Category: Federal Election 2025

First up, note that the post below this one covers a new Victorian state poll from RedBridge Group. On to the latest from the federal campaign:

• Paul Sakkal of Nine Newspapers reports Labor is experiencing a surge of donations both from wealthy backers hoping to court favour with the party now favoured to win, and from small donors galvanised by hostility to Donald Trump.

• Ellen Ransley of The Nightly reports Labor is dedicating an extra $130,000 to campaigning in Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson after its research suggested the race there was “closer than originally thought”. As with the last report broaching the possibility, it also notes that “LNP insiders insist they aren’t worried about the seat”.

• Local news site Fremantle Shipping News reports, without going into much detail, that independent hopeful Kate Hulett has successfully renounced her British citizenship and will be able to proceed as planned with her run for the federal seat of Fremantle. Hulett came within 424 votes of unseating state government minister Simone McGurk in the state seat of Fremantle last month. Last week she related on her podcast that she had been making multiple representations to British parliamentarians and to the Home Office and High Commission in an effort to get the matter resolved in time.

• Jeremy Neal, Liberal National Party candidate from the far north Queensland seat of Leichhardt, is distancing himself from “poorly worded” social media posts from between 2020 and 2022 in which he railed against COVID restrictions and vaccines, called for the ABC to be defunded, and expressed more enthusiasm for Donald Trump than is now considered politic. Labor is hoping the retirement of veteran incumbent Warren Entsch will give it a shot of overhauling the seat’s 3.4% margin.

• The Financial Review reports a uComms poll for Climate 200 has Allegra Spender, teal incumbent candidate for Wentworth, leading Liberal challenger Ro Knox 58-42 in Wentworth. The primary votes have Spender on 32.9%, Knox on 32.5% and Labor candidate Savanna Peake on 12.2%, with “nearly 7%” undecided. The report says the poll had a sample of 1015 but does not specify field work dates.

• The Australian reports a poll of Chris Bowen’s western Sydney seat of McMahon by Compass has independent Matt Camenzuli on 41%, the Liberals on 20% and Bowen on just 19%, as compared with 48.0% in 2022. Labor sources are said to be “dismissive”, and expect Camenzuli to come third. Camenzuli is an IT entrepreneur and former conservative Liberal activist who took Scott Morrison and others to court in 2022 after the party’s national executive took control of the federal preselection process. Compass is chiefly noted for finding strong support for conservative culture war positions for suitably disposed clients. The only voting intention poll I know it to have conducted was in North Sydney during the 2022 campaign, which found the eventual winner, teal independent Kylea Tink, running third on 13.6%, or barely more than half her actual result of 25.2%. The report does not identify who commissioned the poll, which was conducted by MMS and SMS from a sample of 1003 on dates unspecified, but I think I can guess.

Last night’s Sky News People’s Forum, which can be viewed in full here, was deemed by 44 out of a hand-picked audience of 100 undecided voters to have been won by Anthony Albanese, with 35 favouring Peter Dutton and 21 undecided. I suspect though that to the extent that the broader public notices the low-rating event at all, what’s most likely to filter through is that Peter Dutton performed creditably immediately after learning that his father had suffered a heart attack. The event was conducted at Wentworthville Leagues Club in the electorate of Parramatta, a culturally diverse electorate notable particularly for its Indian population, which seemed suitably well represented.

The next debate, to be held from 8pm next Wednesday, will assuredly reach a larger audience by virtue of being broadcast free-to-air by the ABC. It too will be held in Parramatta, that being the location of the ABC’s new studios, though that’s of no great consequence as it will not follow the town hall format of the “People’s Forum”. Whether any further debates are held later in the game remains to be determined.

The Australian reports a new result for Newspoll, which we can presumably expect to report on a weekly basis through the campaign period (and to do so earlier in the day than we’re accustomed to). It’s another encouraging result for Labor, who now lead 52-48 on two-party preferred, out from 51-49 last week (and from 51-49 in the Coalition’s favour in the previous poll from four weeks ago). Labor’s primary vote is steady at 33%, with the Coalition down one to 36%, the Greens steady on 12% and One Nation up one to 7%. Peter Dutton nonetheless narrows his deficit on preferred prime minister from 49-38 to 48-40. Personal ratings are little changed: Anthony Albanese is down one on approval to 42% and up one on disapproval to 53%, Peter Dutton is up one on approval to 38% and steady on disapproval at 55%.

Also included are questions on the leaders’ attributes which I may get around to analysing in detail later. As is usually the way with these things, they look to have moved largely in lockstep with their broader personal ratings, with Albanese recording improved results since the questions were last asked in December and Dutton little changed. The poll was conducted Monday to Friday from a sample of 1250.

UPDATE: The News Corp papers have further results from the weekend’s RedBridge Group poll showing Jacqui Lambie with a net approval rating of minus 1, notable as being the best result out of Anthony Albanese (minus 4), Peter Dutton (minus 15), Adam Bandt, Simon Holmes a Court, Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer.

Two fairly marginal new items of poll news:

• Nine Newspapers has been ekeing out further detail from its three Resolve Strategic polls so far this year, today reporting that the two-party result among men was 50-50 in last week’s poll (which had a super-sized sample of 3083), after the Coalition 58-42 from the combined January and February polls (the latter of which produced a markedly stronger result for the Coalition than any other poll published this year). Labor also surged from 55-45 behind to 52-48 ahead among the 35-to-54 age cohort. Yesterday’s report revealed only that the result in “marginal electorates” was Labor 27%, Coalition 38%, Greens 13% and One Nation 7%, as compared with national results of 29%, 37%, 13% and 7%, but in the absence of any indication as to how marginal was defined, it’s hard to say what this might mean. Hopefully a future report will provide breakdowns for Western Australia and South Australia, with only the three largest states featured in the pollster’s regular monthly reporting.

• The News Corp papers today report further detail from yesterday’s RedBridge Group poll, which found 25% wanted a Labor majority government and 31% a Coalition majority government. Twenty per cent of Labor voters wanted them to govern in minority, 14% with the support of the Greens and 6% with the teals (evidently the question was an either-or on this count). Twenty-eight per cent of the small sample of respondents aged 18 to 34 felt the best result would be a “Greens-Labor coalition” (which the report is possibly conflating with a Greens-supported minority government).

Candidate and seat-level news:

• Sarah Elks of The Australian reports Labor is “throwing firepower at Peter Dutton’s electorate of Dickson”, and notes that “the Coalition dirt unit has been busy circulating material about Climate 200-backed independent candidate Ellie Smith’s history of environmental activism”. However, an LNP strategist is quoted saying Dutton had “nothing to worry about”.

• It appears Kate Hulett’s hopes of following her near-success as an independent in the state seat of Fremantle by running for the federal seat could fall foul of Section 44. The West Australian reports Hulett “contacted the British Home Office to renounce her citizenship but was told there was a wait of six months, sparking concerns she might not be eligible to run”.

• Pauline Hanson’s daughter, Lee Hanson, will be One Nation’s lead Senate candidate in Tasmania.

The News Corp papers have a new poll RedBridge Group and Accent Research, which appears from the reporting to be a national poll, though in other respects it looks like the third wave of the marginal seat tracking poll that last reported in early March. It credits Labor with a two-party lead of 52-48, out from 51-49 in the pollster’s last result from March 13 to 24. The primary votes are Labor 33% (down one), Coalition 36% (down two) and Greens 12% (up one). The poll also finds 40% now feel the government is “focused on the right priorities” compared with 43% for the contrary view, which compares with 30% and 52% when the same question was asked in November. Thirty-eight per cent rate Peter Dutton and the Coalition as “ready for government” compared with 43% for unready, which compares with 40% and 39% in November.

Thirty-three per cent felt Labor’s “economic vision” was better for themselves compared with 28% for the Coalition; 31% felt Labor’s was better for Australia compared with 29% for the Coalition. Questions on individual policies are favourable to the Coalition to the extent of recording a net plus 47% for a 25% cut in the permanent migration program and plus 39% for fast-tracking new gas projects. Views are less favourable on reducing the public service by 41,000 at plus 5%, and less favourable still for ending public servants’ work from home arrangements, at minus 5%. The poll had an unusually long gestation period of March 8 to April 1 and a sample of 1006 (UPDATE: The report turns out to be in error – March 8 should read March 28).

A garden variety federal poll from YouGov, as distinct from its massive MRP endeavour last week, finds both major parties down on the primary vote since the last such poll a fortnight ago: Labor by one to 30% and the Coalition by two to 35%, with the Greens and One Nation steady at 13% and 7% respectively, Trumpet of Patriots up from 1% to 2%, and independents up two to 10%. Labor has recovered a 51-49 lead it lost with a return to 50-50 at the last poll, based on a respondent-allocated preferences split that makes use of the voluminous data from the MRP polling.

The poll adds to the marked downward trajectory of Peter Dutton’s recent personal ratings, his approval down four to 38% and disapproval up six to 53%. Anthony Albanese is up three to 44% and steady on 50%. There is nonetheless only a modest change on preferred prime minister, with Albanese’s lead out from 45-40 to 45-38. The poll was conducted Friday to Thursday from a sample of 1622.

Looming polls that I’m aware of include a YouGov poll that should be out early tomorrow and the latest instalment of the RedBridge Group marginal seat tracking poll to follow the next day. Before proceeding with a post covering miscellaneous bits and pieces from the federal campaign, some further recent posts for your consideration: one on the resolution of the Western Australian election count; one on state polling in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland; and a guest post from Adrian Beaumont on developments in Canada and the United States, including yesterday’s high-profile Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

• Paul Sakkal of The Age reports “senior Labor figures” in Macnamara (one of whom would seem to be former state minister and vocal Israel supporter Philip Dalidakis) are advocating “open ticket” how-to-vote cards offering no recommendation beyond the first preference, rather than favouring the Greens over the Liberals. At issue is the Greens’ stance on Israel in a seat whose 10% Jewish population ranks second in the country behind Wentworth, where Labor’s handling of the Greens is of little consequence. Ballot paper and preference flow data suggests that around 30% of Labor voters follow the how-to-vote card, and three-quarters of those who don’t put the Greens ahead of the Liberals of their own volition. With Labor accounting for roughly 30% of the vote in the seat, an open ticket would provide about 2% of a required Liberal swing of upwards of 10% if they are to defeat the Greens. That would only apply if Labor incumbent Josh Burns ran third in a seat where there was little to separate Labor, Liberal and the Greens on the primary vote in 2022. If Burns did make the final count, it would take a swing of around 12% to dislodge him he faced the Liberals, and around 6% if he faced the Greens.

• Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie became the first cross-bencher to offer any indication as to which party she would likely support in the event of a hung parliament, saying her constituents would favour the Coalition. She based this on the complexion of the state seats corresponding with Mayo, notwithstanding that Labor won the two-party preferred count in Mayo ahead of the Liberals by 51.6% to 48.4% in 2022. Sharkie qualified this by saying she would “absolutely talk to both sides but it would ultimately depend where the numbers sit and who can form stable government”.

• Perhaps by way of pushing back against last week’s JWS Research poll in the News Corp papers showing Liberal candidate Tim Wilson with a 54-46 lead over teal incumbent Zoe Daniel in Goldstein, Climate 200 has provided The Australian with a uComms poll showing exactly the reverse. The only information provided on the primary vote in the report is that Wilson had more of it than Daniel, as indeed he did when Daniel defeated him in 2022. The poll was conducted March 18 to 25, and follows a similar poll from late February that had Daniel leading 52-48.

• Nine Newspapers has a useful feature highlighting the movements of the two party leaders, and Crikey has something similar tracking electorates that have been targeted with locally specific election promises (pork barrelling, if you will).

Some late-starting candidates of note:

• The Liberal candidate for Chris Bowen’s seat of McMahon will be Carmen Lazar, who until last September was a Labor member of Fairfield City Council. Lazar criticised the party’s failure to support a local push for an MRI machine at Fairfield Hospital at the time she stood aside from council. Paul Karp of the Financial Review further reports she was aggrieved that David Saliba won Labor preselection ahead of her for the state seat of Fairfield.

• Labor’s candidate in Forrest is Tabitha Dowding, policy adviser to state Agriculture Minister Jackie Jarvis and granddaughter of former Labor Premier Peter Dowding.

• Andrew Thaler, who has gained some notoriety as a Snowy Monaro Regional councillor, is running as an independent in Eden-Monaro.

Before we proceed with squeezing some last juice out of the post-budget polling, note that there are two other fresh posts below this one: one a guess post from Adrian Beaumont on Canada and the United States, the other a summary of recent state polling from New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria.

Part of the latter is a new DemosAU poll from New South Wales encompassing federal as well as state voting intention. The federal voting intention numbers have the Coalition leading 51-49, compared with 51.4-48.6 to Labor at the 2022 election, from primary votes of Labor 30% (33.4% in 2022), Coalition 38% (36.5%), Greens 12% (10.0%) and One Nation 9% (4.9%). The poll also finds Anthony Albanese leading Peter Dutton 39-38 on preferred prime minister, and 31% holding that Australia is headed in the right direction compared with 52% for the contrary view. The poll was conducted last Thursday to Saturday from a sample of 1013.

The full results from the Essential Research poll included results on the budget, including a finding that less attention was paid to it than the last two, with 36% saying they paid a lot of attention (down four on last year and nine on the year before) and 15% that they had paid no attention (up four on last year and three on the year before). Forty-one per cent felt the budget would be good for the well off (down five on last year and unchanged on the year before) and 27% felt it would be good for those on lower incomes (down three last year and fourteen on an unusual result the year before). A question on the Trump administration’s tariffs finds 37% holding that Australia should look for new trade relationships, 29% that retaliatory tariffs should be imposed, and 35% that the priority should be to remain on good terms with the US and seek exemptions.

Now for a closer look at Newspoll’s budget responses, which maintain a consistent set of such questions that the pollster in its various incarnations has been posing after each budget since 1988, encompassing 39 budgets overall. The minus 10 rating for last week’s budget in terms of its impact on the economy was the fourth worst result yet recorded, surpassed only by three successive Hawke-Keating government budgets in 1991, 1992 and 1993 (the latter was in a league of its own at minus 42, the budget in question being remembered for its breach of Paul Keating’s “L-A-W” tax cuts promise). The minus 19 rating on impact on personal situation, by contrast, rates around the middle of the field.

The chart below records how each budget scored on the two measures. While respondents invariably score budgets more favourably on economic than personal impact (last year’s two-point differential was the closest any had yet come to breaking the mould), the trendline points to a tendency for budgets to be generally perceived either as good or bad, reflected in relatively strong or weak results for both measures. Last week’s budget is the one marked in red – its placement below the trendline indicates that, as mediocre budgets go, respondents felt this one relatively better for themselves than for the economy.

Lest anyone overestimate the electoral significance of this result, the best result of plus 48 was at the budget preceding the defeat of the Howard government in 2007. Perhaps more to the point, the minus 11 rating on the question of whether the Coalition would have done better is part of the course for a Labor budget (overall average minus 10.4%) – consistent with the fact that the Coalition generally does better on economic management polling, their budgets tend to do better on this question than Labor’s (average of minus 17.3%, the overall overage being minus 14.2%). Another reason to doubt the budget’s electoral impact is the one just noted by Essential Research – that voters were unusually disinterested on this occasion, which does not factor in to Newspoll’s calculations.

Finally, some more on YouGov’s MRP poll, which didn’t get the attention it warranted amid the Sunday polling avalanche. Even more so than the first wave in late January and early February, the second wave from March was distinctive in suggesting that Labor is actually holding up well in Victoria – so much so that the lineball Liberal-held seat of Deakin is rated “toss-up Labor”, while the two seats rated more likely than not to be Liberal gains in the first wave, Chisholm and Deakin and now rated “lean Labor”. Even with five seats in the state now back in the their column, New South Wales continues to be rated the most troublesome state for Labor, being home to all four of the seats likely to be lost.

Since the post-stratification approach leans heavily on demographic variables in estimating seat-level results, I have made an effort to identify the underlying changes in the survey that have yielded the movement from the first wave to the second, which ranges from five points towards Labor (in Bean and Canning) to three points towards the Liberals (in Watson). This has been done through a linear regression analysis that uses the change in Coalition two-party preferred from one wave to the next as the dependent variable, with predictor variables of state/territory, AEC seat classification (inner metropolitan, outer metropolitan, provincial or rural) and four census demographic variables yielded through trial and error.

The demographic variables found to be highly significant (as indicated by the three asterisks) are Index of Relative Socioeconomic Advantage and Disadvantage, which is an Australian Bureau of Statistics measure of general affluence that avoids the pitfalls of income-based measures; the percentage of the population aged 55 and over; the percentage of the 18-plus population with trade certificates; and the percentage who primarily speak a Chinese language at home. The negative coefficients indicate that electorates scoring high on these measures tended to move most strongly to Labor from the first wave to the second. Conversely, the state/territory and AEC region classification variables prove not to be too illuminating. Keep in mind that what’s being measured here is change between wave one and wave two, not swing since 2022 – a potential subject for a future post.