Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

Friday miscellany: Morgan poll, by-election and redistribution news, Tasmanian state poll (open thread)

A second sharp drop for One Nation in a weekly poll series, an intriguing by-election on the way in Western Australia, and more.

The weekly Roy Morgan poll records One Nation tumbling another three-and-a-half points after their five-and-a-half point drop last week, reducing them to 22.5%. This still isn’t enough to cost them their lead over the Coalition, who are unchanged at 21.5%, while Labor is likewise steady at 28%. The difference is instead made up by a one-point gain for the Greens to 14% and a two-and-a-half point gain for independents and others to 14%. A Labor-versus-One Nation two-party measure based on respondent allocation has Labor’s lead out from 53-47 to 56-44. The lead over the Coalition is 55-45 based on respondent allocation, out from 53.5-46.5, and 54-46 based on 2025 election preference flows, out from 52.5-47.5. The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1584.

Other news:

• A Western Australian state by-election looms in the seat of Secret Harbour after Paul Papalia, who had been in parliament since 2007 and in cabinet since Labor came to power in 2017, announced his resignation on Monday citing a family illness. Labor confirmed yesterday its candidate will be Georgia Tree, a former staffer to local federal MP Madeleine King and government relations employee at Woodside. With its low ethnic diversity and abundance of trades workers, the outer southern suburbs seat appears to be promising terrain for One Nation. Tom Rabe of the Financial Review reports “multiple Labor sources” say recent internal polling from the seat has One Nation running neck-and-neck with Labor in the “mid-30s”, with the Liberal vote “hovering in the high teens”. Perhaps surprisingly, Liberal leader Basil Zempilas has vowed the party will field a candidate.

• The finalised boundaries were published this week for the federal redistribution of the Australian Capital Territory, with those for South Australia and Tasmania to follow over the coming weeks. This involves two seats that Labor won in 2025 by margins of around 20%, one over the Greens (Canberra, held by Alicia Payne) and one over the Liberals (Fenner, held by Andrew Leigh), and one the party came within 700 votes of losing to teal independent Jessie Price (Bean, held by David Smith). Bean both gains from and loses to Canberra: I calculate a 54.0-46.0 split in favour of Labor over Price out of the roughly 9500 formal votes being transferred from Bean to Canberra, and a near tie in the remainder. The extent to which the former helps Price, should she run again, depends on the unknown quantity of her latent support from the similarly sized area transferred from Canberra to Bean. What does favour her, albeit modestly, is the reversal of a plan from the originally proposed boundaries to transfer Norfolk Island from Bean to Canberra, whose votes I estimate as having broken 576-305 in Price’s favour in 2025.

• A DemosAU Tasmanian state poll for Pulse Tasmania has Liberal on 28%, One Nation on 21%, Labor on 21%, the Greens on 14% and independents on 12%. The last such poll in November did not feature One Nation as a response option, and had Liberal on 35%, Labor on 23%, the Greens on 15% and independents on 17%. The result at the election in July last year was Liberal 39.9%, Labor 25.9%, Greens 14.4% and independents 15.3%, producing a seat result of Liberal 14, Labor 10, Greens five, independents 5 and Shooters Fishers and Farmers one. The poll credits Premier Jeremy Rockliff with a 41-32 lead over Labor’s Josh Willie, in from 43-32. Rockliff is rated positively by 35%, neutrally by 27% and negatively by 38%; Willie positively by 23%, neutrally by 48% and negatively by 29%. The poll was conducted June 21 to July 6 from a sample of 999.

Monday miscellany: Newspoll quarterly breakdowns and more (open thread)

Newspoll breakdowns show uneven patterns across the states; Labor and the Coalition at loggerheads over aggressive behaviour at polling booths; redistribution latest.

With nearly every pollster in the game having pitched in last week, a quiet period looms. The weekly Roy Morgan should be along later today as always, and DemosAU is about due for one of its big-sample MRP projections. On the broader electoral front, there is the following to report:

• The Weekend Australian had the quarterly Newspoll detailed breakdowns from its four polls conducted in April, May and June. The state results show movement towards One Nation and away from Labor clearly evident in Victoria and South Australia, less evident in New South Wales, and not at all evident in Queensland and Western Australia, with Labor gaining three points in the former case. Breakdowns by education are distinctive in that One Nation is up six among those with technical qualifications, but effectively unchanged for everyone else. Voting intention is barely changed among 18-to-34s, whereas One Nation are up significantly among the older cohorts. Presumably inspired by the budget tax measures, the breakdowns now include housing tenure, as commonly featured by other pollsters. To commemorate the occasion, I have added tabs for these results to the BludgerTrack poll data features (keep clicking the “more” tab until you see them).

• The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has published an interim report from its routine inquiry into the last election, which notably focuses on aggressive behaviour at polling booths. The majority report cites data on public complaints received by the AEC, and recommended that “election participants” be required to register and observe a code of conduct. The AEC, whose bailiwick currently ends six metres from the entrance, would enforce this code within a “campaign zone” around the polling place, in which signage limits would also apply. The report argued that much of the offending behaviour “seemed to involve third parties”, and while it didn’t name names, committee chair Jerome Laxale told parliament while tabling the report of “an assault by third parties identified in submissions like the Plymouth Brethren and Advance”.

• Certainly the Plymouth Brethren angle had been divined by the committee’s Coalition members, who headlined their dissenting report “less inquiry, more hyperpartisan witch hunt” – the latter having been directed against “Australians based on their religious faith”. While acknowledging aggressive behaviour was an issue, their own volunteers having been “targets for intimidation by unions and other third party organisations on polling booths for many elections”, the Coalition members forcefully rejected the recommendations as burdensome, open to abuse and possibly unconstitutional. Also in the Coalition report was a call for the early voting period, already truncated from three weeks to two before the 2022 election, to be reduced to one week, and for the AEC to be “more strident on ensuring that people accessing pre-poll are doing so for one of the reasons prescribed in the Act”.

• The official determination of how many seats each state and territory will be entitled to at the next election, which is calculated a year into each parliamentary term, will be made later this month. Antony Green has done their work for them based on the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics population data, and concludes there will be no change from the status quo, Queensland having recorded not quite enough growth to get it over the line for a thirty-first seat. Queensland will nonetheless get a redistribution under the seven-year rule, which is now overdue after being twice delayed: first because of the election, and then because there was no point commencing the process until it was clear how many seats the state would have. Proposed boundaries were published in March for South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, final boundaries for which are expected later this month.

• Wendy Askew has brought forward the retirement she recently announced for the end of her term in mid-2028, now to take effect in a “few weeks”. This means two vacancies are now available for Tasmanian Liberal Senate seats, together with that created by Jonathan Duniam’s surprise retirement announcement last month.

RedBridge Group: Labor 26, One Nation 27, Coalition 26 in Victoria

A new poll finds the Coalition struggling to keep up with One Nation, even in the seemingly promising context of Victoria.

RedBridge Group/Accent Research have a large-sample Victorian state poll in the Financial Review, showing One Nation overtaking the Coalition since the last such poll in February. The primary votes all but record a three-way tie between Labor, up a point to 26%, One Nation, up three to 27%, and the Coalition, down two to 26%, with the Greens steady on 13%. Two-party results have the Coalition leading Labor 54-46, and Labor leading One Nation 52-48. Jacinta Allan records 17% favourable, 24% neutral and 59% negative (which the Financial Review says are the worst recorded for any leader other than Anna Bligh and John Cain, though on what basis is unclear), and Jess Wilson is on 31% favourable, 51% neutral and 18% unfavourable. Pauline Hanson was thrown in for good measure, recording 37% favourable, 17% neutral and 46% negative. The poll was conducted June 17 to 28 from a sample of 5516.

Further electorally relevant news from Victoria:

• The Liberal Party state executive meets tomorrow to decide whether to remove Moira Deeming as lead upper house candidate for Western Metropolitan. The Age reports a “broad consensus” within the party that she should be dropped, as there would have to be to get the required agreement of 75% of the executive’s roughly 20 members. Deeming’s defeat in an April preselection vote by restaurateur and Indian community figurehead Dinesh Gourisetty prompted a backlash on the right, and she was shortly able to recover the position when Gourisetty was obliged to withdraw. However, last week’s events appear to have damaged Deeming’s prestige. Pauline Hanson bluntly told Melbourne station 3AW today that the party “don’t want her”, and hitherto strong supporter Peta Credlin, who is married to state executive chair Brian Loughnane, “has let it be known that she is now done with Deeming”, according to Chip Le Grand of The Age.

• Sumeyya Ilanbey of the Financial Review reports Labor has written off nine seats, including several where the threat would presumably be from One Nation: Sunbury, Ashwood, Melton, Yan Yean, Glen Waverley, Hastings, Pakenham, Bayswater and Bass. The party is confident of 19 seats and targeting another 26, suggesting it is plotting a bare minimum path to a majority of 45 seats out of 88.

• Kieran Rooney of The Age reported last week that Labor internal research indicated the Nationals seats of Gippsland South, Murray Plains and Gippsland East were likely One Nation wins, with Shepparton, Benambra and Lowan “leaning orange”. Also in the latter category were Berwick, the Melbourne fringe seat held by former Liberal leader Brad Battin, along with Liberal-held Narracan, Warrandyte, Eildon and Rowville. No Labor seats were identified, but One Nation was acknowledged to be “a major problem for both sides of politics”. Liberal sources expressed high hopes for gaining Niddrie and Macedon from Labor.

• Ryan Bourke of the Herald Sun reports One Nation “remains without a frontrunner” after an apparent failure to recruit as candidates Adam Giles, former Northern Territory Chief Minister and now chief executive of Gina Rinehart’s agricultural arm, and Heston Russell, former commando and founder of a party that ran at the last state election as Angry Victorians.

Federal polls: YouGov, Essential Research and Roy Morgan (open thread)

One out of two new polls bucks the recent trend in having One Nation higher, but both concur that Labor are up.

It’s been a particularly busy few days on the poll front, with Newspoll’s three-week cycle coinciding with YouGov’s fortnightly cycle and Essential Research’s monthly cycle and RedBridge Group thrown in for good measure. The fortnightly Sky News Pulse poll by YouGov parts company with the others in finding One Nation continuing to rise, at the expense of the hapless Coalition rather than Labor. Labor is up three to 29% and One Nation two to 30%, the latter a new record for the party from YouGov. The Coalition is down four to 17%, two points below its previous nadir around the time of the February leadership change, while the Greens are steady on 13%. Anthony Albanese is up one on approval to 38% and down three on disapproval to 55%, while Angus Taylor is down one to 36% and steady on 47%. Albanese’s leads on preferred prime minister are out from 43-38 to 44-35 against Taylor, and from 48-41 to 49-40 against Pauline Hanson. The poll was conducted last Tuesday to this Tuesday from a sample of 1502.

The Guardian reports on the monthly Essential Research poll, with which the pollster’s data feature has been updated, though its full report with all its attitudinal questions will come later today. Inclusive of a steady uncommitted result of 5%, it has Labor up a point to 30%, One Nation down two to 26% and the Greens down one to 10%. The drop for One Nation might be thought especially significant coming from a monthly series, since the BludgerTrack trend measure records them gaining two-and-a-half points over this period.

The pollster’s 2PP+ continues to be unusually strong for the Coalition, who recover a 48-46 lead with the balance undecided, after Labor gained a 48-47 lead last month – my rough measure based on 2025 election flows has Labor ahead 51.3-48.7, out from 50.6-49.4. Anthony Albanese is up a point on approval to 38% and down three on disapproval to 51%. Contrary to other recent polling, Angus Taylor is up three on approval to 36% and steady on disapproval at 37%.

The Guardian report relates negative responses to various One Nation positions: 15% in favour of privatising the ABC, 11% for shutting down SBS, 20% for ending multiculturalism, 18% for withdrawing from the United Nations, 18% for revising workplace laws in favour of employers, and 25% for stopping the renewables transition and focusing on fossil fuels. Only 26% were in favour of the party’s position on banning abortion after 20 weeks, but results were somewhat more conservative than when the question was last posed in November 2024: the 72% supporting abortion being legal in some or all cases was down seven points, and the 28% holding it should be illegal in some or all cases was up seven. Fifty per cent said they were concerned about One Nation being backed by Gina Rinehart, and 45% were concerned the party would “turn Australians against each other”. The poll was presumably conducted Wednesday to Monday from a sample that will have been a bit over 1000.

The weekly Roy Morgan poll has the biggest hit to One Nation of them all, down five-and-a-half points to 26%, with Labor up one to 28%, the Coalition up four to 21.5% and the Greens down half to 13%. Labor’s two-party lead over One Nation on a measure based on respondent-allocated preferences is out from 51-49 to 53-47, while its leads over the Coalition are in from 54-46 to 53.5-46.5 on respondent-allocated preferences and unchanged at 52.5-47.5 on previous election preference flows. The poll was conducted last Sunday to Monday from a sample of 1639.

Donation drive

Time for the Poll Bludger’s bi-monthly hustle for donations, timed so as to capture the end of one of monthly payment cycle and the start of the next. Things have moved into a quiet phase around here after the flurry of by-elections in early May, though I’m hard at work behind the scenes preparing for major state elections in Victoria in November and New South Wales in March. Lower activity invariably means a dip in site revenue, even as the bills continue rolling in. So if you’re an occasional donor, this would be an opportune moment to avail yourself of the “become a supporter” buttons at the top of the site and bottom of each post. Thanks as ever for your patronage.

Queensland state redistribution finalised

Final boundaries for Queensland’s state redistribution confirm the basic thrust of a proposal that did more favours for the LNP than Labor.

The state redistribution for Queensland has been finalised, making only one substantial change with minimal political repercussions. This involves maintaining the Logan City seat of Waterford, after the proposed boundaries published in March had most of the existing seat going to Woodridge and a new seat of Marsden being created largely from territory at the southern end of both. The final boundaries split most of what was to be Marsden between Woodridge and a seat that will maintain the name of Waterford, though the latter has a distinctly more southern orientation than under the old boundaries, while the former has acquired an ungainly shape. Also affected is Logan immediately to the south, which largely involves reversing changes from the proposal.

I am yet to calculate new margins for the boundaries, but Ben Raue of The Tally Room has done so, and he rates that Waterford now has a 13.5% Labor margin, compared with what have been 16.1% in Marsden, and 14.9% in Woodridge, compared with what had been 13.2% on the proposed boundaries. Apart from the fact that the seat whose name was to be changed to Pimpama will keep its name of Coomera, other changes of purely local interest.

The other major changes of the redistribution, which have tended to favour the Liberal National Party, are left intact. There will again be a seat of Caboolture in Brisbane’s outer north, an earlier incarnation of which was a usually Labor-held seat that was among of the 11 won by One Nation in 1998; and a new notional Labor seat will be created in the Ipswich region by dividing Bundamba and Jordan into Springfield, Redbank and Greenbank. Boundary changes in the Gold Coast have pulled the rug from under Meaghan Scanlon, who is widely touted as a future Labor leader, in her seat of Gaven.

UPDATE: I have a spreadsheet with my full accounting of post-redistribution estimates, though I have not engaged in the subject process of reconciling seats with mixed two-candidate preferred splits, of which there are many.

Federal polls: Newspoll and RedBridge Group (open thread)

Two federal polls find Labor recovering the primary vote lead over One Nation, and no end in sight for the Coalition’s decline.

Two federal polls this evening show improved results for Labor, with The Australian reporting its primary vote at 33%, up three points on three weeks ago, with One Nation down two to 29%, the Coalition down one to an all-time low of 17%, and the Greens up two to 13%. Anthony Albanese is up four on approval to 40% and down three on disapproval to 57%, while Angus Taylor takes a solid hit, down four on approval to 31% and up six on disapproval to 51%. The question was posed of Pauline Hanson for the first time, with results of 46% approval and 49% disapproval. Albanese’s lead over preferred Taylor on prime minister is out from 44-38 to 47-36, while a three-way result has Albanese on 49%, Hanson on 31% and Taylor on 20%. When those favouring Taylor were then asked to choose between Albanese and Hanson, and the uncommitted excluded, Albanese records a lead of 57-43.

Respondents were asked which of three considerations loomed largest in their vote choice, with One Nation supporter being distinctive in breaking 38% for “they understand people like me”, compared with 13% or 14% for the other parties, and being less likely to choose “they have clear and realistic policies” (42% compared with 54% to 61%) and “the leader’s character and values” (19% compared with 23% to 31%). The poll was conducted Monday to Thursday from a sample of 1235.

The Financial Review has a RedBridge Group/Accent Research poll is the first poll in a while that doesn’t have One Nation leading on the primary vote, although the gap between them and Labor is well inside the margin of error. Labor is up two on the primary vote to 30%, with One Nation down two to 29%, the Coalition down two to 18% and the Greens up two to 14%, their best result from this pollster for the term. Labor’s two-party leads are substantially increased: 56-44 over One Nation and 54-46 over the Coalition on respondent-allocated preferences, in both cases out from 51-49; and 55-45 over the Coalition on previous election preference flows, out from 52-48.

The three-way preferred prime minister question also records movement favourable to Labor, with Anthony Albanese up two to 33%, Pauline Hanson down two to 23% and Angus Taylor down three to 11%. Albanese’s favourable rating is up two to 31%, with neutral down two to 16% and unfavourable down one to 49%; Taylor is down four on favourable to 17%, up five on neutral to 28% and up one on unfavourable to 26%; and Hanson is down three on favourable to 37%, down three on neutral to 11% and up seven on unfavourable to 47%. The poll was conducted Monday to Friday from a sample of 1006.

Foreign affairs polling: Lowy Institute and Pew Research (open thread)

Trust in the United States and its President falls to a low ebb, while concern about China moderates from its pandemic-era nadir.

The Lowy Institute has published its latest annual survey on public attitudes towards foreign affairs, broadly defined. It finds Australians trust their World War II enemies (89% positive for Japan, 83% for Germany) rather a lot more than the allies (31% for the United States, 28% for China and 11% for Russia) to “act responsibly in the world”, excepting in the latter case the United Kingdom (81%). The result for the US is five points down on last year, which was already 15 points below its previous nadir in the last year of the first Trump administration. However, 73% continue to rate the US alliance as very or fairly important, down seven on last year. The result for China marks a recovery from 12% in 2022, but remains far below the 60% it was recording two decades ago. Australians have also gone back to seeing China as more of an economic partner (61%, up from a low of 33% in 2022) than a security threat (36%, down from 63%).

The view that cultural diversity is positive has fallen 20 points over two years to 73%, and a record 55% say Australia has too many immigrants, up two from last year, with “about right” down nine to 29%. Fifty-three per cent report feeling “unsafe in the world”, the first time in the history of a series going back to 2005 this has exceeded 50%. Thirty-nine per cent favour Australia getting a nuclear weapon of one kind or another, up three since the question was last posed in 2022. The survey was conducted from March 2 to 15 by the Social Research Centre, with a sample of 2013.

Separately, an international survey by Pew Research finds 18% of Australians have confidence in Donald Trump to do the right thing in world affairs, with 82% expressing no confidence. Similar results were recorded in western Europe and south-east Asia, though Britons were a little less unfavourably disposed. Thirty-seven per cent viewed the US as a very or somewhat reliable partner, compared with 79% in 2022.

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