A survey of voters in the marginal seat of Paterson suggests that incumbent Labor member Meryl Swanson will be returned.
The Redbridge phone survey of 881 voters conducted last week found the coalition had failed to make ground in the hotly-contested seat, which has been targeted by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on numerous visits over the past 18 months.
After redistribution, the Liberal's primary vote was only 0.58 per cent higher than in 2019. But Labor's primary vote dropped from 41 to 38 per cent.
Cost of living pressures (19.9%) were nominated as the issues most likely to influence survey participants' votes.
It was followed by economic management and interest rates (17.5%), climate change (14%) and funding for hospitals and Medicare (13.6%).
A clear majority of the respondents either 'strongly disagreed (45.6%) or disagreed (16.3%) with the statement "Scott Morrison and Liberals are a safe pair of hands in these uncertain times".
There was strong disagreement (33.5%) and disagreement (15.1%) with the statement "Taxes will always be higher under a Labor Government".
The results were evenly distributed on the question of "to get my pay moving again we need a change of government" - 26.3 per cent strongly disagreed, 13.6 per cent disagreed, 17 per cent agreed, 21.8 per cent strongly agreed while 21.3 per cent were neutral.
Participants narrowly preferred Anthony Albanese and Labor (39.4%) to Scott Morrison and the Liberal Party (38.4%) on the question of who would do a better job of keeping interest rates low. Twenty two per cent were unsure.
On the management of cost of living pressures, 50.4 per cent said Labor would do a better job, 35.1 per cent nominated the Liberal Party while 14.5 per cent were unsure.
Regarding who would take appropriate action on climate change almost half of participants (48.9%) said Labor, 32.9 per cent said the Liberal Party and 18.2 per cent were unsure.
Significantly for a seat which is home to the Williamtwon RAAF base, the Liberal Party was the preferred party on the subject of national security.
A majority of participants (41.6%) said they felt the Liberal Party would better manager national security issues compared to Labor (39.9%) and 18.5 per cent unsure. Paterson also has several key manufacturing businesses located in the seat.
Regarding which party would better manage onshore manufacturing, 47.1 per cent nominated Labor, 34.2 per cent said Liberal and 18.7 per cent were unsure.
Almost 80 per cent (78.3%) of survey participants indicated they were very certain about their voting intentions.
Of those who were undecided 10.7 per cent indicated a leaning to the Labor Party, 19.4 per cent to the Liberal Party, 2.4 per cent to the United Australia Party, 26.1 per cent to the Independents and 41.1 per cent to another party.
The Redbridge survey recorded similar results in the marginal seats of Greenway (NSW), Longman in Queensland and Bass in Tasmania.
