MEMBER for New England Barnaby Joyce gave little heed to a Fairfax Media poll that has registered more than 2000 responses to the question would voters prefer him or Tony Windsor as MP.
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The poll was created on Thursday, September 3 and Mr Joyce held the lead in the early stages by a comfortable margin, with more than 100 votes registered.
Respondents increased to the thousands after Mr Windsor re-tweeted the poll on Monday, September 7 and support for the former MP has since increased to more than 90 per cent of the vote.
I think it was local opinion until Mr Windsor tweeted it,
- New England MP Barnaby Joyce
“I think it was local opinion until Mr Windsor tweeted it,” Mr Joyce said.
“And then it went to 23,000 people predominantly out of the electorate, and then it became a poll of something else.”
He denied the nation-wide numbers were a reflection of local opinion.
“Twitter is an interesting forum,” he said.
“I have 63,000 followers on Twitter. I haven’t got onto Twitter and said ‘All bombard the local, the Inverell Times’. What’s the point? It loses its purpose.”
Mr Windsor said he was “waiting for the avalanche” of Nationals votes to even the odds this week, but that has not eventuated and Mr Joyce was unwilling to come to the table by re-tweeting the poll.
“Well, one would suggest that if a genuine poll is working for you, why would you? You would only tweet it if you thought the poll wasn't working for you and you were trying to get people outside the electorate to support you,” he said.
The incumbent MP rubbished Mr Windsor’s lead as a chance for supporters “overwhelmingly of a certain political ilk” to swamp the vote.
“Before, it was, I think, a local poll around Inverell and probably a fair reflection of what was happening, and then it turned into basically ‘If you don’t like the Coalition, and if you don’t like Barnaby Joyce, tweet a poll in Inverell’ and that is what is happening now,” he said.
