PHILLIP COOREY

May 19, 2012

Big in NSW ... Julian Assange. Photo: AP

THE WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, would stand a good chance of securing a Senate seat, most likely at the expense of the Greens, a new poll has found.

But he would have a better chance in NSW than his native Victoria.

The poll of 1000 voters was conducted at the end of last month by UMR Research, the company the Labor Party uses for its internal polling.

Mr Assange, who is still under house arrest in London fighting moves to extradite him to Sweden on sexual assault charges, signalled in March that he wanted to run for the Senate at the next federal election.

A statement issued back then by WikiLeaks said Mr Assange was entitled to run for the Senate, even if still detained abroad.

''The state Julian will run for will be announced at the appropriate time,'' the statement said.

The UMR poll found 25 per cent of those polled would be likely to vote for Mr Assange if he ran, while 14 per cent were unsure and 61 per cent would be unlikely to vote for him.

His highest level of support was among Greens voters and, overall, he was more popular in NSW.

The poll found 66 per cent of Greens voters had a positive view of Mr Assange and 39 per cent of Greens voters were likely to vote for Mr Assange in a Senate election.

Among Labor voters, 27 per cent said they would be likely to vote for him, as did 23 per cent of Coalition voters.

"There is clearly a significant level of support for Julian Assange which crosses party lines and is more concentrated amongst Green voters,'' the pollster John Utting said.

''At this stage Julian Assange stands a very real chance of being elected to the Senate should he run.

''In a half-Senate election he'd take the spot from the Greens.''

Senate support for Mr Assange is strongest in NSW at 27 per cent compared with 23 per cent in Victoria. At the next election, there is no Greens spot up for grabs; the only NSW Greens senator, Lee Rhiannon, is mid-term.

Mr Utting said Mr Assange's campaign was still at a very formative stage ''and the campaign could deliver up more negatives than positives''.

''His branding and what he stands for is pretty clear but he would certainly be vulnerable to a strong campaign emphasising his absentee status, should he of course still be held by authorities in the UK or Sweden.''

Mr Utting believes any extradition of Mr Assange to the US could increase his vote.

Popularity of an Assange run for Senate could leave Greens with envy