Four recent state poll results from the three largest states:
• DemosAU had been a handy supplier of state-level polling lately, its latest entry being from New South Wales, where Labor is credited with a two-party lead of 54-46. This compares with 54.3-45.7 at the March 2023 election, and is a happier set of numbers for the Minns government than most of its mid-term polling. Labor is nonetheless only 33% of the primary vote, compared with 37.0% at the election, but the benefit has been yielded by the Greens, up from 9.7% to 14%, with the Coalition down from 35.4% to 34% and others on 19%. Chris Minns holds a 42-24 lead over Mark Speakman as preferred premier. The poll was conducted last Thursday to Saturday from a sample of 1013.
• The bi-monthly Resolve Strategic Victorian state poll, combining 1000 responses from the last two monthly national polls, is only slightly better for Labor than a diabolical result last time: they are up two points to 24%, with the Coalition down one to 41% and the Greens up one to 14%. Two-party preferred gets hard to estimate with the non-major party vote at 35%, but I make the Coalition’s lead to be between 53-47 and 56-44. It will likely be the lead story on The Age website come morning, but in any case you can see the numbers through its Resolve Political Monitor feature (click on “VIC” near the top of the page). Demos AU also had a poll last week for Victoria, conducted March 17 to 21 from a sample of 1006, which had the Coalition leading 52-48 on two-party preferred from primary votes of Labor 25%, Coalition 39%, Greens 15% and others 21%. The November 2022 election result was 54.8-45.2 to Labor, from primary votes of Labor 36.7%, Coalition 34.5% and Greens 11.5%. Brad Battin led Jacinta Allan for preferred premier in both polls, by 36-23 in Resolve Strategic’s case (out from 36-27 last time) and 43-30 in DemosAU’s. DemosAU found 60% holding that the state was headed in the wrong direction, compared with 25% for the right direction.
• As reported in the Courier-Mail on Monday, RedBridge Group has the first Queensland state poll since the October election, recording the new Liberal National Party government with a lead of 56.5-43.5, from primary votes are LNP 44%, Labor 27%, Greens 12% and One Nation 10%. The result at the election in October was 53.8-46.2 in favour of the LNP from primary votes of LNP 41.5%, Labor 32.6%, Greens 9.9% and One Nation 8.0%. David Crisafulli is rated favourably by 46%, neutrally by 25% and negatively by 17%, while Steven Miles is at 26%, 22% and 39%. The poll was conducted March 17 to 25 from a sample of 1507.
In other Queensland news, the first signs of progress on a state redistribution that must be held at some point this year, with the Courier-Mail reporting Attorney-General Deb Frecklington has floated three names for the redistribution commission: two uncontroversial, the other John Sosso, who has held senior public service positions under various conservative governments, presently serving under Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie as director-general of the Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning.
Have to wonder how long it will be till ALP knife Allen who just isn’t working as Premier. I would say at least 50% of Victorians don’t know who she is, people just know there’s a stack of money being ‘wasted’ on SRL and that the states broke. Pessuto had a strong presence but Battin is a real unknown quantity.
@Luke: The SRL is not the problem (or unpopular). The best thing that can happen for Allen is for the election to become a referendum on doing the SRL.
The huge waste of money on the Comm Games is Allen’s biggest problem, along with the crime rates attack she’s recently sought to blunt. The Comm Games thing is an immovable millstone she just has to try and win despite. A change of leader would do little to resolve these problems.
I agree that a lot of Victorians don’t know who Allen is. More should be done there, earlier than the election campaign advertising.
The biggest strength for Vic Labor is still that their opponents are a divided pack of incompetents who will wilt under the tiniest scrutiny as they do every time; the second biggest strength is the track record of delivery, and the metro rail tunnel opening and improving transport around the inner city area is likely to have the same boosting effect as the first level crossing removals being completed (a project also poo-poohd by the Liberals… remember the Skyrail campaign they were convinced was a winner?).
Liberal–National coalition vote in 2022 was 34.48% not 39%
Thanks – fixed.
Allan is probably going to go in the middle of the year post state budget. The state’s not really broke, just a little bit tight in the wallet. But the crime issue was the real thing that stuffed her up. The problem was very evident from about the middle of last year, but the denial for six months undermined the publics confidence in her.
There is a sense that she is not enjoying the job either. And once that happens you don’t look like you want the job. That just creates a doom loop.
The taps going to come in July or August to give her successor a bit of chance to make an impact before November 2026. Because of the horrid position the LNP is in, there is actually a fair chance that Labor can still win.
It has to be remembered that the SRL came out of nowhere. It had never been on the boards previously, did not come out from Infrastructure Victoria and it was kept secret from the Department of Transport. It was cooked up by a small team reporting only to Daniel Andrews. It is not getting much federal money as Victoria cannot provide Infrastructure Australia with a valid business case. The Commonwealth Games were cooked up in a similar fashion. Jacinta Allen needs to take responsibility for both as does Harriet Shing who is always involved somehow. The other issue that could bring Jacinta Allen down is the Police Commissioner fiasco. Possibly subject to an IBAC investigation and now the acting Commissioner has announced he is not applying. Everything they touch just goes to s**t.
“The state’s not really broke, just a little bit tight in the wallet.”
And there’s me thinking that it’s the English that are known for understatement!
Queensland
Good early scorecard for David Crisafulli, reflecting his earnest and energetic approach (including to recent natural disasters) and perhaps helped by coming in in the end with fairly low expectations – remembering that by election day Steven Miles was back to being preferred PM (just) after a poor Liberal campaign that they won comfortably thanks to early voting.
And of course, the Labor scaremongering about him on culture / social issues not coming to pass.
The SRL seems to be not widely unpopular among people in the vicinity of the SRL East or left-wing inner-city people but further away in the West and North of Melbourne (scepticism about SRL North and SRL West ever being built and general anger at long term neglect) and in the regions, it is more unpopular. I don`t know about the Outer Southeast.
Very good polls for both the NSW and Queensland governments. And similarly for Minns (over Speakman) and Crisafulli (over Miles).
I would think both Minns and Crisafulli will have benefited from their management of Alfred.
In contrast, the Victorian government and Jacinta Allan appear to both be in trouble, especially based on the recent Resolve polls.
I’m not sure how the Victorian Coalition are in a ‘horrible position’. Based on the polling from 2025 so far, they now hold a commanding lead over Victorian Labor, as does Battin over Allan. Obviously this situation could change (e.g. the federal election, a leadership spill) but currently the state opposition are strongly positioned ahead of 2026 based on all available polling.
The party in a ‘horrible position’ have won a seat from the Greens this year and come close to knocking off a safe Labor – and might have done so with a better candidate. And ‘only’ 17 points ahead of Labor on primaries.