PREMIER John Brumby is travelling badly in the bush - and his Government's contentious water policies are a key reason.
A new opinion poll shows Labor riding on a wave of popular support in suburban Melbourne towards a big win over the Coalition at next year's state election.
But the poll, commissioned by The Age and The Sunday Age 12 months out from the election, points to one small concern for Mr Brumby: voters outside Melbourne are giving Labor the thumbs-down.
The poll, of about 700 people in Melbourne and 300 in rural and regional Victoria, shows country voters are much more likely than their city cousins to back the Coalition and to condemn the Government's water policies.
It shows Labor's primary vote in Melbourne at 55 per cent, compared with the Coalition at 31 per cent. But outside Melbourne, Labor's primary vote is 36 per cent and the Coalition's 50 per cent.
Melbourne voters are also more likely to say Victoria is a better place to live now than it was 10 years ago when Labor came to office.
In Melbourne, 31 per cent of voters surveyed said Victoria is now better, compared with 23 per cent of those outside Melbourne. Twenty-seven per cent of Melbourne voters said Victoria was now a worse place to live; outside Melbourne the figure is 30 per cent.
''This might not be welcome news for a Government that swept into office largely on regional disaffection with the Kennett Liberal government,'' pollster Irving Saulwick said yesterday.
Labor under Steve Bracks exploited country anger with the Kennett government to snatch a surprise win in the 1999 election.
But the Bracks/Brumby Government has upset some rural and regional voters in recent years with its decisions to build Australia's biggest water desalination plant on the Bass Coast and in particular to lay a pipe to take water from the parched north of the state across the Great Dividing Range to Melbourne.
''There are some major differences in attitude between voters in Melbourne and regional Victoria, none more dramatic than in opinions about water resources,'' Mr Saulwick said.
''While Melbourne voters rate the Government's performance on water-resource management as poor, comparatively speaking regional voters regard it as appalling.''
Thirty-one per cent of Melbourne voters surveyed rated the Government's performance on water management as good or very good, while 42 per cent said it was poor or very poor. Outside Melbourne, only 12 per cent said it was good or very good while 59 per cent rated it poor or very poor.
Of voters who said Victoria was a worse place to live now than it was 10 years ago when Jeff Kennett lost government, 12 per cent in Melbourne cited poor water management as a key reason, compared with 18 per cent outside Melbourne.
As revealed in The Sunday Age yesterday, despite Labor's poor showing in the bush, the poll shows a statewide vote after distribution of preferences of 58 per cent for the Government and 42 per cent for the Liberal-Nationals Coalition. This represents a swing to Labor of about 3.5 per cent since the 2006 election and, if repeated at next November's election, could see Labor pick up another six or seven seats.
The poll, by Irving Saulwick & Associates in collaboration with Denis Muller & Associates, was conducted by telephone between October 24 and November 1. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus about 3 per cent.
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