WHITE ON RISE

A NEW poll showing Labor leader Rebecca White streaking ahead of Will Hodgman as preferred premier is a big problem for the Liberals, a polling analyst says.

The latest EMRS state voting intentions poll has put Ms White 11 points ahead of Mr Hodgman.

Polling analyst Kevin Bonham said historically state leaders did not survive such preferred premier figures.

“That is something really unusual for a new Opposition leader to be leading a state premier by that much,” Dr Bonham said.

“If you looked at the history of federal Newspolls, in cases where well-established premiers were trailing on preferred premier, in all those cases the premier in question either lost the next election or were removed by their party.”

Ms White, who has led Labor for less than six months, was preferred premier for 48 per cent of those polled, compared with Mr Hodgman being the preferred premier for 37 per cent.

Mr Hodgman’s rating as preferred premier has dropped 13 points since this time last year, when he faced unpopular former Labor leader Bryan Green.

The polling of 1000 Tasmanians done between August 3-7 had support for the Liberal State Government at 37 per cent — down two percentage points since May.

Support for the Labor Opposition remained the same at 34 per cent and support for the Greens was steady at 16 per cent.

Six per cent said they would vote for an independent candidate, while support for the Jacqui Lambie Network — measured for the first time — stood at 5 per cent.

Dr Bonham said if the polling was repeated at an election, it could result in a hung Parliament, with 11-12 seats for the Liberals, 3-4 seats for the Greens and 10 seats for Labor.

Mr Hodgman has led the Liberal Party in Tasmania for 11 years and his deputy, Jeremy Rockliff, yesterday backed his leader. “Will Hodgman is an excellent leader leading a very capable team.”

ReachTEL polling done last month for the Mercury, which targets a bigger sample size than EMRS, had Ms White only slightly ahead of Mr Hodgman as preferred premier.