Voters in hotly contested Liberal-held seat rank climate and environment over economy, poll finds

Voters in the Liberal-held seat of North Sydney have ranked climate and the environment as a higher priority than the economy, while they see integrity in politics as narrowly more important than the cost of living, a new poll shows.

With Scott Morrison placing the economy at the centre of his re-election pitch and playing down his broken promise to establish a commonwealth integrity commission, the poll highlights pressures the Coalition may face as it seeks to hold socially progressive seats.

High-profile independent candidates including Kylea Tink, who is challenging Liberal moderate Trent Zimmerman in North Sydney, are seeking to place climate action and a fully fledged integrity commission at the centre of their campaigns.

The top result (27.2%) was climate and the environment, followed by the economy (19.7%), according to the poll commissioned by Climate 200, which is backing a range of independent candidates including Tink.

The next highest result was integrity and trust in politics (16.2%) which was similar to the fourth result, cost of living (12.6%). The less popular options in North Sydney were national security (10.2%), health and aged care (6.9%), and education and training (2.2%).

The polling report by Community Engagement, which carried out the survey, said the data was weighted based on gender, age, education and recall of their vote at the last election, with an effective margin of error of plus or minus 3.5%.

Guardian Australia has been told integrity rates as the main concern for 19.5% of respondents in the WA seat of Curtin (held by Liberal MP Celia Hammond), 18.6% of respondents in the Victorian seat of Goldstein (Tim Wilson), 20.4% in Kooyong (Josh Frydenberg) and 19.6% in Wentworth (Dave Sharma).

The government released an exposure draft but never introduced a bill to parliament, where the proposal could have been amended by Labor and the crossbench together with Liberal defectors who support a stronger model.

The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, pledged to legislate a strong anti-corruption commission by the end of 2022.

News stories over the past week have revealed inflammatory comments on various social media platforms including one where Deves equated anti-trans activism to standing up against the Holocaust during a YouTube panel.

Matt Kean, the NSW treasurer and a leading Liberal party moderate, called for Deves to be disendorsed.

Morrison said he had never stated it would be a government bill.

The same North Sydney poll found Zimmerman was sitting on a primary vote of 37.1%, compared with 19.4% for Tink and 17.3% for Labor candidate Catherine Renshaw. The poll also found 8.7% primary vote support for Lynne Saville of the Greens, and 5.6% for Robert Nalbandian from United Australia party.

Parties generally treat individual seat polls with caution, and they only represent sentiment at a point in time rather than predicting an outcome, but the results indicate preferences are likely to be crucial in determining the outcome in North Sydney.