are strongly behind our action on clean energy, refugees and uni cuts.''

The Labor Party has preselected Cath Bowtell for Melbourne and the Liberal Party has preselected Sean Armistead.

The Greens are not expected to get the same preference deals they did in 2010.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/bandt-has-strong-chance-of-holding-seat-poll-s...

you might win ONE seat.  in the meantime, Libs are looking at a 20 seat majority meaning that Bandt wont even be heard.

and the preference deals have changed.  you might find that will the libs preferencing labor that bandt will still lose.

who cares about predictions only idiots..

one seat if your lucky.. and I mean lucky you wont get there on  primary votes..only second besties.. not a lot to brag about.

Adam Bandt is by far the most decent and credible sitting member that the Greens have...

Good luck to Adam Brandt, he deserves to win.

longweekend58 wrote on Aug 4^th, 2013 at 8:47am:

Dementia has well and truly set in to your sad excuse of a brain.
A state by state analysis of voting intentions show
NSW...stable
QLD... 6 seats for Labor
SA, the state you keep claiming will lose many seats for Labor ...stable
WA... Labor could gain one
TAS... 2 seats lose to Labor
NT.... STable
VIc ... Labor loss of three seats
Greens .... One seat
Independents ...2 seats
Another hung parliament, which means another Labor government, given the Greens and Katter and even probably Wilkie will support Labor. Yet here we have a demented old fool saying Labor will lose 20 seats, I can't wait to see your tanty election night, foolish old idiot.

Maqqa wrote on Aug 4^th, 2013 at 9:59am:



Didn't you see the polling. hang on, you are half an hr behind.

____ wrote on Aug 4^th, 2013 at 10:00am:

Yes, he is half an hour behind. Stay tuned to Insiders, maqqa,and  hide the razor blades son.
It's funny isn't It? The conga line are so smacking dumb they think NSW voters have not already taken into account the goings on in NSW and that NSW voters are too dumb to distinguish between federal and state politics. The findings in NSW prove the voters here are smart enough to distinguish which means death for Abbott as a politician. A vote for Rudd is a vote for Turnbull.