The Financial Review has the first RedBridge Group/Accent Research federal poll since immediately before the Bondi shootings, and it shades last week’s YouGov in recording the highest One Nation vote and the lowest “former Coalition parties“ vote of any poll so far. Labor is at 34%, which is down one on the previous poll but still their best result in any poll since that time. One Nation is up fully nine points to 26%, while the Coalition is down seven to 19%, with the Greens down two to 11%. The increasingly speculative two-party preferred measure has Labor back in the territory of its landslide win last May with a lead of 56-44 over the former Coalition parties. Contrary to a consensus that the One Nation surge will likely prove ephemeral, the poll in fact finds slightly more of the party’s supporters saying their choice is “solid” than for other parties with meaningful sample sizes.
The full release for the poll has helpfully presented favourability ratings for various politicians, which bring together the equally important considerations of net favourability and name recognition. Andrew Hastie shades his erstwhile leadership rival Angus Taylor on net favourability, but both have roughly a third saying they have never heard of them, with many of those who have on the fence about them. Both Anthony Albanese and Sussan Ley have taken a knock over the past month, with the latter doing less well than both Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce. Donald Trump scores 16% favourable and 67% unfavourable.
A preferred prime minister question has 37% favouring Albanese, down four on last month; 9% favouring Ley, down three; 8% opting for about the same, down one; and 34% opting for neither, with 12% unsure. A particularly soft 29% reckon the country “generally headed in the right direction”, compared with 55% for wrong direction, and 44% responded to a question on “Australian federal politics right now” with a view that the system needs “major changes”, on top of 15% for the more radical version that “the system needs to be burned down so we can start over”. Twenty-nine per cent held that the system needed minor changes, with only 5% holding that the system is fine as it is. Issue salience questions find an increase in concern about the rate of immigration and national security. The poll was conducted January 22 to 29 from a sample of 1003.
Something Malcolm Turnbull said the other day in an interview is now stuck in my head.
I’ve already mentioned it, but worth repeating again. Sky news was the best thing to happen to Labor.
Sky news is popular in the regions, hence ON getting a real look in at the expense of the Liberals and Nationals.
Haha in the podcast world over in the USA they are now talking about QANON being a psyop created by Bannon and Epstein.
Well I never……..
Victoria says:
Monday, February 2, 2026 at 9:32 am
Haha in the podcast world over in the USA they are now talking about QANON being a psyop created by Bannon and Epstein.
Well I never……..
________
I wonder what they used as source material?
Michael Flynn is the most likely creator of QAnon. Not that probability or logic matters in podcast world.
Griff
Touche
Socrates says:
Monday, February 2, 2026 at 9:28 am
Morning all. In the sober light of morning the Redbridge poll result still looks like a shocker for the Libs and even more so the Nationals. The implied 2PP suggests Labor is dominant over a fractured set of RW parties.
Despite the media momentum, past history suggests Pauline Hanson is no uniter of factions. She has made her career out of causing factional divisions.
Albo will never have a better chance to introduce reforms. The one that is crying out is over tax rules that damage housing affordability
. The tax benefits flowing to property investors need to be rebalanced with first home owners, or the latter group will continue to struggle.
___________
It is definitely an area for reform. There is mention of going for the intergenerational transfer of wealth and housing supply. One issue our society currently faces is that the better we are at supporting older people to stay in their home, the more inefficient our housing stock becomes. That is an uncomfortable equation to address.
SL
Michael Flynn was indeed part of this nexus. Who can forget him sitting at the right or left hand of Putin in Moscow back in the day.
Good times.
TBM
The right direction/wrong direction metric is mostly a clickbait driver as far as I can see. The wrong direction tally lumps together people with all sorts of contradictory ideas about what the right direction is, eg climate change denialists with climate change ultras, mass deportation zealots with those who abhor Nauru, etc.
If One Nation wins more seats than the Coalition but loses the election, does that they automatically become the Official Opposition? Do they then choose a shadow cabinet from their own party but have the choice to include Nationals and Liberals in their shadow cabinet if they can form some kind of arrangement?
Can Pauline Hanson operate as Opposition Leader from the Senate?
It would be fascinating times!
SL @ 6:39a
Holy crap, they are pouring DEI straight into the cement foundation, fortunately for PP the stream of gay electrons will not reach him on the west coast.
Thanks for the Monday roundup C@tmomma
The pics of Hastie, Taylor, Patterson & another at the funeral on Jan 29 of Katie Allen were a terrible look, and may have influenced this poll.
”
On Friday night, images splashed across websites of the prime minister at the Australian Open with his son told a bigger story about how dramatically the government’s fortunes had shifted following the almost comical implosion of the Coalition. By Patricia Karvelas
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-02/parliament-sitting-week-opposition-leadership-albanese/106292656
”
IMO, Patricia reaction to Albanese is like this:
Albanese should be in deep deep trouble.
But
Calling Libs and Nats as incompetent is more frustration because they are fighting amongst themselves
rather than
The dislike she displayed towards Albanese.
She may think she has hidden her dislike of Albanese and ALP but discussing in a balanced approach but that is just a veneer. She is bemoaning Liberal party woes
Around election time last year, my brother mused to me that we might be witnessing in real time an historic collapse of the conservative vote. In retrospect, it could be the election result was a high water mark for the Right.
As I always like to counsel, we should always be wary of putting too much stock in a single poll result, particularly polls taken during the dog days of summer, when the vast majority of people aren’t paying the slightest attention, and additionally Samaris’ polls have always had something of an over-sample of the “others” vote. But we’ve had enough 2026 polls now to read a few tea leaves.
The first thing to note is that polling at this stage of the cycle is interesting, but not especially meaningful. The next election is more than two years away, and I’m confident in saying that what people might be saying in an opinion poll in early 2026 will have little relevance to how they vote in 2028. There is still a lot that can happen between now and then – the economy, world affairs, Trump, candidate problems, scandals, black swan events. What will motivate swinging voters in 2028 will most likely be very different to what motivates them in the summer of 2026.
Caveats aside, the state of politics at the moment is that, first and foremost, Labor is in an almost impregnable position, with a stable primary vote around the same 34% they got last year, and the clear preference of about 20% of other party voters. That alone should see Labor comfortably re-elected in 2028. Anthony Albanese is both astute and competent, but he’s also fortunate to be leading when his only plausible opponents are busy blowing themselves up, and Labor’s main task will keeping their game on track in the absence of any pressure from the main opposition.
Conversely, the situation for the Liberal Party is beyond dire, and they may well be facing an existential wipe-out next time around, bleeding votes to the left (mainly to the Teals, and some to Labor), and the right (most notably to One Nation). At the election last year, the Libs were largely expelled from the major cities (just 9 of the roughly 100 metropolitan seats are now held by the Liberal Party, with a Labor 2PP of around 60/40), and this absence from the areas where the majority of the population lives creates a real structural disaster for them. There’s no way for them to even challenge for government without winning more seats in the cities, but their now regional bias draws them further right, and thus further away from the views of city voters.
One Nation, is of course the big winner in recent polling, increasing their vote share to about one in five voters. But there are some big question marks about this rise. The recent polling does suggest something of a bubble, and as we know, bubbles tend to burst sooner of later, and ONP does have form in putting forward woefully inadequate candidates who either blow themselves up or split from their party very quickly. However, the bigger issue for ONP is that their vote will almost certainly be concentrated in regional and rural seats, most commonly in Queensland. They may, therefore, run up their vote in places like Maranoa, but their nativist, hard-Right positioning will not play well in the more cosmopolitanism and diverse electorates of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. They may well end up winning a few seats, most likely at the expense of the Nats, but much will depend on preference flows, particularly from those few remaining Coalition voters.
There has been much hyperventilating about polling over this summer, but wiser heads will know that things can change quickly. I suspect that polling numbers in, say, April, will tell us a lot more than polling numbers in January.
Timmy, the answer to all your questions is yes. There is a very strong convention that the LOTO be a member of the HoR, but it’s not a law.
Thanks Holden and c@t for the comprehensive roundups.
C@t
With respect to the family in WA.
I have an adult niece who has autism and an intellectual disability. She is non verbal, but can communicate her basic needs. Lots of therapy has gotten her to this point. She has her meltdowns, but generally manageable.
The experience of other families has been quite different, especially when males become teenagers, it becomes an impossible task keeping the family safe, and no amount of therapy and intervention works.
More often than not, families reach breaking point, and they agree for the child to be removed from the home.
People need to understand that this is a 24/7 gig. No respite at all. Screaming punching walls, never sleeping etc.
It is one challenge when they are children, but a six foot plus teenager, is on another level.
I can see how this tragedy occurred in WA. Especially having two teenagers to manage.
Hugoaugogo
A great assessment.
Sky news is popular in the regions,
————————
It is popular with a subset of Liberals in cities and burbs. Older and middle aged peeps in my experience at least. They may not watch it on TV tho.
And SkyNews is actively marketing their grabs.
I did the calculations for this poll and Labor would have 92 seats, the Coalition would have 32 seats, and there would be a 26 seat crossbench (2 Greens seats, 11 Teal seats, 8 One Nation seats, and 5 others).
Some Cartoons
David Rowe
Fiona Katauskas
Matt Golding
Peter Broelman
Moir
Benke
Villanueva
Badiucao
Rod Emmerson NZ Herald
C@tmomma DP
”
Pakistan targets Balochistan separatists after ‘unprecedented’ assaults. Officials say calm restored to province day after dozens killed in suicide and gun attacks in at least 10 cities.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/01/pakistan-targets-balochistan-separatists-after-unprecedented-assaults
”
This is how western media differentiates between Pakistan and India
They always publish government version when it comes to Pakistan but they always publish opposition, terrorists and militants version when it comes to India.
Fed labor gov addicted to spending and with interest rate increases coming section/s of labors vote could also peel off to one nation.
Meaning Blanche and Bondi are scared shitless about even raising the idea because of the reaction from orange overlord.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5717221-trump-epstein-tips-doj-investigation/
Err not such a big deal….
https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/cory-bernardi-tipped-as-one-nations-mystery-new-recruit/news-story/c7d7d07cbf358dbf54d2b5d0c49a3931
Breaking news.
Leonardo Puglisi@Leo_Puglisi6
2GB reporting Cory Bernardi will become One Nation’s Senate candidate for South Australia
Trump is about as funny as PP.
https://dnyuz.com/2026/02/01/trump-tries-humor-gets-some-silence-at-black-tie-dinner-with-people-i-hate/
I agree, pp. Bernardi must be a bit of a disappointment to supporters of the Gina Party.
On another subject, do you reckon Leo Puglisi and Hastie are twins? I struggle to tell them apart sometimes.
“I did the calculations for this poll and Labor would have 92 seats, the Coalition would have 32 seats, and there would be a 26 seat crossbench (2 Greens seats, 11 Teal seats, 8 One Nation seats, and 5 others).”
I would have thought One Nation would have more like 30 seats, with the Coalition falling to 25-30 potentially leaving ON as the Official Opposition.
One Nation could have fewer though if they run up their primary vote to 50% in rural Queensland but stay relatively low in metro Brisbane and the regional cities such as Bendigo, Toowoomba, Queanbeyan and Launceston.
Lord Mandelson, the former UK ambassador to the US, has resigned from the Labour Party due to his links to Epstein. He should also voluntarily relinquish his peerage.
Likeness of restored angel to Giorgia Meloni triggers investigations in Rome
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/01/likeness-of-restored-angel-to-giorgia-meloni-triggers-investigations-in-rome
Team Katichsays:
Monday, February 2, 2026 at 10:04 am
Sky news is popular in the regions,
————————
It is popular with a subset of Liberals in cities and burbs. Older and middle aged peeps in my experience at least. They may not watch it on TV tho.
And SkyNews is actively marketing their grabs.
________________________________
Not to mention every time you open a new-tab in Edge (by deafult) you get their hate plastered across your screen.
Given the ON poll surge, you’d guess that Barnaby will switch from contesting the Senate to stay and re-contest New England.
Barnaby Joyce knows One Nation in the house of reps is going to be useless , Federal Labor government will have a landslide majority
Cartoons Europe
Matt
Patrick Blower
Nicola Jennings
Guy Venables
Harry Burton @independent.ie
Martyn Turner
Truant
Tjeerd Royaards
Mac
Chris Riddell
Morten Morland
Christian Adams
Jonsey
Tom Gauld
Thanks for the roundups Cat and HH. This story is great to see:
“ Prime minister and SA premier announce $800 million deal for 17,000 new homes. The prime minister says the deal could serve as a model for other states.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-31/prime-minister-and-sa-premier-announce-800m-housing-deal/106290888
When a market is broken, as the housing market is, governments should intervene.
Though smaller in scale, this story is a smaller example of the same logic.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-01/magill-university-campus-to-be-sold-for-housing-aged-care/106292672
The former federal Coalition outspent Labor by more than $55.2m in the run-up to the May election, even as it suffered its most devastating result at the polls in 70 years.
The Australian Electoral Commission’s annual snapshot of political donations and campaign spending, released on Monday, showed the now ex-Coalition also netted $59.5m more in donations during the last financial year.
Combined, the Liberal and National parties, recorded payments of $214.8m over the 2024-25 financial year, and raised a cumulative $221.1m, across its federal, state and territory divisions.
By contrast, the Australian Labor Party spent considerably less on its re-election efforts at $159.6m last financial year, and notched $161.7m in receipts over the same 12-month period.
Despite outlaying upwards of $55m more than Labor over the election year, the Coalition suffered a bruising defeat at the May 3 election with former opposition leader Peter Dutton losing his own seat of Dickson after 24 years. While Labor secured a landslide victory with 94 seats – up from 77 in the last election – the former Coalition’s spending spree resulted in a 15-seat wipe-out for the Liberals.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/coalition-outspent-labor-by-55m-on-the-may-2025-election/news-story/20d86bf856e38af743bf2cf4bc11b074?amp
“My contribution to the Melania critique is around the soundtrack to the movie. I really don’t know why they left out the most appropriate song for the soundtrack: ‘You’re So Vain’.”
————————————————–
Warren Beatty might have sued if he was compared to Melania?
SL and Socrates
What could be the reason?
Canada Nears $3 Billion Uranium Deal With India, May Be Inked In March
https://www.forbes.com/sites/gauravsharma/2026/02/01/canada-nears-3-billion-uranium-deal-with-india-may-be-inked-in-march/
“Canada and India are tantalizingly close to a 10-year multibillion dollar uranium supply deal that will likely be signed at a heads of state meeting in March, according to sources from both sides at the recently concluded India Energy Week, held in Goa, India, last week.
Canada is the world’s second-largest producer of uranium, accounting for 13% to 15% of global output, according to the International Energy Agency, while India is the world’s third-largest consumer of energy.
Given its burgeoning economy, India is on a quest for secure uranium supplies as it expands its nuclear power footprint tenfold to 100 gigawatts by 2047, and both sides are looking to partner on that front.”
Victoria says:
Monday, February 2, 2026 at 10:00 am
Thanks Holden and c@t for the comprehensive roundups.
C@t
With respect to the family in WA.
I have an adult niece who has autism and an intellectual disability. She is non verbal, but can communicate her basic needs. Lots of therapy has gotten her to this point. She has her meltdowns, but generally manageable.
The experience of other families has been quite different, especially when males become teenagers, it becomes an impossible task keeping the family safe, and no amount of therapy and intervention works.
More often than not, families reach breaking point, and they agree for the child to be removed from the home.
People need to understand that this is a 24/7 gig. No respite at all. Screaming punching walls, never sleeping etc.
It is one challenge when they are children, but a six foot plus teenager, is on another level.
I can see how this tragedy occurred in WA. Especially having two teenagers to manage.
Exactly, Vic. I said what I did through personal experience. My oldest son has Aspergers. Very high functioning. He was almost ‘normal’ as a child and just advanced in an accelerated path through school, starting Kindergarden at 4 1/2 and then being chosen for the Primary School Opportunity Class and then a Selective High School, never having to go to special classes after school to cram for the Selective Schools test, In fact, doing not one bit of study for it, to my Helicopter Parent distress. In high school he did really well in classes with teachers he liked and poorly in those he disliked.
But weaving through all of this was his Oppositional Defiance Disorder manifesting itself at home as well, which only seemed to become manifest when the hormones kicked in as a teenager. Then it was on like Donkey Kong! He would stay up arguing the toss with me until the early hours of the morning…’because he found his own proof on the internet and that would prove I was wrong, even though my argument was based on verifiable facts. In the end his brother and I, who he used to browbeat too, converted the double garage for him to move out of the house and into in order to not have him at such close quarters all the time. That actually worked pretty well as he built his own world there. As this was before the NDIS and because I didn’t want him to be taken away from me I just had to get creative as opposed to putting up with it to the point where I did something dumb. At least these days you can admit defeat and call for extra help now that we have the NDIS because these kids do change over time. I don’t think that’s what the WA parents did as the reporting suggests they didn’t reach out and so the NDIS thus relied on the initial assessment of their boys. Then modified their funding as a result. Which drove them to despair.
The NDIS should also learn from this case about continuing assessment.
Ven
As an aside to your dig of Patricia Karvelas, in her article she bemoaned the fact the government had somehow got away with not concentrating on the ‘cost of living crisis’ she claims is affecting our fair country.
Of interest was the full-house attendance- for a second night running – of a concert by Ed S. at Optus stadium here in Perth.
I gather the basic ticket price was $200 a head. From a family member who attended, it was noted that there were “lots of kids there” and mainly a “young” audience.
Until such time as people can’t afford $200 tickets for such events, I would suggest some in good old Oz are not doing too badly at all.
We seem to be getting regular input from Hanson acolytes.
I am particularly interested in their industrial relations policies. We know that Ms Rinehart has arranged significant funding for Hanson’s dupes to run a campaign here, and we know that Hanson went along to Chump’s Palace to get the good oil on how the yankee billionaires fooled the MAGA morons into letting them run riot to pillage and loot at the moron’s expense.
The One Nation policies on the web are quite vague, obviously deliberately, so that in the unlikely event that they get to run the country they could implement MAGA-lite here. Landlubber let the cat out of the bag the other day when he said one of their policies would be “at will employment”. This is a direct import from Chumpistan and is defined as follows; “At-will employment means that an employer can terminate an employee at any time, for any reason or even for no reason at all.” Next thing Hanson will be advocating that tips should be tax free. They probably are already because here we rarely tip, but would all the elites just love an envoronment where all lower classes have to suck up to them in the hope of getting a few pennies tossed their way.
It’s good fun to joke about right wing loons but we must be aware that just like in Chumpistan, the billionaires here, who already control most media and fund conservative politics, will implement the same policies if ever given the opportunity.
Warren Beatty might have sued if he was compared to Melania?
He is a Democrat, so yeah. 🙂
Its all going to be happy campers over at ON after the next election when Poorlean hangs around expecting Barnaby to be the 2nd banana.
And Cory Bernardi – so much talent flocking in. I assume he still has a dozen followers on twitter
“I think it was Arky on the previous thread who effectively said we need to learn from the US and the mistake Hillary Clinton made with her basket of deplorables line. You don’t win people back by insulting them.”
—————————————————-
Except Arky and yourself forgot it was a psephology discussion on why Gen X was the strongest PHON voting cohort. It wasn’t a discussion on political party policy. I doubt any political party is going to put forward a public opinion on this psephological matter anyway.
The fact of the matter is the reason that Kos put forward was total crap. All the factors he suggested are being experience far worse by Gen Y than X anyway. Yet they aren’t turning to ON.
Also Arky’s suggestion you can’t compare average wealth figures between generations. Is also highly dubious. He seems to be claiming wealth disparity is somehow much higher in Gen X than other generations so that wealthy individuals much more influence this figure in the Gen X data compared to other data sets from other generations. I find this argument highly dubious and would need to see some data that shows it before considering it.
Did US sent a black Astronaught before?
Going the farthest
Four astronauts are blazing NASA’s trail back to the moon. Their mission, which could launch Feb. 8, will take them farther from Earth than humanity has ever gone before.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasa-moon-astronauts-artemis-ii-mission-rcna255621
Arky says:
Monday, February 2, 2026 at 9:28 am
. The right wing populists sell predominantly working class and less educated people on superficial solutions
————————————-
I have to laugh at the elitism. “less educated people” and “superficial solutions”
Ever heard of the saying Jack of all trades and master of none is far more useful then a master of one. Master of one of course referring to university educated people who can do one thing really well but lack a broad knowledge.
When a market is broken, as the housing market is, governments should intervene.
Which also goes with this story:
While the Coalition tears itself apart, Labor prepares for a big 2026. Sean Kelly
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/while-the-coalition-tears-itself-apart-labor-prepares-for-a-big-2026-20260201-p5nymp.html
Let’s hope that Labor address the inequities that have been created in the Housing market with perverse incentives by previous Coalition governments, going all the way back to Howard & Costello.
Vensays:
Monday, February 2, 2026 at 10:39 am
SL and Socrates
What could be the reason?
Canada Nears $3 Billion Uranium Deal With India, May Be Inked In March
https://www.forbes.com/sites/gauravsharma/2026/02/01/canada-nears-3-billion-uranium-deal-with-india-may-be-inked-in-march/
__________________________
Dunno, Ven. I do know that $3bn doesn’t buy that much U these days so it’s probably not that big a deal. Also, it’s probably better than the tar sands oil that Canada is trying to sell.
The main significance is probably the improvement in relations that may occur as a side effect.
Further to my post@10:09 am
Why the biggest Baloch attack in decades is a wake-up call for US, China
A series of coordinated attacks by BLA rebels across Pakistan’s province of Balochistan is a wake-up call to both the US and China. Both countries have high stakes in Balochistan centred around resource extraction and access to alternative trade routes. These moves are fuelling the wave of BLA attacks that have struck Pakistan in the past few years.
https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/pakistan-news-balochistan-liberation-army-attack-bla-rebels-wake-up-call-for-united-states-china-2861402-2026-02-01
Cartoons North America
Ann Telnaes
Dave Whamond
John Buss
Ohman
Matt Wuerker
Pat Bagley
Clay Bennett
Dennis Goris
McLeod
