The fortnightly YouGov Sky News Pulse poll joins RedBridge Group and DemoAU in recording a primary vote lead for One Nation, who have surged four points in the second such poll since the budget to 29%, with Labor down two for the second fortnight in a row, to 26%. The Coalition has more than lost the two-point gain it made in the post-budget poll, being down three to 20%, while the Greens are steady on 13%. Two-party measures have Labor leading One Nation 52.5-47.5, in from 53-47, and the Coalition 51.5-48.5, in from 52-48.
Anthony Albanese has taken a hit on his personal ratings, down three on approval to 34% and up four on disapproval to 60%. He holds a 47-41 lead over Pauline Hanson on preferred prime minister, in from 50-38, and 41-39 over Angus Taylor, in from 41-38. Forty-six per cent of all respondents said they believed the Coalition and One Nation should work together to form government with 31% opposed, breaking down to 45% and 28% among Coalition voters and 53% and 25% among One Nation voters. The poll was conducted last Tuesday through to yesterday from a sample of 1471.
The weekly Roy Morgan poll has One Nation drawing level with Labor on the primary vote at 27%, with Labor down half a point and One Nation up one-and-a-half, with the Coalition down three to 20% and the Greens steady on 13.5%. Labor’s lead over One Nation on respondent-allocated two-party preferred is unchanged at 53.5-46.5; against the Coalition, Labor’s lead improves from 53-47 to 55.5-44.5 on respondent-allocated preferences, and from 52-48 to 53.5-46.5 on previous election flows. The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1542.
Pi:
Unlike some here, I do not have powers of divination, and so can’t help you with that one.
I can, however, have a lazy glance at the post-election pendulum and list the seats that I think have the potential to fall to either One Nation or the Coalition if the current polling holds or gets worse for Labor:
(HUGE CAVEAT: I’m not particularly familiar with many of these electorates, and could not say whether various demographic factors could hinder or help One Nation and / the Coalition in the present circumstances).
Bullwinkel
Menzies (could also fall to a Teal-style candidate)
Petrie
Soloman
Bendigo
Forde
Banks
Deakin (could also fall to a Teal-style candidate)
Moore
Hughes
Aston
McEwen
Bonner
Gilmore
Chisholm
Blair
Dickson
Leichardt
Pearce
Sturt
Tangney
Dunkley
Braddon
Eden-Monaro
Hawke
Franklin
Bass
Corangamite
Lingiari
Hunter
Bennelong
Robertson
Dobell
and possibly a bunch more I didn’t even consider
Meanwhile, the following could potentially fall to either the Greens or left-leaning / Teal-ish independents:
Bean
Fremantle
Wills
Melbourne
Calwell
Brisbane
Cooper
Griffith
These are not predictions, just plausible Labor losses in an election that doesn’t go well for them.
Wat:
Yes, this.
Sally McManus on One Nation’s attitude to workers:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1UCyrHK25U/
That list of seats is flawed because it features seat(s) from my state and we’re smarter and more special here, and won’t succumb to the right in its current form. My barista agrees with me. /s
Ashasays:
Wednesday, June 3, 2026 at 9:34 pm
Pi:
List the seats that the ALP is going to lose then.
Unlike some here, I do not have powers of divination, and so can’t help you with that one.
I can, however, have a lazy glance at the post-election pendulum and list the seats that I think have the potential to fall to either One Nation or the Coalition if the current polling holds or gets worse for Labor:
================================================
The current polling is diabolical for the LNP. On current polling I can’t see the LNP picking up anything, only losing much of what they have to ON. Realistically on current polling I can only see Labor possibly losing seats to ON and possibly the Greens.
94 Bitches!
Just roll with that I reckon.
Too many teardrops…
Oh wait, that’s 96 (…or was it 69?)
bahaha Asha. Wishcasting. The NLP has more marginal seats than the ALP does. Preferences flow back to the ALP at about 35% from white nation. They are more likely to lose those seats to the ALP, than for the ALP to lose those seats to either the NLP or white nation. I think it’s weird how some people can’t grasp that many ex liberal voters will preference the ALP over white nation. It’s lazy. People are too fixated on adding white nation primaries to NLP primaries.
The only thing this is, is an NLP wipeout. And you so desperately want to say “and this is why that’s bad for Labor”.
Good post Wat at 8:31pm.
We are seeing a massive shift of the disaffected to ON because the Libs just don’t talk their language like Howard did.
But the attraction of ON is very closely tied to the cult of Hanson. She won’t be around forever. Who will fill her shoes in the same way?
Asha last page – does the constitution prevent gerrymandering?
No it doesn’t- twice in the last 52 years banning maldistributions has been put as a referendum.
In 1974 it was defeated 53:47 5 states to 1
In 1988 it was defeated 63:37 6 states to 0
The Australian people, in their wisdom, have decided that gerrymandering is permissible in the hands of the right people
Shorter Asha: the Government could lose a future election in which voters get to choose its opponents if they want.
In other news …
Just in WA there’s a few possibles – Brand, Pearce and Bullwinkel are all on the list, as outer suburban / rural hinterland seats with less migrants from dark-skinned countries. (Plenty of migrants from the UK and South Africa though.) Three seats like that in each of the five major capital cities (maybe just two in Adelaide – Spence and Kingston), plus Hunter (where they came second in 2025) and Braddon so Tassie doesn’t get left out. That’s 16 seats. One Nation won’t scoop them all, but on current polling they’ll certainly win some.
Going less on vibes and more on actual elections that really happened. Spence covers the SA seats (with margins vs ON) of Taylor (4.2), Light (1.6), Elizabeth (4.5), Ramsay (12.9), 41% Playford (17.2), 34% King (5.2), 11% Ngadjuri (-7.1) and I’m ignoring that sliver of Schubert. That works out to about 6.4% vs One Nation, compared to the 15.3% at last year’s federal election. That’s not booth matched or anything so take with a pinch of salt, but it’s a start. There’ll be plenty more data like that after the Vic and NSW elections.
Pi:
Apologies, I’ll try to cut down on my, er, wishcasting and stick to the objective, clear-eyed political analysis that is your obvious speciality.
At present it’s a given the Coalition will lose a host of seats to ON. Also Labor are not exempt and would lose some. How many would depend of Liberal preference flows.
Anyone trying to figure all that out with confidence, given current polling, is kidding themselves.
The establishment is under threat, both sides, at this point in time.
BoP: they’ll certainly win some.
Yes. And they’ll help win some for the ALP too, by beating the liberals to the last count. Net effect: The NLP is crushed.
The voters Labor has lost to ON will most likely preference Labor above the Liberals, no?
And there will be a cohort of Liberal voters who will put ON below Labor simply because they aren’t stupid and also see ON as a greater threat to their party than Labor.
Well… yes.
Lynchpinsays:
Wednesday, June 3, 2026 at 10:21 pm
The voters Labor has lost to ON will most likely preference Labor above the Liberals, no?
____________________
Hang on. I thought the LNP were going to be wiped out and it will be ONvALP. In that case those preferences won’t be coming back.
So, on the Liberals chances of picking up seats from the ALP.
I totally agree that they are currently looking likely to perform abysmally at the next election and to lose a bunch more seats.
But swings arn’t distributed evenly, and in a full-preferential system, its quite possible for a candidate to get a swing to them on the TPP despite getting a swing against them on the primaries.
Imagine the following situation: A seat held by Labor on a slim-to-decent margin, where there is a swing against both Labor and the Liberals that goes to One Nation. However, One Nation doesn’t do quite well enough to make the final count, and so it remains a Labor vs Liberal contest on TPP. Its hardly implausable that One Nation preferences could see the Libs take the seat on a mild TPP swing, even if their primary vote is a lot lower than in 2025.
I doubt there will be many seats where that might happen, but I wouldn’t count it out as a possibility either.
Player One @ #349 Wednesday, June 3rd, 2026 – 9:30 pm
I’m at the how stupid do they think we are stage.
“It was always Australia’s preference to get three second-hand submarines, a senior defence official has revealed in Senate estimates, as the government faces pressure to renegotiate the AUKUS pact.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-02/ed-husic-calls-for-aukus-deal-rethink-submarines/106750234
If there is a general swing against the government then it’s not a given that all primary votes going to ON from Labor will come back as preferences. It will depend on which of Labor or Liberal are more on the nose at the time of the election.
The bottom line is at this time, based on the polling, there are no certainty about where things end up.
Some quick observations on the GDP results today – the main one being the ongoing collapse in the profits share of GDP since the election of Labor in 2022 to the advantage of worker income share. In terms of long history, the ratio for workers is back up to around 2003 levels.
Whats interesting is that, because of the collapse of USA worker share of national income – the Aus worker share (traditionally a bit lower) is now higher than the USA equivalent, but on an upward swing:
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/can-productivity-boom-lift-us-workers-record-low-share-gdp-unlikely-2026-02-11/
I also saw some of the usual lefty media claiming the government is running “austerity” at the moment (because “general government” spending fell) – in reality, regular federal government spending rose, just defense spending fell.
State and local spending also fell, so people will have to tell me which state gov is running tight at the moment.
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/national-accounts/australian-national-accounts-national-income-expenditure-and-product/mar-2026#state-and-territory-final-demand
How many former Labor voters now considering a vote for One Nation are true believers who would never preference the Coalition above Labor, and how many are swing voters who want a change of government but prefer what One Nation is offering over the Coalition?
Ultimately, none of us really know right now.
Thanks, OC.
Its the massive crisis brought on by the (end of) Fossil Fuel Wars that is fueling ON and anti-incumbency generally, not just a cult of Hanson(and I’m sure she can whine on well into her 80s anyway). There is a massive vested interest globally whose only interest is continuing that obsolete energy system, allied with techbro fascists imagining they can be gods, who can give enormous support to any cynic(or true fanatic believer) who will advance their ends. Very dangerous times, but I still think Australia is better placed to withstand it than some other places.
Yes that is the critical issue given current polling. Lab/Lib can’t afford to be lemmings.
Despite everything I’ve written above, I do nonetheless think the most likely outcome of the next federal election is that Labor are reelected in some capacity, and it could potentially be another landslide.
But anything telling themselves that the current polling is good news for the government or that some combination of the Libs, Nats, One Nation, and / or various independents wouldn’t be capable of winning enough seats to cobble together some kind of coalition is deluding themselves. That the government currently has a mild TPP lead really doesn’t mean much at all.
Yes its two years till the next (expected) election.
I say expected because Labor with a 94 seat majority would be INSANE to go sooner and not take advantage of their historical win, backflips and u-turns aside.
Asha:
Kos Samaras seems to think that’s going to happen in eastern Melbourne (Menzies, Deakin, Chisholm). It could be a repeat of 1990, when Vic swung heavily against Labor because of anger with the state Labor government. Then again, the state election comes first, and if Labor lose that then it’ll have less of an effect by 2028.
if Labor somehow win in November, all the Dan haters will completely abandon human form and go full feral psycho. Imagine what Taylormade’s gonna be like.
Enough seats to cobble together a coalition? Sure. Actually cobbling it together? That’s the hard bit. Just look at Tasmania, where a combination of Labor / Green / left independents has the numbers, but the Libs are still in government. Albanese might end up hanging on the same way Jeremy Rockliff does.
BoP:
As much as it will suck for the poor bastards in Victoria, there’s a cynical part of me genuinely hoping that One Nation cleans up in November and is a major player in the next Victorian government. Ditto NSW.
I suspect a couple of years of that will probably see federal Labor in a far healthier position by 2028.
BoP:
Hmm. I can certainly envision that scenario happening, but I think the lure of the treasury benches and the desire to get Labor out of government will be enough to see all involved happy to put aside any lines in the sand they may have previously had.
This might be the last oppurtunity many in the Liberal and National parties have to be part of an incumbant government.
Asha. 🙂
I guess ON can’t mess up too much at state level.
I don’t mind the Greens giving Labor a hard time to try to achieve their own goals but when it comes to elections, both state and federal and even by-elections, they have to remember who the real enemy is and tell their voters to preference Labor, unlike they have done in the recent Stafford by-election in Qld
where they didn’t tell voters how to direct their preferences at all.
If Green preferences to Labor can be maintained at 80 to 90% or more the threat of the combined conservative votes will be neutralised.
The Greens don’t seem to have lost votes to Pauline and they are polling at around 13% consistently.
Re Asha @11:12 PM.
I think you might be right. If the Right, however it is then comprised, fails to form Government following the next election late next year or early the following, I think that corporate Australia will step in and work with the remains of the Liberal party put together a new and from their point of view hopefully more electable right-wing party, as they did following the collapse of the historic United Australia Party in 1944.
There have been accusations in the past by various minor parties, including One Nation or PHON before its name change, and independents that the two major parties have colluded with each other to preference each other to the detriment of a potential winner.
This happened several times in Queensland’s elections when Peter Beattie was Premier.
SO,
Who is the real enemy at the moment to the Coalition ?
Who may be an enemy of Labor if ON continues its ascendancy ?
We all know at this stage the Coalition is f***ed and Labor likes to have them as the opposition because they always have been and are predictable.
The coalition know they can’t win in 2028 in their own right and they certainly don’t want to lose their official Opposition status to On.
They can handle 3 more years in opposition, they have done it before, from where they can expect a better chance of winning back the Treasury Benches.
SO,
Why don’t the Libs and Labor do a deal to fully exchange preferences with each other and consequently retain the status quo to the detriment of ON.
Labor could lose:
Bass, Pakenham, Ripon, Yan Yean, Melton, Sunbury, Eureka, Ringwood, Cranbourne, Macedon, South Barwon, Bendigo East.
Could also lose Werribee.
Arange
Would add Glen Waverley, Bayswater, Hastings and maybe Ashwood as possible Liberal pickups.
Albert Park, Footscray, Pascoe Vale, Northcote and Preston could go Greens.
Can see Labor winning between 48 to 40 seats.
Socrates at 5.52 pm
Generally a good summary of Allison’s thesis. He has been criticised for methodological flaws. The points you make re implications for Australia about the insignificance of Australia diplomatically for the US are valid and have been for yonks. But Pine Gap remains integral to US war-fighting.
One could derive those points from other historical examples, e.g. early September 1999 when Howard demanded US involvement in the Interfet force for East Timor and got nothing, because the US was preoccupied.
“Making US allies work harder to help defend themselves (and US primacy) is one of the strategies advocated. AUKUS can be seen in this light.”
AUKUS is peculiar from a comparative perspective in that it would not be easy to find another state so willing to subsidise industry in other states, at least not a middle power willing to subsidise bigger powers (the US did help W. Germany and Japan a lot after WWII but in a totally different context).
The first sentence in the quote above is a reprise of an old idea, namely the Guam doctrine of 1969, which influenced Australian policy in the 1970s.
The irony of Allison’s thesis is that he does not advocate belligerence for the US toward China, but it is toward that outcome that his framing of the US-China relationship has been primarily interpreted. He isn’t responsible for that, but the US debate about China is not influenced by much history.
Not sure if this link will get you to one critical review of Allison’s book by Richard Hanania in Strategic Studies Quarterly, Winter 2021:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/48638049.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3Af789c7e3edb02d4df5cd7f920519f700&ab_segments=&initiator=recommender&acceptTC=1
Here are a few of his critical points.
“Moreover, if one simply stuck to cases from the second half of the twentieth century and later, then only one out of seven cases led to war—indicating the past might not be such a valuable guide to understanding modern international relations.” (p 20)
“Allison collects cases based on one side threatening another; consequently, his analysis is biased by the fact he selects countries that are antagonists and then checks how often they find themselves at war. Advocates of restraint want to push the United States toward taking a less militarized approach to foreign policy. If they succeed, there is no longer a
Thucydides Trap, just as there was none when the United States replaced
France as the dominant power in Southeast Asia.” (p 21)
“while Allison explicitly rejects the idea that accepting the Thucydides Trap means the United States should adopt an aggressive posture toward China and presents accommodation as one possible strategy, practically all prominent analysts who have accepted his framing have advocated for more confrontational policies.” (p 21)
“A narrower historical focus on international politics since the second
half of the twentieth century provides a more optimistic lens for under
standing the future of great power relations. As measured by GDP, a
handful of power shifts have occurred over the last several decades. Among
these are China relative to Japan and Russia, and Germany relative to
other European nations. None of these cases has led to war. The disappearance of interstate conflict more generally offers hope that even if
power transitions may have created a substantial risk of war in the past,
they do not do so today.” (p 22)
Obviously interstate conflict still exists. Allison adopts the main claim of K. Waltz (1958, Man, the State and War) that it is the international system that is the primary cause of contemporary and likely future war.
Yet, if you take three or four of the worst current cases (Putin’s war on Ukraine, Trump’s war on Iran, Netanyahu’s genocide in Gaza and war on Lebanon, and the horrific destruction of Sudan by the competing warlords, with the worst of them supported by Australia’s so-called ally, the UAE), then in none of those cases is the international system the major factor.
Yes, it has a background or contextual role in not preventing the bloody wars, but the prime movers have been 1) Putin and the authoritarian state that he rebuilt; 2) the gutless drongos around Trump who knew Netanyahu was wrong about the consequences of attacking Iran but refused to explain this to Trump; 3) the Israeli state + Biden + Trump et. al. for facilitating war crimes by Netanyahu that have been worse even than Putin’s; and 4) the refusal of the US, and Britain and France to intervene in Sudan over 20 years ago when the military dictator al-Bashir was indicted by the ICC.
Re your overall point, that “it is blindingly obvious that USA only considers Australia in so far as it benefits US interests. USA has no inherent interest in defending Australia because of any ‘special relationship’,” yes that is certainly true. It was known to be by many historians before Allison’s book.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/one-nation-support-surges-with-women-wealthy-city-voters-20260602-p6036c.html
Fess
Seriously that is so depressing to think more women support Hanson, men are stupid enough as it is. But women. I just don’t get it at all.
Niki Savva on Abbott’s comeback. Sussan Ley dodged a serious bullet.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/abbott-s-ineptitude-meant-he-didn-t-last-two-years-as-pm-now-he-s-back-with-four-new-slogans-20260603-p603eq.html
victoria:
I know. It seems more people are finding it isn’t as socially unacceptable to vote ON as they’ve previously believed.
Its just not possible for One Nation with a primary vote in the 30%.s , to do better than the federal lib/nats combined primary vote in the 30%’s would do seat wise .
One nation is replacing Federal lib/nats , they are getting lib/nats voters who do not vote for non lib/nats candidates.
One Nation chance to gain seats is in the 41 seats that lib/nats holds. Maybe a few teal seats , like Wentworth.
As with the lib/nat candidate in lib/nats held seats , they will need primary vote of over 43% to be safe in that seat
Also by one nation taking primary votes off Lib/nats , the non lib/nats candidates are a chance in lib/nats held seats with primary votes in the low 30 %or under .
in non Lib/nats held seats , majority of those seats there have been no one nation candidate in those seats, so the likely result is the lib/nats primary votes will likely decrease and go to one nation , and one nation will struggle to pick up any swing from Labor, where the swing from labor likely go to non lib/nats candidates, which preferences will unlikely go to one nation
Fess
I’ve looked at one nation policies. There is nothing of note apart from reducing immigration that really stands out.
What gives?
Abbott will do his best to ensure that Pauline Hanson has another stint in jail.
You know it makes sense.
In labor held seats
if there are going to be lib/nats and one nation candidates
both the Lib/nats and one nation candidates are not going to get 20% , 30% primary votes in the same seat .
It either the lib/nats or one nation candidate primary vote gets in the 30’s or high 20’s , the other lib/nat or one nation candidate primary vote is going to be in the low teens or under 10%.
The 2pp will not be enough for the lib/nats or one nation candidate
@asha
The independent in Bean might not do as well in 2028. I’ve heard rumours that Mark Parton might run for that seat and it’s possible the Liberal vote could recover as he’s a fairly popular local figure
Anyway I think the best thing for Labor might be for them to not form government after the Victorian state elections and let Coalition/PHON form government . Note that in the UK, Reform has suffered in the polls after local council elections.
Also don’t forget there seems to be a cohort of former Greens supporters who switched to PHON
seat of bennelong at the 2025 federal election
Primary votes
Labor party 45.35%
Liberal party 35.07%
One Nation 2.77%
2pp
Labor party 59.26%
Liberal party 40.74%
Even if there is a swing against Labor primary vote , Labor retains the seat
Dr Doolittle, Thursday, June 4, 2026 at 1:43 am:
YES. This. Although other international actors definitely made mistakes in their responses to Putin’s ‘slice and dice’ imperialist land grabs in its ‘near abroad’, the ideology and strategic mindset of the Russian state under Putin is what drove them to attack their sovereign, independent neighbour, Ukraine. Attempts to shift the blame onto the West are just efforts to help Kremlin propaganda.
Victoria, Thursday, June 4, 2026 at 6:39 am:
Victoria – the lack of any emphasis on ON policies in most discourse about them tells me that their support is mostly about those people just wanting to stick a middle finger up at “both parties” (meaning the parties which have shared government between them since WW2), and not about what ON will or won’t do.
This is why I keep trying to wrench the conversation about ON onto what their policy is about things – to remind anyone who’ll listen that a vote for ON will carry a price tag if they win. If anyone is actually hurting in a cost of living crisis, they may vote to cut off their nose to spite their face, but some will care enough about their own and their families’ well being to pull back from that.
Remember:
PAULINE HANSON OPPOSES YOUR PAY RISE.
PAULINE HANSON OPPOSES YOUR TAX CUT.