The second of three leaders’ debate will be hosted by the ABC from 8pm this evening, to be moderated by David Speers. It was also announced on Monday that the third will be held on Sunday, April 27, a week out from polling day, to be conducted by the Seven Network and moderated by Mark Riley. On the polling front, Nine Newspapers has further results from the Resolve Strategic poll showing Labor’s policies favoured over the Coalition’s on tax (40% to 34%) and housing (40% to 27%) (UPDATE: This is actually a new survey of 801 respondents, conducted “in the days after” the weekend poll). There is also a characteristically thorough review of the polling over the past few months by Macquarie University academic Murray Goot at Inside Story.
I’m hoping to do a bit more over the coming two-and-a-half weeks by way of probing into the innards of recent poll results, starting by focusing on regional breakdowns from RedBridge Group’s four federal polls for this year, which helpfully use the same classifications employed by the Australian Electoral Commission. The table below shows combined party vote shares for these four regions at the 2022 election, together with their deviation from the national result, then repeats the exercise for the four RedBridge polls published so far this year, followed by a measure of how much these relativities have changed. So for example, the Coalition is up two points in “provincial”, but this translates to no change in the third table because it’s also up two points overall.
The results suggest Labor’s biggest improvement has come from the “rural” category, which might be thought unhelpful for them, raising the spectre of unproductive improvements in safe conservative seats. In point of fact though, the AEC employs the term loosely enough to encompass a number of important seats: Gilmore, Hunter, Eden-Monaro, Lingiari, Leichhardt, Lyons and McEwen. To the extent that outer metropolitan might nonetheless be thought most strategically important, the small-sample results from the four polls individually offer some suggestion that it is here Labor’s improvement has been strongest, despite Peter Dutton’s best efforts: Labor’s successive two-party preferred results have been 45%, 53%, 53% and 55%, whereas inner metropolitan and provincial have recorded little change.
Funny too how Sky News talking heads can say Dutton aced this debate. Ironically with their own debate they had to confront their hand picked audience awarding it to Albanese, with veiled and unveiled complaints about a ‘rigged’ audience!!
One thing I would like to see in these debates (other than time limits on answers) is an idea I saw on a USA debate. When the question was asked, it would sit in text at the bottom of the screen throughout the candidate’s answer. So if they ignored the question and instead just went to their ‘brilliant’ taking points it was a bit more obvious for the viewers.
I just saw this – Republicans are going to have fun doing ‘town halls’ in the next 18 months leading up to the midterms.
“ Police used a stun gun on two people, and arrested three attenders overall, at a town hall meeting hosted by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on Tuesday.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/16/marjorie-taylor-greene-town-hall
“I’m not a scientist”. Well bugger me! Most people aren’t scientists but they rely on scientists to save them from the effects of illness, to tell us what their studies say about the foods we eat. Scientists have come up with all sorts of technologies and advise us everyday about everyday things. To somehow dismiss those scientists who have spent a lifetime in the study of climate and the environment is something right out of the dark ages.
It’s cheap and nasty when asked about climate change to say “I’m not a scientist”: it’s an insult to our intelligence.
[It’s cheap and nasty when asked about climate change to say “I’m not a scientist”: it’s an insult to our intelligence.]
The fact that Dutton was elected leader of the Parliamentary Liberal Party is the insult.
goll says:
Thursday, April 17, 2025 at 2:25 am
[It’s cheap and nasty when asked about climate change to say “I’m not a scientist”: it’s an insult to our intelligence.]
The fact that Dutton was elected leader of the Parliamentary Liberal Party is the insult.
Yep.
When Labor won in 2007 I naively thought that would be the last time the Coalition took Climate Science denial to a federal election.
Obviously I was wrong – 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2022 and now 2025. So we are 18 years in and their leader proves once again they are still in denial.
If the Coalition lose this election will they still take their nuclear fantasy (a part of their Climate Science denial) to the next election? Probably – otherwise what else have they got?
Their deep down denial of Climate Science becomes more embarrassing at every election. Will it ever cease? Or will the Liberals and Nationals themselves be washed away by rising sea levels and be consigned to history like the English Whigs?
Nothing lasts forever: not nations, not empires, not dictatorships and certainly not political parties.
You see this in Europe – take a party like Zentrum (the Centre Party in Germany). Founded in 1870 and a strong Catholic Party and very important in the Weimar Repuboic from 1919, it sealed its own fate when in 1933 it voted for the Enabling Act giving special powers to Hitler’s new government. Then a few months later they dissolved themselves when Hitler declared the Nazi Party was the only party allowed in Germany. Reformed after the war they won a few seats initially but none since 1957 in federal parliament – they live on as a sort of ‘trumpet of shadows’, but maybe a good reminder of what not to do in a democracy.
New thread.