The Poll Bludger

Perhaps reflecting by the imminence of a federal election, polling seems to be picking up quicker after New Year than usual:

• The Financial Review has the latest Freshwater Strategy poll on its regular monthly schedule, presently only available in the paper’s digital print edition, recording no change to the Coalition’s 51-49 lead on two-party preferred. This is despite a slight improvement in Labor’s position on the primary vote, up two points to 32%, with the Coalition steady on 40% and the Greens down a point to 13%. Conversely, Peter Dutton draws level with Anthony Albanese at 43% apiece on preferred prime minister, which he had never quite managed in this series before. Anthony Albanese is down two on approval to 32% and down one on disapproval to 50%, while Peter Dutton is down one to 36% and steady on 40%. The poll was conducted Friday to Sunday from a sample of 1063.

• YouGov has a federal poll that’s yet to appear on its website, but which has a headline two-party result of 51-49 to the Coalition, compared with 50-50 at the last poll in November – though the primary vote numbers look quite a bit more like 50-50 if preference flows are applied strictly as per the 2022 election result. The primary votes are Labor 32% (up two), Coalition 39% (up one), Greens 12% (down one) and One Nation 7% (down two). Anthony Albanese records improved personal ratings at 40% approval (up four) and 55% disapproval (down one), which is also true to a lesser extent of Peter Dutton, up three to 43% and up one to 49%. Albanese leads 44-40 on preferred prime minister, out from 42-39. The poll was conducted January 9 to 15 from a sample of 1504.

We’ve also had YouGov’s head of Australian political polling, Amir Daftari, relate on X that polling of 630 respondents from October to January suggests Labor is poised to win the seat of Brisbane from the Greens, with the latter running third on 23% to the LNP’s 35% and Labor’s 34%, which would translate into an easy win for Labor after the distribution of Greens preferences, reversing what happened in 2022.

Further:

• A Liberal preselection for the northern Sydney seat of Bradfield on Saturday was won by Gisele Kapterian over Warren Mundine by a margin of 207 to 171, with cardiologist Michael Feneley managing only 16 votes and another mooted contender, local councillor Barbara Ward, seemingly not making it to the starter’s gate. The seat will be vacated by retiring Liberal member Paul Fletcher and contested for a second time by teal independent Nicolette Boele, who came within 4.2% in 2022. Both Antony Green and I have calculated a post-redistribution Liberal-versus-teal margin of 2.5%, following its absorption of parts of abolished North Sydney.

• The Canberra Times reports the Liberal Senate candidate for the Australian Capital Territory, Jacob Vadakkedathu, faces a party vote for his disendorsement over accusations of branch stacking, after a petition to the management committee attracted the requisite 30 signatures from voting members.

• Lydia Lynch of The Australian reports Kara Cook, former Brisbane councillor and a lawyer specialising in domestic violence cases, is set to be preselected as Labor’s candidate for the LNP-held Brisbane seat of Bonner. An earlier report in The Australian said Labor’s national executive had intervened in Bonner to block Billy Colless, lead organiser of the public sector union Together Queensland, who had initially been the only nominee. Another Labor candidate in an LNP-held Brisbane seat is Rhiannyn Douglas, former teacher and current state party organiser, in Longman.

• The federal redistribution of the Northern Territory was finalised on January 7, confirming the boundary proposed in the draft report, which drew no dissenting submissions. The redistribution does the obvious thing of ceding the part of Palmerston that was formerly in Lingiari, which by my reckoning reduces Labor’s margin in Solomon from 9.4% to 8.4% and increases it in Lingiari from 1.0% to 1.6%.

• Angira Bharadwaj of News Corp quotes a Labor source on election timing saying “the cold hard truth is we aren’t ready and we won’t be ready for another month”.

Writing in the News Corp papers, Phillip Hudson of Bondi Partners summarises the election date situation so I don’t have to:

The first choice the PM needs to make is whether to allow parliament to go ahead as scheduled for the first two weeks of February or to visit Governor-General Sam Mostyn to call the election … Might Albanese break convention and surprise us all by ending the guessing game — and catching almost everybody off guard — by calling an unlikely poll in mid-January for February 22? … The attraction of a March election is made difficult by the Western Australian state election scheduled for March 8, which is also a long weekend in the southern half of the country, while March 15 clashes with the Formula 1 Grand Prix. March 29 and April 5 are a possibility, especially if there’s a February rate cut. April 12 is emerging as a red hot option as the WA election would be over on the weekend it needs to be called. That scenario would allow for parliament to be dissolved without having a budget … If he waits any longer he will have to deliver another budget as there’s no chance of an election on April 19 or 26 due to a later than usual Easter then Anzac Day commemorations. The final window is May 3, 10 or 17.

Also of note:

• This week’s Roy Morgan poll has the Coalition’s two-party lead at 51.5-48.5, in from a 53-47 blowout last week that was entirely due to an aberrant result on respondent-allocated preferences from Greens voters. Labor is in fact down a point on the primary vote to 30%, with the Coalition steady on 40.5%, the Greens up half a point to 12.5%, and One Nation up one to 4.5%. The two-party result based on 2022 election preference flows is 50.5-49.5 in favour of the Coalition, compared with 50-50 last time. The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1721.

• A keenly fought Liberal preselection will be held on Saturday to choose a successor to Paul Fletcher in the northern Sydney seat of Bradfield, where the party is under pressure from teal independent Nicolette Boele. This is largely shaping up as a battle between moderates who favour Gisele Kapterian, international trade lawyer and former staffer to Julie Bishop, and conservative backing Warren Mundine, who among other things was one of two Indigenous spearheads in the campaign against the October 2023 Voice referendum, together with Senator Jacinta Price. Kapterian’s backers include Joe Hockey, Nick Greiner, Barry O’Farrell, Gladys Berejiklian and Sussan Ley. Mundine has been endorsed by Tony Abbott, John Anderson and Jacinta Price, but faces the difficulty of being 68. Also contesting the preselection are local councillor Barbara Ward and cardiologist Michael Feneley.

• The Nationals have announced that their candidate for Hunter is Sue Gilroy, registered nurse, founder of a business coaching company and past candidate for Shooters Fishers and Farmers. The seat is held for Labor by Dan Repacholi on a post-redistribution margin of 4.9%.

Roy Morgan returned to the field this week with an eye-catching headline result of 53-47 in favour of the Coalition on two-party preferred, but this turned out to be entirely down to an unorthodox set of respondent-allocated preference flows, with the accompanying release relating that Labor’s share from the Greens was down from 85% to 55% from the previous poll. A previous election preferences measure was not provided on this occasion, but such a result assuredly have come in at 50-50. Labor were in fact up three-and-a-half points on the pre-Christmas poll to 31%, with the Coalition down half to 40.5%, the Greens down half to 12% and One Nation down one-and-a-half to 3.5%. The poll was conducted December 30 to January 5 from a sample of 1446.

Also out this week from RedBridge Group was a follow-up report from its recent MRP survey relating to ideological positioning on the customary left-to-right scale. On a ten-point left-to-right scale, 51% rated Labor at very points on the left, 18% had them in the centre and 20% on the right, whereas the Liberals were put on the right by 62%, in the centre by 14% and on the left by 13%. Thirty-one per cent placed themselves in the centre, 23% on the left and 33% on the right. Forty-two per cent either way felt the Liberal Party to be to their right and Labor to be to their left, with 43% rating the Liberal Party’s position similar to their own compared with 39% for Labor.

Nine Newspapers yesterday had Resolve Strategic’s quarterly state breakdowns, combined from their past three monthly polls. These aren’t news with respect to the three largest states, results for which are provided with each poll. That leaves fresh results for Western Australia, which show Labor on 30% (up one on last quarter, down from 36.8% at the 2022 election), the Coalition on 37% (up two, up from 34.8%), the Greens on 12% (down four, down from 12.5%) and One Nation 5% (steady, up from 4.0%). and South Australia, which show Labor on 27% (down one on last quarter, down from 34.5% at the election), the Coalition on 34% (down two, down from 35.5%), the Greens on 12% (down two, down from 12.8%) and One Nation on 8% (up two, up from 4.8%). The combined sample for the poll was 4831, with surveying conducted between October 1 and December 8.

Also published on Sunday were familiarity and net likeability results for 34 politicians from the most recent monthly survey. These seem to have elicited rote responses for most of the lower-ranking government ministers, eight of whom scored between between 41% and 55% on name recognition and between minus one and minus five on net likeability. Coalition politicians in the same name recognition range did better, ranging from even to plus seven.

The most instructive results were for those with familiarity scores of 70% and upwards, peaking at 98% for Anthony Albanese (minus 17 on net likeability) and 95% for Peter Dutton (even). Jacinta Price was the most favoured major party politician with 71% familiarity and plus 8 net likeability, though David Pocock and a number of Liberals did only slightly less well with much lower familiarity scores. Labor’s best performer was Penny Wong with 89% familiarity and plus 2 on net likeability. The worst result for a major party politician was Barnaby Joyce with 90% familiarity and minus 22 net likeability.

Jacqui Lambie tops the list, with 80% familiarity and plus 14 net likeability. David Pocock and Zali Steggall’s results were respectively good and mediocre, but otherwise non-major party politicians did poorly, Adam Bandt, Sarah Hanson-Young, Bob Katter and Fatima Payman all landing between minus 11 and minus 17. Worst-rated of all was Lidia Thorpe, whose recent activities have succeeded to the extent of scoring her 73% familiarity, with a net rating of minus 41 presumably demonstrating one point or another.

UPDATE: Further results have been published for age broken down into three cohorts. For 18-to-34, Labor is on 33% (up two from last quarter, steady on what was presumably the pre-election Resolve Strategic poll), the Coalition 27% (up two on both counts), the Greens 23% (down four, down two). For 35-to-54, Labor is on 30% (up two and down four), the Coalition 34% (down two and up two) and the Greens 12% (steady on both counts). For 55-plus, Labor is on 25% (down two and down eight), the Coalition 50% (up three and up four) and the Greens 4% (steady and down one).