By Heath Aston STATE
LABOR will be clobbered by voters at the Penrith byelection, with secret ALP polling obtained by The Sun-Herald indicating Premier Kristina Keneally will preside over the greatest-ever swing against a NSW government.
In an ominous sign for the scandal-plagued state government before an election in March, internal party polling predicts a massive two-party preferred swing of 27 percentage points against the government in Penrith on June 19.
The slaughter is set to be worse than the previous greatest swing in NSW, when John Watkins's former seat of Ryde returned to the Liberals last year with a 23-point two-party-preferred swing.
On a two-party preferred basis, Labor is on track to claim just 32 per cent of the vote, with 68 per cent for the Liberals representing a stunning turnaround from the 2007 election when disgraced former MP Karyn Paluzzano won for Labor with 59 per cent of the vote.
The results of the polling have left ALP strategists reeling and senior government figures clutching for reasons why things cannot get any worse for the ageing Labor administration 10 months out from an election.
The polling, conducted by UMR Research early last week, came just days after Transport and Roads Minister David Campbell quit after he was caught leaving a sex club in Sydney's eastern suburbs.
It also coincided with revelations that motorists, particularly in car-reliant areas such as Penrith and the lower Blue Mountains, will endure decades of gridlock because state government bungling has made building roads such as the M4 East financially unviable.
But the bulk of the damage to brand Labor in Penrith appears to have been done by Ms Paluzzano, who quit this month after she was exposed by the Independent Commission Against Corruption as a liar and a parliamentary expenses fiddler.
According to the ALP polling, 73 per cent of voters who intend to switch their vote from Labor to another party or candidate cited her behaviour as a factor.
Fifty-two per cent of voters who planned to abandon Labor said the Paluzzano saga was ''very important'' to their decision.
A further 21 per cent said it was ''somewhat important''.
Of the 350 voters interviewed by UMR, 55 per cent intend to vote for Liberal candidate Stuart Ayres, a big turnaround from the 2007 election, when 33 per cent of the primary vote went to the Liberals.
The Labor primary vote is predicted to wilt from 49 per cent to just 27 per cent.
ALP head office in Sussex Street is shaken by the size of the predicted swing because, despite a three-year hiatus, Labor has held the seat of Penrith since 1973.
Senior Liberal sources said the results of their party's polling would not be known until next week.
The Liberal Party, under leader Barry O'Farrell, is likely to keep its figures close to its chest. The party is desperate not to let Labor grab the mantle of underdog and allow Ms Keneally to claim a better-than-feared defeat as a victory.
Mr O'Farrell was on the campaign trail in Penrith with Mr Ayres again yesterday but Ms Keneally has been largely absent, leaving Labor candidate John Thain to do his best on his own.
Labor strategists do not want Ms Keneally, its last genuine electoral asset, to be associated with defeat in Penrith.
Ms Keneally would not comment on the polling yesterday but has previously warned her supporters to expect a swing in the order of 20 per cent.
A senior ALP source said: ''The Labor Party is under no illusion about the difficulty of winning the seat of Penrith.''