BEC SAYS SHE CAN STILL WIN

OPPOSITION leader Rebecca White has shrugged off another opinion poll suggesting her party is heading towards defeat in Saturday’s state election, saying her focus was still on winning majority government.

The latest EMRS poll indicated the Liberals have secured a stunning favourable swing of 12 percentage points since the last poll in December — up 46 to 34 over Labor.

“We saw in 2016, the polls never predicted that Labor would win four of the five seats in that federal campaign, but we did. The polls didn’t predict that we would win the Upper House seats in the parliament, but we did. We can win this election,” Ms White said.

BOTH Labor and the Greens have jumped on comments made by Jacqui Lambie claiming they show the Burnie “battler” and JLN leader is now a backer of big business and the Liberal campaign

Ms Lambie reportedly told the Tasmania Talks radio program yesterday: “Probably the best thing to do is leave Will Hodgman in there and continue through that way” in reference to voters delivering a hung parliament and her party picking up seats.

However, Ms Lambie later told the Mercury she would talk to any political party which came to the table “as an adult”.

“Here are Labor and the Greens throwing this rubbish around when Tasmania should be concerned they have already done a deal together,” Ms Lambie said yesterday.

“Voters in my part of the state are still scarred by what happened the last time the Greens and Labor did just that.”

Labor leader Rebecca White has repeatedly said she would not do a deal with the Greens this election and govern in majority or not at all.

The Liberal Party is also taking a hard line on majority government.

“We will deal with anyone who comes to the table as an adult not a child if we are given an opportunity to be part of a new state government come Saturday,” Ms Lambie said.

Meanwhile, the JLN has written to the commissioner of the Tasmanian Electoral Commission to complain about Liberal Party advertising which it claims is deceptive because it is “in the style of an election notice”.

“The ads have a mockup that bears strong similarity to formal TEC advertisements. The JLN condemns such advertising as false,” Ms Lambie said.

Shadow Treasurer Scott Bacon said Jacqui Lambie’s revelation that she would support the Liberals in the event of a hung parliament raised questions over how a deal might have been cooked up.

“Just a couple of weeks ago we saw Will Hodgman and JLN Lyons candidate Michael Kent joking on TV about taking each other out to lunch,” Mr Bacon said.

At the start of the election campaign, it was the Liberals who accused Ms Lambie of doing “secret dinner deals” with Ms White.

It was later revealed the two had met for dinner in Burnie when Ms Lambie was still a senator and Ms White had just replaced Bryan Green as Tasmanian Labor leader.

The JLN has already announced its anti-pokie policy, saying it supported Labor’s move to phase out the machines after 2023.

Greens candidate for Lyons, Fraser Brindley, said “Jacqui the battler” had now backed in big business.

“This is a sellout. A vote for the JLN is a vote for the Liberals,” he said.