William Bowe - The Poll Bludger

South Australian election minus nine days

An overview of what the various parties are recommending on their how-to-vote cards.

Notwithstanding a headline in today’s Advertiser reading “candidate runs food truck without council approvals”, the biggest development of the South Australian campaign has probably been a scandal surrounding Health Minister Chris Picton (brother of Tim Picton, the former Labor WA state secretary who died in January after an assault outside a Perth nightclub), whose staff botched a bad job in seeking to discredit patients and their relatives who have complained about ambulance ramping. Yesterday brought the news that former AFL player Chris McDermott, star candidate and upper house ticket leader for the Sarah Game Fair Go for Australians party, had quit the party due to “irreconcilable differences” with Game, but the party’s prospects were likely remote in any case.

The remainder of this post will focus on how-to-vote cards, which can be found neatly displayed on the Electoral Commission website. These are of greater account than in other contexts due to the state’s distinctive practice of displaying them in polling booths, giving those of smaller parties a coverage they normally lack in the absence of the large volunteer base needed to disseminate them.

In considering the preferences of major parties, it is important to remember that their preferences are only distributed where they fail to run first or second, which is applying to an ever-increasing number of seats. However, in the case of Labor at the current election, it’s likely to happen only in country seats and perhaps a few places on the urban periphery where the final count could come down to Liberal and an independent. Labor’s cards notably have the Liberals ahead of a number of competitive or incumbent independents: Nick McBride and Fraser Ellis are last in MacKillop and Narungga, and Airlie Keen is behind the Liberal (though not One Nation) in Hammond. The point is almost certainly academic in Florey, but it’s nonetheless interesting to note that the Liberal candidate has been put ahead of one-time Labor MP Frances Bedford.

The Liberals have in all cases put One Nation ahead of Labor without the requirement of a “deal”, since One Nation is not directing preferences in any lower house seat, and in the upper house recommends preferences only to the two “family” parties. One Nation have also been placed ahead of competitive independents in Finniss (Lou Nicholson), Flinders (Meghan Petherick) and MacKillop (Nick McBride, who has been put last), though not Narungga (Fraser Ellis), Kavel (Matt Schultz), Mount Gambier (Travis Fatchen) and Port Adelaide (Claire Boan). As is usual for the Liberals these days, the Greens have mostly been put last and Labor second last.

The Greens have Labor ahead of Frances Bedford in Florey, despite what seems to me to be her progressive record as a former MP, along with the other independents previously noted in Narungga, MacKillop, Kavel and Hammond. However, the independents have been placed higher in Finniss, where Labor could conceivably make the final count, and Flinders, where it seems unlikely. The party has for some reason opted not to offer a recommendation in the seat of Adelaide.

Family First, the Australian Family Party and Fair Go for Australians all have conventionally right-wing tickets, with the first favouring One Nation over Liberal and the others largely vice-versa. The latter has been consistently favourable to independents, the others variable. The Nationals, who are running in three seats, have Meghan Petherick in Flinders ahead of both the Liberals and One Nation, and Liberal only fifth on an upper house order that favours small conservative parties. United Voice Australia has a consistently right-wing ordering of One Nation, Liberal, Labor, Greens, but has favoured independents over all of the above in all relevant cases, namely Florey, Port Adelaide and Narungga.

Animal Justice consistently has a conventionally left-wing ordering of Greens, Labor, Liberal, One Nation, but has favoured independents over all of them in relevant cases where the party is running, namely Finniss, Kavel and Stuart. Legalise Cannabis and Stephen Pallaras Real Change are all over the shop: the former seems to favour right-wing preference ordering in country seats and left-wing in the city, and has Labor ahead of the Greens in the upper house; the latter is consistent only in having One Nation last.

YouGov: Labor 30, One Nation 26, Coalition 19, Greens 13 (open thread)

Separate polls find the Coalition and Labor primary votes at new depths, plus a Farrer by-election poll suggesting a race between One Nation and an independent.

The fortnightly YouGov Sky News Pulse poll has what might be the most dispiriting poll result yet for the Coalition, showing them running a distant third behind One Nation even after the leadership change intended to staunch the flow. The Coalition is down three points on last fortnight to 19%, matching their worst result under Sussan Ley the fortnight before, while One Nation is at 26%, up two from last fortnight though still down two on the fortnight before. Labor is up a point to 30% and the Greens are steady on 13%. A Labor-versus-Coalition two-party preferred reading has Labor leading 55-45, out from 53-47 a fortnight ago.

Angus Taylor’s personal ratings are nonetheless little changed on a fortnight ago, up one on approval to 34% and steady on disapproval at 38%, while Anthony Albanese is down two to 38% and steady on 54%. Albanese’s lead on preferred prime minister is 45-33, out from 45-34. Asked how well Jim Chalmers’ policies had dealt with the cost of living, 16% responded very well or well compared with 53% for not very well or very badly and 31% for neither. The poll was conducted last Tuesday through to yesterday. The sample size is not provided, but would have been about 1500.

UPDATE: The sample size was 1425. Also included was a Labor-versus-One Nation two-party result, which also had Labor leading 55-45.

Also out yesterday was the weekly Roy Morgan poll, giving Labor its worst primary vote yet from this series at 26.5%. However, most of this seems to have been taken up by a three-point lift for the Greens to 14.5%. One Nation was up one-and-a-half to 23.5%, with the Coalition down one to 22.5%. Labor leads the Coalition 54.5-45.5 based on respondent-allocated preferences, out from 54-46, and 53-47 based on previous election preference flows, in from 53.5-46.5. The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1532.

The first published poll for the Farrer by-election has emerged courtesy of progressive think tank the Australia Institute, conducted by uComms last Thursday and Friday from a sample of 1281. It featured questions inclusive of Labor and undecided component, and further questions asking how Labor voters would vote if there were no Labor candidate, as looks to be the case, and a forced response for the undecided. Working all these results together, I make it 31.6% for One Nation, 30.3% for independent Michelle Milthorpe, 22.0% for the Liberals, 7.6% for the Nationals and 5.8% for the Greens. Respondents were also asked who they would least like to win out of One Nation, Milthorpe, Liberal and the Nationals, with respective results of 37.1%, 29.5%, 22.2% and 11.2%.

Queensland state redistribution proposal

A Queensland state adds two seats to outer Brisbane and abolishes a seat in North Queensland.

Proposed new state electoral boundaries for Queensland have just been published. As the report summary puts it, “new electorates are proposed to be created – namely, Caboolture (formerly Glass House) and Springfield (formerly Jordan)”, which are balanced by the effective abolition of Hill (held by Shane Knuth of Katter’s Australian Party) and the Labor-held metropolitan seat of Stretton. Fully 19 seats are being renamed, including a reversion to geographical names of seats like McConnel (which goes back to being Brisbane Central) and Oodgeroo (Cleveland). UPDATE: Ben Raue at The Tally Room has interactive maps of the old and new boundaries.

Below the fold are my estimates of two-candidate preferred and primary vote shares for the new boundaries, and how they have changed from the 2024 election results. Note in the former case that where more than two numbers appear in a row, it is because the proposal combines seats that had different parties in the final count in the election. When the aberrant number is large — Mulgrave, for instance, is an LNP-versus-Labor seat that stands to absorb a large chunk if Hill, where the two-candidate count was Katters-versus-LNP — it means the numbers are of limited use. The remainder of the post will consist of commentary that will be added bit-by-bit as I wrap my head around what’s been done.

There was an unusual degree of consensus in the party submissions that a new seat of Caboolture should be created, and so it has proved. An earlier incarnation was one of the 11 seats One Nation won at the 1998 election, but I only get their primary vote at 11.0% based on the 2024 results. Its voters are drawn from Morayfield (39.5%), Glass House (32.8%) and Pumicestone (27.8%).

Covering the eastern end of the City of Ipswich, Springfield is being treated as a new seat, but this can be better understood as an arrangement that accommodates local population growth by creating Springfield, Redbank and Greenbank (together with the commonality of “bank” in the latter two cases, there are now three seats that begin with “red” and two with “spring”) where formerly there was Bundamba and Jordan. All are notional Labor, in varying degrees of safety.

Fresh from losing Hinchinbrook at a by-election in November, Katter’s Australian Party now loses one of its two remaining seats in Hill, held by Shane Knuth, of which 24.5% goes to Flinders, the successor to his party colleague Rob Katter’s seat of Treager. Around half goes to Hinchinbrook and the rest to the Mulgrave, which becomes less urban after losing about a fifth of its enrolment to Cairns.

Around two-thirds of the abolished southern Brisbane seat of Stretton, which Labor won in 2024 by 9.5%, goes to Eight Mile Plains, the new name for Toohey, with the rest going to Algester. This is not the only bad turn for Labor: their remaining toehold on the Gold Coast, held by mooted future leader Meaghan Scanlon, gains unhelpful territory north of Nerang State Forest from Theodore, turning a 0.6% Labor margin into a notional LNP margin of 5.4%. Not far to the north, Beenleigh has an LNP margin of 0.4%, where the seat of Macalister that is supersedes has a Labor margin of 1.9%. The regional seats of Thuringowa and Mackay, which Labor lost badly in 2024, have both gained conservative semi-rural territory. Conversely, the loss of its southern end to Caboolture makes Labor more competitive in Glass House, which moves into the Sunshine Coast hinterland, cutting the LNP margin from 10.2% to 5.7%.

The inner-city seats where the Greens are competitive are little changed: the changes to their primary vote share in Maiwar, Cooper and South Brisbane, the first two of which resume their former names of Indooroopilly and Ashgrove, are all inside half a percentage point.

Continue reading “Queensland state redistribution proposal”

DemosAU: Labor 34, Coalition 23, One Nation 21, Greens 15 in New South Wales

A New South Wales state poll tells the now familiar story of One Nation snapping at the heels of the Coalition, and also taking a bite out the Labor vote.

The Sunday Telegraph today carries a DemosAU poll of state voting intention in New South Wales, recording primary votes of 34% for Labor, down three on the last such poll in October; 23% for the Coalition, down seven; 21% for One Nation, for whom no result was recorded in October; and 15% for the Greens, up two. Chris Minns records personal ratings of 38% positive, 45% neutral and 17% negative, while Kellie Sloane is at 22% positive, 59% neutral and 19% negative. Minns holds a 48-24 lead over Sloane for preferred premier, bettering his 44-25 lead over Mark Speakman from October.

Also featured are results on upper house voting intention, which have Labor on 29%, One Nation on 22%, the Coalition on 21% and the Greens on 13%, with none of the minor players exceeding 2%. This compares with equivalent results at the 2023 election of Labor 36.6%, Coalition 29.8%, Greens 9.1% and One Nation 5.9%. The poll was conducted February 24 to March 4 from a sample of 1032.

There was also a Roy Morgan SMS poll a fortnight ago which had One Nation at an improbable 30%, ahead of both Labor on 25% and the Coalition on 19%, with the Greens on 12.5%. It was conducted February 16 to 19 from a sample of 2108.

Farrer by-election and federal electoral miscellany (open thread)

A date announced and candidate details starting to emerge for the by-election to be held in Sussan Ley’s seat of Farrer, plus sundry other items of electoral news.

The date of the Farrer by-election has been set for May 9, as announced in parliament on Thursday by the Speaker, Milton Dick. Michelle Grattan in The Conversation relates that Labor is not running, which I have not seen reported elsewhere, and there is no indication yet on who the Liberal candidate might be. One Nation yesterday endorsed David Farley, 69-year-old former head of major beef producer the Australian Agricultural Company and an activist locally on water issues. Farley was chosen by local party members ahead of Albury small business owner Leigh Wolki and agribusiness manager Guy Cooper.

A Nationals preselection vote to be held today will be contested by former Albury mayor Kylie King, former Wodonga mayor Kev Poulton, retired army colonel Brad Robertson and beef farmer Marc Greening. Helen Dalton, the state independent member for Murray, says she will not run, after earlier considering doing so either as an independent or for One Nation.

Before diving into various federal electoral matters that have been accumulating over the past two months, two non-federal matters worth noting: Labor looks to have won the Northern Territory seat of Nightcliff from the Greens at a by-election held yesterday, and a draft state redistribution for Queensland will be published on Tuesday.

• Nine Newspapers reported a fortnight ago that Special Minister of State Don Farrell has been holding “informal talks” with other parties about expanding the federal parliament. This would likely involve 12 new seats for the Senate and twice that many for the House (a requirement of the Constitution’s nexus clause), resulting in around 174 seats for the House and 88 for the Senate, though there are options for adding further seats for the territories. Any such change would take effect after the 2028 election. The Liberals have declared themselves opposed, though the report says “some Liberal MPs and strategists” are privately supportive, but the Greens and the Nationals are thought likely to be favourable.

• A Greens preselection is looming to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Tasmanian Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, which he announced last October. Among the candidates will be Tabatha Badger, who has held a seat for the party in Lyons since the March 2024 state election. Other prospective nominees identified by the ABC are Vanessa Bleyer, an environmental lawyer who ran in Braddon in last year’s state election; Scott Jordan, an environmental campaigner and frequent election candidate; and Alistair Allan, a former Sea Shepherd captain and the party’s candidate for Lyons at last year’s federal election.

• Barnaby Joyce, who is currently slated to be One Nation’s lead Senate candidate in New South Wales, says he would “consider” running again in his existing seat of New England, presumably reflecting bullishness about the party’s position in the polls.

• The Australian National University’s Centre for Policy Research has released an analysis of survey research conducted immediately after the election showing support for the proposition that democracy was “always preferable to other forms of government” ranging from just 43.8% among those aged 18-to-24 to 89.1% among those 75 and over. Those inclined to disagree were more likely to have low educational attainment, speak a language other than English at home, and live in a rural electorate. Those with religious affiliations and identifying as being on the left were more inclined to agree.

• The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks column reported last month that Luke Howarth, who was unseated in the northern Brisbane seat of Petrie last year, has nominated for top position for the Senate ticket in a preselection to be held at the party’s state convention next month. This places him in opposition to James McGrath, “who is expected to hold his position”. Second spot is reserved for the Nationals and Matt Canavan, notwithstanding suggestions he may run in the lower house seat of Capricornia, and former Senator Joanna Lindgren has nominated for third.

• Antony Green has published an instructive resource in the shape of two-party preferred preference flow data by candidate from non-classic contests at the last three elections, provided to him by the Australian Electoral Commission. The AEC routinely publishes data showing how the preferences of each candidate that didn’t make the final preference count divided between those who did, but this data extends the principle to preference splits between Labor and the Coalition in those seats where an independent or minor party candidate made the final count at the expense of one or the other.

• A note regarding the BludgerTrack poll aggregate: the leadership rating trends are on hold for the moment, as accommodating the new Opposition Leader will require some code re-engineering and enough data points to produce a workable trend result, which I won’t have time to do until after the South Australian election. I have added some new tabs to the “Poll Data” feature recording voting intention by 2025 election vote and the four regional categories used by the Australian Electoral Commission, the former striking me as being of particular interest in the current environment. You can access this by clicking the “more” tab on the far right until it gets you to the relevant set of tabs.

Northern Territory: Nightcliff by-election

The Greens hope to defend their first ever seat in the Northern Territory parliament at today’s Nightcliff by-election.

Live commentary

End of evening. I missed most of the evening’s excitement, but contrary to my earlier indication that the Greens were well placed, the most likely result looks to be a narrow win for Labor, giving it a fifth seat in parliament and its only foothold in Darwin. There is no doubt that it will come down to Labor and the Greens at the final count: independent Phil Scott is set to bow out first with 17.3% of the primary vote and his preferences will do few favours for the CLP candidate on 20.3%. The Greens lead Labor on first preferences by 33.5% to 28.9%, but preferences have turned this into a Labor lead of 1890 to 1749, and there will only be about 200 postal votes outstanding. A pseudonymous commenter who presumably isn’t making it up relates that Labor got 78% of CLP and 40% of independent preferences, the former marking a decisive return to normality after an almost even split helped deliver the Greens their win in 2024.

7.45pm. The one election day polling booth has reported, but as noted below it only accounts for about a quarter of the vote, together with 158 postals, with the former in on the primary vote and the latter in on the two-candidate count as well. On this evidence it looks to be a two-horse race between Labor and the Greens in which the NTEC have picked the right candidates for the two-candidate count. The postal result suggests preferences are splitting about evenly, in which case the Greens lead over Labor of 395 to 293 would seem to be very good news for them. However, nothing can be stated with confidence in the absence of pre-poll results.

6.30pm. An NTEC media release advises: “907 eligible voters in the Division of Nightcliff cast their vote today at the election day voting centre located at Nightcliff High School. During the early voting period 2,657 votes have been cast at the early voting centre or mobile voting service. 441 postal votes have been issued.” They also have a thorough account of how and when the count will be conducted.

6pm. Polls have closed. Follow the results at the Northern Territory Electoral Commission. I’ll have commentary to offer if something comes through over the next hour or so, but after that I’m going out.

Preview

A Northern Territory by-election is being held today in the northern Darwin seat of Nightcliff, which became the first seat in the territory ever to be won by the Greens at the August 2024 election. That member, Kat McNamara, resigned in early February citing health issues, and a by-election has ensued with swift dispatch. McNamara unseated former Labor Chief Minister Natasha Fyles by 36 votes at the August 2024 election, after an unusually weak flow of Country Liberal preferences to Labor.

Both major parties are fielding candidates, with Labor hoping to add to its meagre haul of four seats out of 25 in 2024, and the ascendant Country Liberals hoping to add to their existing tally of 17. The Greens candidate is Suki Dorras-Walker, a community legal service paralegal and former teacher who ran for the party in Fannie Bay in 2024. Labor’s candidate is Ed Smelt, a Darwin councillor and civil engineer, while the Country Liberals have endorsed Anjan Paudel, a Nepalese-Australian lawyer. Phil Scott, who ran in the federal seat of Solomon in 2025 with backing from Climate 200 and polled 12.5%, is running as an independent.

The post will be appended with commentary on the count after polls close at 6pm local time.

Victorian polls: RedBridge Group and Freshwater Strategy

As a by-election looms in early May, solid personal ratings for the new Victorian Liberal leader fail to forestall the exodus to One Nation.

Two new Victorian state polls:

• The Financial Review reports a RedBridge Group/Accent Research poll showing One Nation, which was not a response option in the last such poll in December, at 24%, with Labor down six to 25%, the Coalition down 12 to 28% and the Greens up one to 13%. Two-party preferred results based on respondent-allocated preferences show the Coalition with a 52-48 lead over Labor and Labor with a 53-47 lead over the Coalition. The poll was conducted February 18 to 27 from a sample of 2165.

• The Herald Sun has a Freshwater Strategy poll of Victorian state voting intention showing Labor on 28%, the Coalition on 27%, One Nation on 23% and the Greens on 13%. Labor and the Coalition are tied on a two-party preferred measure that I presume is based on respondent-allocated preferences. Jacinta Allan records a minus 33 net approval rating compared with plus 15 for Liberal leader Jess Wilson, who holds a 46% to 30% lead over Allan on preferred premier. Thirty-six per cent said the Liberal leadership change in November made them more likely to vote Coalition compared with 14% for less likely and 44% for no difference. Seventy-four per cent registered support for a royal commission into alleged criminal infiltration and corruption within the CFMEU, with only 7% opposed. The poll was conducted February 19 to 23 from a sample of 1030.

Also from Victoria:

• May 2 has been set as the date for the Nepean by-election, arising from the resignation of former Liberal deputy leader Sam Groth. A Liberal preselection vote last week was won by Mornington Peninsula Shire mayor Anthony Marsh. Cameron McCullough of the Mornington Peninsula News reports Marsh won the preselection ballot on the first round with 10 out of 19 votes, against four for former Hastings candidate Briony Camp, three for Frankston mayor and federal Dunkley candidate Nathan Conroy, and two for Sorrento real estate agent David Burgess. The Herald Sun’s Backroom Baz column notes Marsh’s how-to-vote card at the 2020 council election directed voters to put the Liberal candidates last. One Nation’s candidate is Darren Hercus, whom the Herald Sun reports is a civil engineer and owner of a Dromana floor and roof truss manufacturing plant. Former Liberal member Peter Angelico will run for the Libertarian Party. Labor will presumably not bother.

• The Australian reports Andrew Lethlean, the Bendigo publican who came close to pulling off an extraordinary feat in winning the federal seat of Bendigo for the Nationals last May, looks assured of being the party’s candidate against Jacinta Allan in Bendigo East.

• Tim Read, who has held Brunswick for the Greens since 2018, has announced he will not contest the November election, having been diagnosed in October with metastatic cancer.

• One of a number of SMS polls published last week by Roy Morgan gauged Victorian state voting intention, and it had One Nation leading the field with 26.5%, with Labor on 25.5%, the Coalition on 21.5% and the Greens on 13%. Three two-party results were provided, putting Labor 52-48 ahead of the Coalition and 52.5-47.5 ahead of One Nation, with the Coalition leading One Nation 56-44. The poll was conducted February 13 to 16 from a sample of 2462.

Morgan: Labor 30.5, Coalition 23.5, One Nation 22, Greens 11.5 (open thread)

Morgan finds the Coalition losing most of the lead it opened over One Nation in the first poll under Angus Taylor, and RedBridge Group offers some useful data on preference flows.

This week’s Roy Morgan federal poll has Labor down a point to 30.5%, the Coalition down half to 23.5%, One Nation up one-and-a-half to 22% and the Greens down one to 11.5%. Labor’s two-party lead over the Coalition is out from 54.5-45.5 to 56-44, but this reflects an unusually strong result on respondent-allocated preferences: the two-party measure that applies preference flows from the 2025 election has the Labor’s lead in from 54-46 to 53.5-46.5. The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1554. Hopefully Morgan will shortly be publishing aggregated state breakdowns from its last month of polling, as it did at the end of January.

Speaking of respondent-allocated preferences, the Financial Review reports follow-up results from the RedBridge Group/Accent Research poll providing detail on how the flows from its result broke down by voting intention. This is particularly instructive in relation to Labor-versus-One Nation, for which election result data is scarce, Hunter being the only example of a seat where the final count came down to these two parties at the 2025 election. The poll found Liberal voters breaking 72-28 in favour of One Nation and other Coalition voters breaking 60-40, while Greens voters broke 89-11 to Labor and others broke 68-32. These are small sub-samples, the overall sample from the poll being 1006, but hopefully it’s an example other pollsters will follow.

The only similar polling data to have emerged on preference flows came from the Newspoll before last, which found 43% of Liberal voters favouring One Nation and 33% Labor, with the rest saying they did not know or that they would follow how-to-vote cards. The corresponding numbers were 70%, 6% and 24% for Nationals voters, 1%, 91% and 8% for the Greens, and 32%, 53% and 15% for others.

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