New Australian PM faces election wipe-out: Poll

Australia's governing Liberal-National Party coalition is facing a landslide defeat in the upcoming general election, according to a leading opinion poll.

The Newspoll was released on Sunday night and said that the coalition trailed the Australian Labour Party (ALP) 44-56 on a two-party preferred basis.

The results indicated that the government's reputation took a significant hit following August's leadership crisis that saw Scott Morrison sworn-in as Prime Minister and his predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull, retire from politics, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Liberal-National Party coalition is the alliance of two centre-right parties -- the Liberal Party and the National Party of Australia.

Morrison's performance was overshadowed by that of his government with the ALP set to win as many as 90 of 150 seats in the House of Representatives in the next election, due to take place by May 2019, according to the poll of 1,653 voters.

The ALP's primary vote rose to 42 per cent, the highest level of support for the party since 2010 and approaching the 43.3 per cent that carried the party to a landslide victory in the 2007 election.

It came ahead of Morrison's first parliamentary sitting week as Prime Minister where he was expected to lay out his policy agenda regarding economy, power prices and the drought.

Respondents to Newspoll rated energy prices (22 per cent), hospitals and aged care (21 per cent) and assistance to farmers (21 per cent) as Morrison's most pressing issues.

Those who identified as coalition voters said that the budget deficit was their top priority while ALP voters said it was hospitals and aged care.

--IANS

soni/