Labor trails in third in new Victorian poll, leaving party MPs worried and sceptical

Labor has slipped to third place in a new poll ahead of the state election in Victoria, Australia, with its primary vote falling to just 18 percent, an all-time low.

The DemosAU/PremierNational poll, first published by the Herald Sun on Monday, shows Labor's primary vote down seven points to 18 percent, behind the Coalition's 33 percent and One Nation's 21 percent. The Greens' primary vote rose to 17 percent, up three points since September.

The Coalition now leads Labor 56-44 on a two-party-preferred basis, compared with 52-48 in September.

George Hasanakos, DemosAU's head of research, said that if the poll were reflected on election night, many contests across the state would be between the Liberals or Nationals and One Nation, which would then produce a 'clear Coalition majority'. 'If that happens, One Nation has to poll really, really well to have a chance of winning, because Labor and Greens preferences will flow to the Liberals,' he said.

On election night, the Victorian Electoral Commission plans to conduct a two-candidate-preferred (2CP) count in each seat between the two candidates expected to finish with the most support after preferences are distributed. The commission is selecting the indicative 2CP for each seat on the basis of polling, preference flows and results from previous elections, and will not publish the indicative 2CPs before election day to avoid influencing voter behaviour.

Hasanakos said he had 'double, triple, quadruple checked' the result of the 'extraordinary' poll, which had 1,562 respondents, an effective sample of 818 and a margin of error of 3.4 percent. 'We went to the trouble of a bigger sample here, and I stand by it,' he said.

At a press conference in South Melbourne on Monday morning, Labor leader Ben Carroll repeatedly refused to say whether he was worried about the poll.

'What I'm focused on every day is fighting for working people and making sure that every Victorian that goes into the ballot on November 28 knows that under my government you have a government on your side that will fight for you,' he said. 'The alternative is a Liberal-One Nation government that will fight against you — they're going to shrink the economy, cause a recession and make life difficult for every single Victorian.'

The result has caused serious concern in the Labor caucus, though some MPs are sceptical about the 18 percent figure. Inside the campaign headquarters, the result is being treated as an 'outlier', with other public polls pointing to a primary vote in the 20s.

Several Labor MPs, who are not authorised to speak publicly, have told Guardian Australia that many in the caucus are questioning the party's strategy, including its recent focus on crime, an issue that is usually a Coalition strength.

On Sunday, Carroll announced a $204m plan to allow judges to sentence low- and mid-level youth offenders to a new rehabilitation detention program. On Monday, he announced $70m to recruit 200 more police reservists to reopen stations and to build and upgrade stations.

'Caucus is really angry and deflated, because this is all happening because of him,' one MP said. 'Even if it's higher than 18, and we get back into something with a two in front of it, the experiment has been an epic fail, the campaign is in freefall, and it's about to get a whole lot worse.'

Another MP said the focus on crime was 'diabolically stupid strategy', as the government had years to tackle community concern about rising rates.