Federal polls: Freshwater Strategy and YouGov (open thread)

Two new polls show green shoots for Labor on the primary vote, though not enough to impact the headline two-party results.

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”.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,673 comments on “Federal polls: Freshwater Strategy and YouGov (open thread)”

Comments Page 34 of 34
1 33 34
  1. Socratessays
    So now Paul A and the Liberal posters are applying all the Trump tactics in Australia. Never mind that they are a pack of lies here. They are importing US culture wars to Australia, whether they are relevant or not. Yay, racism! Vote Liberal!

    The US “diversity hire” meme is nonsense in Australia, and especially in government. Australia has anti-discrimination legislation, not affirmative action. People are not to be excluded. That is all. Nobody is forced to hire one type of employee, whether by gender or ethnicity
    ———
    Government runs DEI targets and quotas and hirers do exclude people to help employers reach targets but the Victorian government has 40% gender targets and the federal government has a bill to mandate gender targets for board and executive roles and Labor is sitting on RC recommendation for a disability quota.

  2. Quentin the problem for Labor is they are starting to shed working class votes to the LNP and others. It’s not seen as a working class party, we are all just ultimately disposable commodities competing in the free market now. What is Labor’s core constituency now?

  3. Quentin Rountreesays:
    Wednesday, January 22, 2025 at 11:03 pm
    Pual a so can I ask you a serious question do you think Liberal can actually maintain majority government and I actually mean a big majority not a couple of seats majority I want to know how serious you are as a political competitor not just a liberal boot liquor soon they have to worry about the teals and they do need them because they were safe seats getting Labor seats doesn’t mean anything if the people in those labour were to well Labor
    ================
    Quentin,
    I have treated you with respect on this site, as I know most posters here regard you highly.
    I am no-one’s “boot liquor” and I gather you meant the term “boot licker”. No need to use terms like that to me, just because I am a right winger. Unless you are one of those who thinks it’s ok to demean people who don’t share your political views. I don’t treat you disrespectfully, even though I know your political views.

    Dutton is looking at a slim majority. He’ll get Katter’s vote and probably Haines. Sharkie, I’m not sure. Someone has said that she’s on the record supporting the Libs, but we’ll put her in the anti-LNP camp at this stage, as I can’t find her views online.
    He’ll also pick up a few of the Teals, who are in seats where they relied on ex-Libs for their support.
    None of the Teals want to go down the Rob Oakeshott path. Steggall will do her own thing, because she ain’t a Teal. She, Spender & Ryan are the most likely to side with the ALP.
    Labor will go back into “opposition soul searching”.
    Albo will go, and there will be a series of resignations.

    Whilst Labor is running around with the stupid Rudd rules about how to select a leader, Dutton will create DD triggers in the senate, and try to force through an early election, possibly late 2026 or 2027. The purpose of this will be to catch the ALP with their trousers down, gain an outright majority and clear out the “anti LNP” 2022 Senate. The 2022 Senate was a big win for the left, & that will be his first target. Most likely, to generate a DD, he will force through his nuclear legislation, knowing full well it will be blocked. He, and the media, will then run a campaign that the Senate is creating higher electricity prices by blocking his mandate.
    Tough one for Senators to fight about, especially those Senators who have zero prospects of being re-elected, and wish to remain in the senate until 30-Jun-2028.

    Politics is tricky Quentin

  4. Another thing that I ponder. Why has Queensland been dominated by the ALP since 1989 at the state level yet they perform so poorly at the federal level?

    The same thing can be seen in the US where both parties can be at least competitive at the state level but always strongly for one party at the federal level.

    Seems to me that voters are largely rational and vote at the federal level more ideologically than at state level.

  5. From the Age comments:

    I’ve been an LNP voter for 50 years but the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison government was about the worst in my lifetime. The LNP is now led by someone who was at best an ordinary minister in that government and his current team are frankly mostly political lightweights. People must have the memory of a goldfish if they think voting them back in will improve anything. Apart from a nuclear fantasy and donations to a taxpayer funded booze up, they offer nothing other than not being Labor who I have to concede have done a great job in seriously difficult circumstances.

    It’s the DJ Trump effect here in Oz, promise the world, have no plan on how to achieve it and hope the people are stupid enough to believe you and vote you in.
    All these Albo detractors in the comments below obviously make their decision based on main stream media and don’t make a decision based on the facts that detail Labor’s achievements.

  6. The LNP are doing better in spite of Dutton. The country is in a difficult state combined with a poor current PM and an even worse opposition. The major party vote will be at new record lows. You’re going to have so many people vote other that it’s hard to determine who ends up on top. Trump’s election should help Dutton I guess in giving his method some backing but he will not be anything other than a terrible PM if he gets that far.

  7. Steve Davis now worried that people don’t think the way he thinks.

    Word of advice Steve – get out and about. Get to know your fellow human’s. Have a beer and a chat with them. Get to know how they think about things. We ain’t all evil, but we vote.
    Don’t hide away near your keyboard.

  8. This could be 1990 all over again. On resolve numbers in Vic it’s an 8% swing from 2022.
    Aston, Bruce, Chisholm, Corangamite, Dunkley, Goldstein, Hawke, Holt, Kooyong, McEwen could be in danger. 10 seats that’s a start.

  9. ANC News
    President Trump demands apology from bishop who used sermon to plead for mercy
    By Elissa Steedman, Tessa Flemming

    President Donald Trump has accused a bishop, who pleaded with him to show compassion during his term, of bringing her church “into the world of politics in a very ungracious way”.

    In a social media post, the newly-minted president said Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde was “nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart”.

  10. NSW a 5% swing. Then Bennelong, Calare, Gilmore, Hunter, Parramatta, Paterson, Reid, Robertson, Werriwa. Another 9 .
    LNP currently 54 +10+9+ forgot Monash = 74 seats.

  11. Paul A
    Not worried in the slightest for me. Well insulated against anything that Dutton would do. Its the rest I’m concerned for because Dutton will do fuck all to help anyone in this country but rich mates and his own kind and the punters cant see it right in front of their noses.

  12. Say a 3% swing in QLD. Ryan, Brisbane maybe Blair – 3 seats – 77 seats a majority.
    SA nothing – Labor could get Sturt but no state polling
    WA – Moore, Curtin, Bullwinkel, Tangney maybe.
    Tas – Lyons
    ACT – no change
    NT – Lingiari
    Albo has a bit of work to do.

  13. Most polling suggests voting intention hasn’t moved much since the last election. Both the ALP and Green pv seems to be roughly where it was in 2022. Voters are yet to engage. There is a likely rate cut on the horizon. Most voters have seen their property values and wages go up in the last three years. Inflation has been steadily coming down. TPP is basically 50/50 at the moment. I can’t see how you could say the next election is a done deal on favour of the coalition by any means.

  14. davesays:
    Wednesday, January 22, 2025 at 11:54 pm
    Another thing that I ponder. Why has Queensland been dominated by the ALP since 1989 at the state level yet they perform so poorly at the federal level?

    **********************************************

    The politics of Queensland is all about the very different distribution of the population in Queensland, with about a 50:50 split between major metro and regional populations (some of which are clearly not very regional), completely different to the other states.

    While the ALP in recent decades has become a party of the city like the Democrats in the USA, the Australian Labor Party originated in regional Queensland. While federally the ALP has become much more dominated by the city, the Queensland state ALP had maintained pretty strong links in regional Queensland, in more recent times largely in the big mining towns. So you had party heavyweights and ministers from these regional centres. That’s really changed over the last decade, particularly as the left faction of the ALP has become dominant.

  15. ‘wranslide says:
    Wednesday, January 22, 2025 at 9:10 pm

    Nice photos from the QUAD meeting today. Does Australia, or Japan, or the US ask India about how things are with Russia these days?’
    ====================
    Russia is zero threat to India. India has probably benefited slightly as a result of the sanctions.

    OTOH, Indian governments are perfectly aware that the consistent and growing and aggressive threats to India’s sovereign borders and to India’s trade interests is China.

    The big geo-strategic threats by China against India include:

    1. China’s occupation of, and military build up in, parts of Bhutan. This is a huge strategic threat to the very skinny Indian geographical connection to its north-eastern territory.

    2. China’s publication of a brand new map showing China’s borders. These borders intrude on current Indian territory and includes claims on the north-eastern territory based on a single and obscure reference to a 7th century Tibetan text.

    3. China’s Belt and Road infrastructure builds in Pakistan and Myanmar and Sri Lanka combined with a now constant naval presence in the Indian Ocean. Essentially, China has encircled India.

    4. China’s decision to start construction on the world’s largest dam on the Bhramaputra River. This is essentially a massive economic threat to huge numbers of India’s (and Bangle Desh’s) irrigation dependent farmers.

    In short, Russia is an opportunity. China is a constant and menacing and growing threat.

    India is perfectly capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time.

    That said, the QUAD commits India to SFA and, IMO, it is hugely unlikely that India would join in military hostilities engaged in by the other members of the QUAD.

  16. dave says:
    Wednesday, January 22, 2025 at 11:54 pm
    Another thing that I ponder. Why has Queensland been dominated by the ALP since 1989 at the state level yet they perform so poorly at the federal leve.

    ————————————-

    When popular PM Rudd, a Queenslander, was elected, Labor won 16 Queensland lower house seats.
    Once Shorten got the numbers to remove him, out of the 11 seats Labor lost at the 2010 election, 7 were from Queensland. And with Shorten driving Labor policy, Queensland Labor seats kept dropping.

    As for Paul A ‘stupid Rudd rules’ Albanese was chosen by Shorten. Rudd’s rules were not used. When Shorten lost the 2019 election, Labor MPs were angry, and didn’t want another Labor right faction MP as Labor leader.
    And I guess it was Albanese’s turn. Plibersek was asked, and rejected the offer, or couldn’t get the numbers.

    Why Albanese became PM. But the right faction seems to still dominate and choose Labor policy. Why we have AUKUS, which may turn some Chinese ancestry voters away from Labor, is very unpopular with many Australians, still all of Howard’s, Turnbull’s Snowy II, and Morrison’s polices.

    As mj says working class voters could be leaving Labor, and Dutton is using some of Trumps divisive language. The Voice failure, ignoring that Australian Referendums only pass when both main political parties agree, gave Dutton a lot to work with to woo these people.

    And some similarity to the US Democrat polices, maybe less interest in working class people, wooing richer business people by giving them $billions in taxpayer money for their projects, supporting genocide in Gaza, possibly providing parts of weapons used, all may play a part in some people’s move away from Labor.

Comments Page 34 of 34
1 33 34

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *