Monday miscellany: youth polling, preselections, Werribee by-election latest (open thread)

A late vacancy arises in a safe Labor seat, expectations management sets in ahead of Saturday’s Victorian by-elections, and more besides.

The campaign for the Western Australian election on March 8 formally commences this week with the issuing of the writs, there are two interesting Victorian state by-elections on Saturday (more on one of them below), and there will shortly be a New South Wales state by-election to contend with in Port Macquarie following retirement announcement from Nationals-turned-Liberal member Leslie Williams. That’s to say nothing of the small matter of a looming federal election, for which April 12 is generally considered the most likely date, particularly after last week’s inflation numbers shortened the odds on an interest rate cut later this month.

Also of note:

• The Financial Review this week had polling data for the 18-to-34 cohort broken down by gender, combined from Freshwater Strategy’s monthly polling in November, December and January. Presumably inspired by the stark divide in voting and ideology that’s opened up between young men and women in the United States, the results find the phenomenon to be relatively subdued here: the big difference was that support for the Greens was at 32% among young women and 20% among young men, with both major parties scoring higher among men (Labor 36%, Coalition 32%) than women (Labor 32%, Coalition 25%). Kos Samaras of RedBridge Group calculates two-party Labor leads of 67-33 among the women and 59-41 among the men. Anthony Albanese led Peter Dutton as preferred prime minister by 58-27 among the women and 55-37 among the men, but both leaders scored much worse among women than men on net approval.

• 7News has a new election prediction model, in which political science academics Simon Jackman and Luke Mansillo were involved. Mansillo was also involved in The Guardian’s tracker, but this one is quite different: whereas The Guardian’s model goes far beyond any poll result in crediting the Coalition with a commanding 53.1-46.9 lead, the 7News model has it at 51-49. Mansillo is quoted saying the mode leans just slightly in favour of Labor forming government because of an inefficiently distributed Coalition swing, leaving them set to run up margins in already safe rural and regional seats.

• Labor’s Stephen Jones announced last week that he will not seek re-election in his Illawarra region seat of Whitlam. Ronald Mizen of the Financial Review reports the only known contender for Labor preselection is Keely O’Brien, general manger of corporate affairs for the Council of Australian Life Insurers. However, O’Brien is of the Right and the consensus appears to be that the Right will not formally oppose the national executive ratifying the nominee of Jones’s own Left faction. The report further relates that an informal deal reserves Whitlam to the Left and the state seat of Shoalhaven to the Right, but some consider the Right is owed a seat after Anthony Albanese imposed Ashvini Ambihaipahar of the Left in Barton.

• The South Australian Liberal Party has chosen Leah Blyth, education executive and state party president, to fill the Senate vacancy created by Simon Birmingham’s retirement, replacing a moderate with a conservative. Brad Crouch of The Advertiser reports Blyth won the party ballot with 119 votes to 71 for lawyer Sam Hooper and 11 for Adelaide councillor Henry Davis. As Birmingham was re-elected in 2022, Blyth will not be required to contest the coming election.

• A party vote to disendorse Jacob Vadakkedathu as the Liberals’ Australian Capital Territory Senate candidate over branch stacking allegations was defeated on Saturday. X account Preselection Updates relates the margin was 109 votes to 74.

• Patrick Durkin of the Financial Review (no link available at present) reports Labor polling shows Saturday’s by-election in Werribee “could be as close as 48-52” in favour of the government, suggesting a 9% Liberal swing. However, Liberals “denied the race was that close” and said a 5% swing would be a good result. Chip Le Grand of The Age also cites a Liberal source talking down the party’s chances by citing a “missed opportunity” to win over the local Indian community by preselecting local businessman Rajan Chopra, instead choosing 63-year-old real estate agent Steve Murphy.

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.

1,574 comments on “Monday miscellany: youth polling, preselections, Werribee by-election latest (open thread)”

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  1. The only saving grace is that it takes 60 votes to break the filibuster for legislation to get through the Senate, although if the day comes when he decides to just do away with that then it’s pretty much over.

    Remember all the people arguing that the Democrats should remove the filibuster so they could pass legislation that might not get through anyway? I wonder how many are now of a different opinion?

    The filibuster is a total nonsense, and if Trump wants something passed that gets filibustered by the Dems the filibuster will be toast in a second, so represents no protection at all.

    Yes, Senators love the filibuster because it makes them feel powerful.

    I wouldn’t have a problem with the filibuster if the Senators had to actually follow through with it rather than just saying they would – so sure, get up and speak for as long as you can, but if you need to sleep or eat or take a toilet break then you’re done, and votes can proceed.

  2. Trumpster fire (n):

    (US politics, informal, derogatory) Donald Trump’s use of controversy to distract the public from the perceived disastrous state of the his government.

  3. In my professional career, it was important to construct a sentence which accorded with the subject and predicate making up the two basic structural parts of a complete sentence. I note with some concern that some aren’t according to this rather simple rule. I refuse to single out dear Lars & dear Entropy. By the way, I’m over MAFS, of the view that at my age, love is out of the question (?).

  4. citizen @ #1551 Wednesday, February 5th, 2025 – 10:03 pm

    I hope nobody gives Trump the idea that making Australia the 52nd state would be a great way to control the supply of these rare earth minerals and other commodities.

    Australia has rare earth metals crucial to high-tech manufacturing that will become more important for the US to get as it enters a trade war with China.

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-sweetener-australia-will-use-to-try-to-dodge-trump-tariffs-20250205-p5l9ra.html

    If Dutton was in power, he would hand them over to Trump like Howard handed over our natural gas to China.

  5. All Australia can do regarding the Middle East is to play a constructive role in international forums for a just peace, as useless as such efforts would seem to be at the moment with nearly 80 years of hatred in play. There’s nothing that we could or should do on our own that would make any difference. The only dog we have in this fight is to ensure that the hatreds don’t spill over into our own community.

    The Coalition unconditionally support Israel, who would make peace with the Palestinians provided that they accept Apartheid-like conditions forever, or better still, go away. Many on the left would support the Palestinians’ desire to drive the Israelis into the sea.

    On the ground in the “Holy Land”, both sides are right and both sides are wrong. I can see no solution.

    This is not going to end well.

  6. Steve777 @ #1559 Wednesday, February 5th, 2025 – 10:33 pm

    All Australia can do regarding the Middle East is to play a constructive role in international forums for a just peace, as useless as such efforts would seem to be at the moment with nearly 80 years of hatred in play. There’s nothing that we could or should do on our own that would make any difference. The only dog we have in this fight is to ensure that the hatreds don’t spill over into our own community.

    The Coalition unconditionally support Israel, who would make peace with the Palestinians provided that they accept Apartheid-like conditions forever, or better still, go away. Many on the left would support the Palestinians’ desire to drive the Israelis into the sea.

    Both sides are right and both sides are wrong. I can see no solution.

    This is not going to end well.

    I agree with this, sadly. Even saying something objectively neutral like “Please don’t do war crimes?” will inevitably make one side or another explode with anger.

    Frankly I’ve found it better to just say nothing, for my own state of mind at least.


  7. Fargo61says:
    Wednesday, February 5, 2025 at 9:16 pm
    I look forward to Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis all committing to a peaceful two state ‘solution’ and taking measures towards achieving that. Please let me know when that has happened.

    Currently, the world has only “Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis”
    If Trump “owns” Gaza, every muslim country in the world especially in ME, will have outfits like that and god help us if that happens.

  8. Rainman at 10.13pm, I hope the judge awards damages with at least 6 zeroes, it might encourage the right wing loons to pull their heads in.

  9. That this site has degenerated to what we now see, so intimidated deniers across the scope coming out of the woodwork, is disturbing

    The comfort I do take is that we have a society which donates to worthy causes

    And a society which, confronted by a pandemic acted in accord with health advice including being vaccinated – and that the 70% of people vaccinated as a condition of relaxing spread mitigation policies was achieved across the Nation – and exceeded, easily (noting the virus is still present but that ever evolving enhancements to the vaccine are curtailing the impacts)

    The minority, marching in the streets in their balaclavas and otherwise intimidating society by their presence including graffiti were shown as the minority (and they are still present now just plain angry)

    So in scrolling across these recent pages and being lost for words at the contributions of some, I take comfort that they are not the majority but a very small minority

    An identified minority

    This rump of society, with their warped views on the expertise of science, it seems, is emboldened by Trump

    That Trump is being ignored as he is with the only references to him coming from Nations which would be directly impacted by his nonsense is noted

    It is my opinion that the anecdote to such as Trump is to ignore them and to go about your business

    Ignoring will see continuing attempts to command the headlines – the failure then resulting in straight out unhinged anger which will lead to the ultimate fall from grace

    My wife has a saying that we are all born bad and that we have to work at being good

  10. Peter C :

    Wednesday, February 5, 2025 at 11:17 pm

    [‘That this site has degenerated to what we now see, so intimidated deniers across the scope coming out of the woodwork, is disturbing’]

    Cobber, you’d be shocked by the old days.

  11. Mavis says:
    Wednesday, February 5, 2025 at 10:16 pm

    “ In my professional career, it was important to construct a sentence which accorded with the subject and predicate making up the two basic structural parts of a complete sentence.”

    Subject and predicate is very simplistic grammar.

    But for most people, language is about making meaning. Language is simply transactional, whether it is goods or ideas.

    The test of successful communication is simply that if you want a pie and a sausage roll you don’t end up with two pasties.

  12. Hamas’ overarching goal is to ‘liberate Palestine’ by establishing an independent Palestinian state — comprising Gaza, the West Bank and Israel — guided by Islamic principles, and destroying Israel as a political entity in the process. Hamas supports a strategy of armed resistance in pursuit of its goals.
    Australian Government – Australian National Security.
    Hamas – article 8 – Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.
    Hamas – article 13 – Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.

    Reading through the Hamas Charter, the new one, not the 1988 one, which was so graphic with its hate language they withdrew it, then you look at the atrocities they committed to starting this war deliberately, they are as evil as Nazism but with a more death-cult devotion to Jihad then Germany was to Nazism. Hamas’s Gaza should be treated the same as Nazi Germany and Japan was.

  13. Rainman:

    Wednesday, February 5, 2025 at 11:27 pm

    Well, at least you didn’t describe me as a “wanker” this time around. I tend to be
    pompous, but it’s more nuanced than pomposity – I think.

  14. Hamas’s Gaza should be treated the same as Nazi Germany and Japan was.

    Reconstructed and turned into an economic and cultural powerhouse? Sure.

  15. Peter C:

    Wednesday, February 5, 2025 at 11:46 pm

    [‘Well Mavis, I don’t just think not, I know not.’]

    Peter, in the early days of this site, it was occasionally quite rough. William has turned his site into generally a pleasant experience, though sometimes extreme
    opinions prevail. In my view, if one’s not abusive, all’s well. I wish you well.

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