The Australian brings an adroitly timed state Newspoll result for Victoria, which has Labor on 28%, the Coalition on 31%, One Nation on 19% and the Greens on 13%, with the Coalition leading Labor 52-48 on two-party preferred. This is distinctly weaker for One Nation than other recent polling, and suggests Labor to be more competitive than recent conventional wisdom has allowed. Any notion that this might boost Jacinta Allan ahead of today’s party room vote is torpedoed by her personal ratings of 25% approval and 71% disapproval, which Kevin Bonham informs us is the “worst net satisfaction recorded by a state Premier in the history of Newspoll”. Jess Wilson is on 47% approval and 39% disapproval and leads 51-32 on preferred premier.
Respondents were asked who they would favour to form government out of Labor, the Coalition and One Nation, with respective results of 41%, 35% and 18%, and who they would prefer out of “Jess Wilson and the Liberal-Nationals in alliance with One Nation” and “Jacinta Allan and Labor”, which respectively scored 48% and 42%. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1035.
As for today’s spill motion, the Herald Sun quotes sources close to Ben Carroll saying they expect 40 to 45 votes in favour with 25 against and four undecided, which supporters of a “confident” Jacinta Allan describe as “inflated”. Should it pass, the question will arise as to whether Jacinta Allan will attempt to pursue the matter unto a ballot of the party membership, as she indicated she would in a letter to the party’s state secretary. This would require 14 party room members to support her nomination, which they might hesitate to do given it would involve a four-to-six week process during which an interim leader would need to be appointed who was not contesting the ballot. The Australian reports “disagreement within Labor” as to whether caucus has the power to prevent this by changing back to the more traditional method of choosing a leader.
The Herald Sun also published results on Saturday of polling conducted by JWS Research for Australian Energy Producers targeting 1000 respondents across “28 marginal and significant seats between June 26 and July 3” that shows a 9% swing from Labor to the Coalition in two-party preferred terms, compared with the 7% recorded by Newspoll. The primary votes were Coalition 29%, One Nation 24%, Labor 23% and Greens 14%, which offers only so much insight in the absence of detail on which seats were polled, though we are told the equivalent results in 2022 were Labor 44%, Coalition 44% and Greens 9% (One Nation is credited with 1%, but presumably only ran in a handful of the seats).
@Bugler
Bills do quite often get passed unanimously, just the media doesn’t pay much attention to those.
The Ah we do bullshit better party up to their necks in mud once again.
Don’t do as we do. Do as we say.
‘Leaked Liberal spreadsheet shows dead and ex-members registered as preselectors in key seat’
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-30/leaked-liberal-spreadsheet-dead-ex-members-preselection/106964176
From the same ABC report.
Words fail me!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-30/leaked-liberal-spreadsheet-dead-ex-members-preselection/106964176
“One Nation is yet to announce its candidate for Ripon. Trevor Andrei, who self-describes as “Australia’s most famous doomsday prepper”, has said he is One Nation’s “prospective candidate” but declined to speak on record about the party.
“I have signed an NDA with One Nation as a prospective candidate so there are topics I cannot comment on,” he posted on Facebook this month.
One Nation does not have a preselection process for the Victorian election, but rather candidates are chosen from a committee led by consultant Mark Jones involving a 15-minute interview and $5,500 up-front payment for corflutes and other resources, according to multiple party members.
Mr Coghill, who served as a Victorian Labor MP last century, was critical of this approach, saying top-down selection meant the local community may not be accurately reflected.
“It’s most unusual to have a political organisation which doesn’t allow its members to preselect their candidates,” he said.
“It means there is a risk that the people preselected aren’t really representing the views of the members of the political party.”
Reminds me of the old Escort cigarette commercial.
“Join the club, join the club, join the One notion club,”$5500 and you’re a member.
This exemplifies the work of the dead tree arm of the media’s role in Victorian elections.
This big mouth, given complete free reign to fill the space with opinions, dressed as fact, continues after the Labor leadership brouhaha with his employer deciding that his opinion is fact.
Regardless of the Age and its editor’s opinion the SRL, the level crossings and transport in general, the capital expenditure, the planning involved and the expenditure needed, the infrastructure will be of long term advantages to Victorians, Melbournites and visitors for generations.
This editorial suggests that the media expect to be the driver of the direction into the future.
Unfortunately for the new Labor leader “cowlick” Carroll, the media will regard him as their puppet.
Victoria is facing a dilemma.
The dysfunctional Liberals and the phantom One Nationers are a chance of forming a coalition n Victoria at the next election.
Jacinta Allan was attacked from day one of her premiership, derided in all forms by the overseas owned media and targeted as a female.
The use of photographs in the media was contemptible.
Labor allowed the media to wedge a section of Labor to cause division.
Homer Chip Le Grande will be forgotten very quickly and will be remembered with contempt by many more than Labor supporters.
A very disillusioned cohort of Victorians will now be asking “ah, what now”.
A group of Liberals who don’t like each other and have no policies, now join with the racist, discrimitory white supremacy advocate with no candidates.
Just where would this hybrid mob take Victoria?
Will there ever be a le grande statue?
I really hope that the SRL is one thing Ben Carroll doesn’t back down on.
In fact, I think there is a way he can probably address some of the concerns but it involves investing more into it in the short term…
And that is, to address the concerns of the neglect of the west, he should announce that SRL West will commence immediately after the completion of Airport Rail. SRL West is the shortest segment, it almost entirely runs through mostly undeveloped area, and can be quickly & cheaply built as Skyrail that delivers the same benefit as an underground.
SRL West could realistically be completed around the same time as SRL East. Resources contracted to do Airport Rail could just move onto SRL West after it.
SRL West then also helps maximise the benefit of: Airport Rail, Sunshine Superhub, and Melton electrification. Because it will help connect Werribee to it, while also running through a still mostly undeveloped growth corridor.
For Phase 1, very little needs to be built in terms of new stations, but the government could simply put aside land where future stations might be built in a later phase.
Melbourne really needs an orbital rail line. And I think most of the criticism is just that the first segment is a very expensive one in an already very well serviced area.
An analogy is that we’re trying to do a small renovation at the moment. The price for the small thing we wanted to do is so much that it doesn’t seem worthwhile for the end result, but after spending so much on planning & permits, it’s too late to not do it now. However, there’s another small renovation we could add to the project for very little extra cost. Doing that, while it slightly increases the overall cost, makes the overall cost much more reasonable for the overall benefit of gaining two extra spaces.
I feel like adding SRL West to the same timeline as SRL East will have a similar effect. Having a higher overall price for SRL West & SRL East completed, compared to probably paying 75-80% of that just for SRL East, results in a much better cost-benefit outcome, especially since it also increases the benefit of the west projects (Airport, Melton, Sunshine) being completed over the next few years.
Even just announcing that SRL West will come before SRL North but starting it after SRL East finishes (to not add to budget concerns) and putting dates around it, will signify a break from Jacinta Allan stubbornly not reviewing any of the SRL sequencing at all, show the west that it’s being prioritised, and it will be much quicker & cheaper to complete than SRL North too.
That then also makes SRL North somewhat of a “missing link” which adds to the business case for that by the time we get around to it. North coming before West is the biggest mistake in the sequencing, in my view. Because it’s easier to build on undeveloped land, and leaving the mostly undeveloped West until last risks missing that opportunity.
Trent,
I like your thinking, though I think SRL west could be accommodated in the short term by the Werribee West to Sunshine regional rail link and the Albion to Jacana rail link (at least in the short term). I would build through to Broadmeadows and have the airport link as a spur to built off that until the orbital route is completed. Additionally, much of the Northern section can be done at grade or above ground if they follow the Ring Road corridor as far as Fawkner.
This would all have the advantage of being visible projects compared to the invisibility of tunneled rail.
Electoral Amendment (Miscellaneous Matters) Bill 2026
https://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/bills/electoral-amendment-miscellaneous-matters-bill-2026
Leg. Assembly
Second Reading Speech
https://hansard.parliament.vic.gov.au/?IW_INDEX=Hansard-2026-1&IW_FIELD_TEXT=SpeechIdKey%20CONTAINS%20(29-07-2026_assembly_2607291285)%20AND%20OrderId%20CONTAINS%20(0)&LDMS=Y
Leg. Council
https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/council
9.34 am
Bill received from Assembly
First reading moved
By leave, second reading moved
Debate adjourned for one week
Hold on, G. Isn’t that the Health Amendment bill that was adjourned for one week?
Ante Meridian, I don’t think so?
https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/council
I see – 10:01am Second reading debate, Health Legislation.
9:34am Debate adjourned, Electoral Amendment.
Damn, you’re right. Most recent at the top, not the bottom.
The Leg. Council is next sitting on Tuesday 11th August – Thursday 13rd August, so perhaps around 2 weeks for a resolution.
@Trent
The “SRL West” doesn’t really exist in planning, it’s basically just a rebrand of the Sunshine-Werribee section of the RRL so that the map looks like a full circle.
Murdoch and particularly 9media have gone into overdrive to try to damage Carroll and labor. I’m looking forward to the next polls and then watching the wheels of the lib-nat-one nation clown car fall off under pressure before November. Labor is the natural party of government in Victoria, and PHON and a party of RWNJs willing to form a coalition with them are an anathema. We’re back to the libs having an impossible number of seats to win whilst defending nats seats from PHON. Labor now needs to get focus on what a 1 in 5 cut in public employees, a shut down of major building projects, stopping roll out of renewables, cutting education and health spending, and turning the clock back on environmental protection, womens rights, multiculturalism, and reconciliation looks like. Most LNP policies are stolen from PHON, and labor needs to hammer this point – Wilson could be labelled Temu Hanson and posters and media superimposing their images used to drive home the message – Vote Liberal. Get Hanson. I wish labor has a leader with a bit more charisma and was less right wind, but Wilson is similarly uncharismatic and further to the right and, unfortunately (but also fortunately), for a lot of older and male voters just having a penis will give him the edge. I predict the polls in coming weeks will show 50:50 – 52:48 in favour of labor and move further as the campaign gets underway. Incumbency and very seasoned campaigners will win.
Anybody else note Chip Le Grande(d*ckhead) is increasingly using the ‘deeply unpopular’ tag for Dan Andrews (despite a 55:45 landslide at the last election and similar polling numbers when he stepped down) – Chip really belongs over at Murdoch.
The Big Potato is a disgrace to journalism.
The Age (and most media really) has really been talking about Dan Andrews like he was a very unpopular figure. He wasn’t.
He was a divisive figure, in that those who don’t vote Labor or left absolutely hated him, and were particularly vocal about it.
But whether or not those on the other side of the political spectrum passionately hate you or only mildly disapprove of you really doesn’t define your overall popularity.
While his approval rating was declining, at the time he resigned it was still above 40%, and I believe July 2023 was the first time he had even gone into a negative net approval rating. BludgerTrack shows that Labor had roughly a 56-44 2PP lead in the polling at the time of his resignation.
He was not by any means an unpopular Premier, he was just particularly loathed by his political opponents.
@Sustainable Future: I agree about your prediction for the next round of polling too. Given the latest Newspoll had Labor on a 28% primary and 48% 2PP, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this leadership change shift the polling back towards the 30% / 50-50 range pretty quickly, and that would be before the parties properly kick into campaign mode (where we know Labor usually have the edge, and no longer have a leader that the electorate stopped listening to).
Large Fries using “deeply unpopular’ reminds me of the bit in Moneyball the baseball movie.
“If he’s deeply unpopular, why was he popular enough to win multiple landside elections?”
I hope Redbridge include another breakdown by LC region in their next poll because that was useful to get an idea of where the swings might be strongest.
Now with a leadership change, another similar breakdown will be useful to compare to the last one to see where that has or hasn’t moved the needle much.
Where has LeGrand used the “deeply unpopular” tag for Andrews, is there a source for this? I would criticise it if he has but searching for it is not bringing up any results.
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
Tuesday, 11 August 2026
https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/4a260b/globalassets/house-paper-documents/house-paper-7192/np175.pdf
ORDERS OF THE DAY
1 ELECTORAL AMENDMENT (MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS) BILL 2026 — (from Assembly —
(Ingrid Stitt) — Second reading — Resumption of debate (Evan Mulholland).
Trent says:
Thursday, July 30, 2026 at 10:23 pm
I hope Redbridge include another breakdown by LC region in their next poll because that was useful to get an idea of where the swings might be strongest.
==========
At the end of the Back to Back Barries podcast, Tony Barry mentioned there will be a Victorian Redbridge next week.
He also confirmed there will be a Federal Redbridge tomorrow evening in the AFR.
Kevin Bonham says:
Saturday, August 1, 2026 at 8:31 am
Where has LeGrand used the “deeply unpopular” tag for Andrews, is there a source for this? I would criticise it if he has but searching for it is not bringing up any results.
========
Quickly flicking over to NT politics (on a dedicated Vic thread) … KB you mentioned on your x feed a couple of days ago that Gosling would most likely be out of the PLP if charged.
Is this still coming, do you think, and in what form. ie: him stepping aside from official duties until the court case is finalised.
The Feds seem to have closen ranks around him and there is minimal discussion, even from the opposition. I was looking more at the Darwin Judge issuing bail conditions that he keep away from the Territory Administrator. Suggests to me there might be a bit of “meat on the bones” with regard to the allegations at hand.
G says:
Saturday, August 1, 2026 at 10:21 am
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
Tuesday, 11 August 2026
======
Thanks for this. So the end of GVT’s will be on 11-August.
Good riddance.
Chip Le Grand said: “That the new leader is Ben Carroll matters less than he is not Jacinta Allan or her equally loathed predecessor.” He’s a hell of a lot kinder to Allan in particular than certain other media outlets.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/the-hatred-of-jacinta-allan-was-unfair-but-it-had-become-visceral-20260728-p60j9k.html
Yeah there’s no doubt that Allan was incredibly unpopular, 71% disapproval is just catastrophic, but much of the commentary implies (if not explicitly states) that Andrews was equally as unpopular, whereas he never got anywhere near those levels.
He resigned with his approval still in the 40s and only having recently even slipped into net disapproval at all, while Labor were still enjoying a thumping 2PP lead in the polls.
Nadia – Thanks for the update on Redbridge.
There are multiple recent reports in the media of “new” Redbridge modelling presented by Kos Samaras in Geelong showing Labor losing Bellarine and South Barwon (both to the Coalition), and Lara being very close (with One Nation’s primary higher than Labor’s). Labor are retaining Geelong.
nadia: noting the lack of heat on the Gosling issue I am wondering if there’s scepticism that he’s guilty. If the Opposition were confident he was I’d expect them to be calling for him to be out of the party.
William: thanks.
From the AFR:
“The Victorian Coalition has pulled ahead of Labor and One Nation following the government’s high-stakes gamble to dump its deeply unpopular leader Jacinta Allan, turning the state election into a battle to define two relatively unknown party leaders.”
“The latest The Australian Financial Review/Redbridge/Accent Research survey, conducted just after Ben Carroll was elected Labor premier during a messy spill last week, showed the Coalition ahead on a primary vote of 30 per cent, while Labor fell to 23 per cent and One Nation dropped to 22 per cent.”
“The survey of 1014 Victorians was conducted between July 28 and August 1, following Jacinta Allan’s forced resignation.”
“Labor’s primary vote fell 3 percentage points since the last poll of 6500 voters was conducted in June, the Coalition’s rose 4 percentage points, and One Nation, which had overtaken the major parties, fell 4 percentage points. The Greens were up 1 point to 14 per cent.”
“Ratcliff said the Coalition had benefited from Labor’s instability. The Coalition remains comfortably ahead on a two-party-preferred vote of 57 to 43 per cent, but that measure does not accurately factor in the impact of One Nation if the election shapes up to be a three-way contest.”
Wilson leads Carroll as preferred premier 32-19.
56% said the leadership change has not affected their intention to vote for Labor.
No regional breakdown provided, but this looks like one of the strongest polls for the Victorian Coalition since DemosAU, and the primaries suggest a Coalition majority. Surprised to see Victorian Labor go backwards. One Nation dropping is consistent with Resolve and Newspoll.
Would be interested to see what others think.
If those are the numbers in September, then I’ll agree that it’ll be pretty much all over for Vic Labor in November.
However, we have a similar scenario playing out in the UK. 2 weeks after Andy Burnham became Prime Minister, Labour now has taken the lead in most polls.
Kirsdarke – Still a long time to go until November and anything could happen! But I am still surprised to see Labor go backwards, especially as Labor have polled relatively well in Redbridge compared to other polls recently.
Many thanks No Favour. I can’t see the link on the AFR site yet, but thanks all the same.
Is there a Green primary.
I’m guessing the instability has caused Labor to drop another few points which will make the mountain even higher for Ben Carroll to climb.
Not the best start.
“Division is death” strikes again.
23%. Gosh, what a mess.
Found it.
https://www.afr.com/politics/coalition-surges-ahead-of-labor-following-vic-leadership-challenge-20260803-p60kvr
https://www.afr.com/politics/coalition-surges-ahead-of-labor-following-vic-leadership-challenge-20260803-p60kvr
archive version: https://archive.is/jnKVf
What’s probably encouraging for Labor is that the last poll had 43% of voters preferring Jess Wilson and that has reduced to 32%.
While Ben Carroll’s 19% is even lower than Jacinta Allan’s, that’d mostly be unfamiliarity.
What it seems to indicate is that there’s around 10% of voters who knew they preferred Jess Wilson last time and are now undecided, open to giving the new leader a shot.
Labor had very bad publicity over that leadership change period too, it was messy. So a dip in their vote immediately after isn’t surprising.
Where I think the opportunity lies is that around 50% of voters are now undecided on Preferred Premier and they can be won over, and are more likely to tune into what Labor have to say than previously when their minds were made up about Jacinta Allan.
Nadia –
https://www.afr.com/politics/coalition-surges-ahead-of-labor-following-vic-leadership-challenge-20260803-p60kvr
Greens primary 14% (see my above post), up 1%.
Bring back Jacinta, Ben Carroll doesn’t have long to turn things around
Greens on 14 is pretty good
Trent –
Would be interested to see what your model spits out.
Hopefully we get regional breakdowns in a subsequent article, similar to the previous Redbridge. The primaries suggest the Coalition would remain in the top two in significantly more seats than the last Redbridge.
“56% said the leadership change has not affected their intention to vote for Labor.”
A better way to phrase that would be that for 44% it did change their intention in some fashion. Anyone who already wasn’t going to vote Labor wouldn’t care about the change so I dismiss the idea that it would impact their intention in a more negative way.
Considering how ‘deeply unpopular’ the previous leader was, the assumption would have to be that in this 44% a huge majority would be moving toward Labor. With perhaps a small percentage of feminists who move from Labor to Greens or other minors.
There will be some finger on the scale “polls” over the next few weeks but the ON/LNP coalition will expose themselves more and more as the election nears and Labor will be returned.
Trent says:
Monday, August 3, 2026 at 8:13 pm
What’s probably encouraging for Labor is that the last poll had 43% of voters preferring Jess Wilson and that has reduced to 32%.
While Ben Carroll’s 19% is even lower than Jacinta Allan’s, that’d mostly be unfamiliarity.
What it seems to indicate is that there’s around 10% of voters who knew they preferred Jess Wilson last time and are now undecided, open to giving the new leader a shot…..
===========
C’mon, If this sort of polling holds up until election day, it’s over.
On these, and last weeks Newspoll numbers, Libs will have a fairly strong majority in the Lower House.
Ghost of Whitlam – Apologies, here is the full quote from the article, with smaller percentages going in either direction for +5 overall in favour of the change:
“Fifty-six per cent of survey respondents said the leadership change had made no difference to their support of Labor, while 19 per cent said it made them more likely to vote for the government, and 14 per cent less likely, giving it a net plus score of 5 per cent.”
Nadia – I think this Redbridge poll suggests a Coalition majority, but I’m definitely not convinced the Newspoll did given Labor were holding up much better in Newspoll. Newspoll was before the spill though.
Libs appear to be breaking away from the pack (ie: when everyone was on around 25%).
Provided the Libs make the final 2 in each seat, they’re either going to benefit from ON preferences, or a strong flow from Labor preferences – that is, in the rare occasion where Labor drops out at 3CP stage.
For Labor to go backwards on this poll is not good. They needed to go up. Carroll now has to claw back another 3 points.
Labor should have kept Allan, she wasn’t popular but Carroll needed six months.
Interestingly the AFR article says that the leadership change made more people more likely to vote Labor, than less likely (net +5).
I don’t think a poll held in the days immediately after the leadership change (including the day of the change itself) tells us too much.
It will take a couple of weeks for the dust to settle and see which way things swing. The transactional cost of a very messy leadership change is always going to be very prominent in a poll taken the same day of it, so the poll is pretty much exactly what I’d expect.
If they’re still polling like this in 3-4 weeks, that’d be a terrible sign. But this one is exactly how I’d expect a poll taken during the messy change to play out – a negative hit after it dominating the headlines, low recognition for the new leader, very big undecided cohort and probably an electorate who are much less firm with their vote than a week earlier.
Allen was only going to get more and more unpopular. Her visuals were showing old and tired with an air of resignation to losing. Going into a campaign with her being compared in to debates to the 20 years younger LNP’s IPA stooge would have made her comparison even worse, and Labor would have tanked.
Carroll can turn it around. It’s an entirely new campaign. The LNP have been moaning about CMFEU and directly linking it to Allen, then Carroll came in, wiped it clean by calling the RC and Special Prosecutor. The ON/LNP coalition will get exposed by a campaign, just like Hanson & Dutton were.
I’m inclined to agree with Ghost of Whitlam here. Labor would have definitely lost under Allan, but that’s been moved up to a maybe loss under Carroll.
Better to move from a 0/100% scenario to something like a 25/75% scenario. That’s the human thing to do.
I hope Labor don’t play silly buggers with preferences and run a strong Put One Nation Last campaign
It might cost them a few seats to the Liberals but will also provide a contrast to them
And when they are asked about minority government, run with the line “we’re hoping to win in our own right but the voters will decide what the next parliament looks like” or similar
I’d hope Victorians would rather a Labor government propped up the Greens than a Liberal one propped up by One Nation
While Federal Labor is apparently saying that wouldn’t be a terrible result bigger picture, imagine the damage they would do down there over the next 4 years
Not that it will matter unless these numbers improve for Labor, it could well land on a Liberal majority
New thread.