Confidential polling conducted for the ACTU has confirmed Labor is facing huge swings in a raft of government seats at the September 14 election, including minister Kate Ellis’s seat of Adelaide.
News of the poll comes as ACTU secretary Dave Oliver refused to say whether trade unions continued to back Julia Gillard’s leadership of federal Labor.
Their backing for the prime minister is seen as her strongest bulwark against supporters of Kevin Rudd.
The polling predicts sitting Labor MPs in the South Australian seat of Wakefield, held by Nick Champion, Petrie (Queensland) and Chifley (NSW) would lose their seats on the back of double-digit swings against them.
Ellis, the Employment Participation Minister, is also facing defeat, with the polling showing an 8.5 per cent swing against her in the seat of Adelaide.
The results are consistent with public opinion polls showing the Gillard government heading for a massive election defeat.
Oliver intimated the polling was commissioned to show workers that a coalition government was a distinct possibility after September 14.
“We know what the threat of an Abbott government is going to be,” he told ABC radio on today.
When asked whether the ACTU was still backing Gillard, Oliver said: “We don’t have the key to who the leader is. The ACTU is backing the government.”
Senior union leaders and officials were briefed on the polling at a meeting at the ACTU in Melbourne on Tuesday, The Australian said.
One official described the results as “diabolical”.
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“The general picture presented was that that it was a disaster,” he said.
Sources said officials broadly resolved to keep fighting for Labor’s re-election despite the bleak outlook.
“The only strategy is to keep throwing punches and hope one of them will land,” one union leader said.
