Category: Federal Election 2025

On the cusp of interruptions to the campaign arising from Easter and Anzac Day, a flurry of new poll results:

• The Freshwater Strategy poll for the Financial Review has been the most favourable series for the Coalition throughout the past term, and remains so with a new result recording a tie on two-party preferred. The change from 51-49 in the Coalition’s favour in the post-budget poll is due to either rounding or respondent-allocated preferences, as the primary votes are entirely unchanged at Labor 32%, Coalition 39% and Greens 12%. There is also little movement on the leaders’ ratings, with both down a point on approval and steady on disapproval, leaving Anthony Albanese at 37% and 48% and Peter Dutton at 36% and 47%. Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister is nonetheless out from 46-45 to 46-41. I don’t normally pay much attention to the poll’s “management of voter priorities” results, but it may be notable that Labor now leads 35% to 31% as the best party to handle housing compared with a 33% to 30% deficit last time. The poll was conducted Monday to Wednesday from a sample of 1062.

• The News Corp papers report a new MRP poll by RedBridge Group and Accent Research, conducted from February 3 to April 1 from a sample of 9953, projects a minimum 66 seats for Labor, 55 for the Coalition and 15 for minor parties and independents, with 14 seats too close to call. Chisholm, Aston and Dobell are rated as Coalition gains from Labor, with Sturt and Bass going the other way. As is sometimes the case with MRP polling, there are some unorthodox projections with respect to minor parties and independents, with the Liberals favoured to gain Kooyong from Monique Ryan and Brisbane from the Greens, but lose Cowper, Calare and Monash to various stripes of independent. The seats rated too close to call are Labor-held Robertson, Reid, Shortland, Bennelong, Gilmore, Paterson, Bruce, Hawke, McEwen and Lingiari, Liberal-held Hughes and Casey, teal-held Goldstein, and the new seat of Bullwinkel.

• The Daily Mail reports on an Ipsos poll that offers nothing on voting intention, but finds Anthony Albanese on 35% approval and 39% disapproval, Peter Dutton with distinctly poor ratings of 27% approval and 47% disapproval, and Albanese leading 44-30 on preferred prime minister. Forty-seven per cent expected Labor to win, compared with 26% for the Coalition, but 35% felt the country was headed on the right track compared with 51% for the wrong track. No field work dates are provided, but the sample was 2006.

• The Courier-Mail reports polling conducted for Australian Energy Producers by JWS Research shows the Greens set to lose all three of their seats in Brisbane, by an eyebrow-raising margin in the case of Ryan, where incumbent Elizabeth Watson-Brown is credited with just 13% of the primary vote. The LNP candidate is on 45% and leads second-placed Labor 57-43 on two-party preferred. Things presumably aren’t much better for Stephen Bates in Brisbane, where Labor is credited with a 51-49 two-party lead from primary votes of 42% for the LNP and 29% for Labor. The report says Labor leads the LNP 51-49 in Griffith in scenarios where Greens member Max Chandler-Mather drops out and the LNP leads him 53-47 where Labor does, but the primary votes that would allow for the likelihood of the respective scenarios to be evaluated are not provided. We are told the sample for the Ryan poll was 2547, but I suspect this was for the three seats in total.

• The Lowy Institute has published some preview results of its annual survey of attitudes to foreign policy, finding 41% of the view that Anthony Albanese would be more competent at handling foreign policy compared with 29% for Peter Dutton. Dutton is at 35% to Albanese’s 34% for handling Donald Trump, but Albanese leads 45% to 25% for handling Xi Jinping. There was a 64-36 break against the proposition that the United States can be trusted to act responsibly in the world, compared with 56-44 in favour last year. Eighty per cent nonetheless hold that the relationship is very or fairly important to Australia’s security, down only three points. The survey was conducted March 3 to 16 from a sample of 2117.

The second of three leaders’ debate will be hosted by the ABC from 8pm this evening, to be moderated by David Speers. It was also announced on Monday that the third will be held on Sunday, April 27, a week out from polling day, to be conducted by the Seven Network and moderated by Mark Riley. On the polling front, Nine Newspapers has further results from the Resolve Strategic poll showing Labor’s policies favoured over the Coalition’s on tax (40% to 34%) and housing (40% to 27%) (UPDATE: This is actually a new survey of 801 respondents, conducted “in the days after” the weekend poll). There is also a characteristically thorough review of the polling over the past few months by Macquarie University academic Murray Goot at Inside Story.

I’m hoping to do a bit more over the coming two-and-a-half weeks by way of probing into the innards of recent poll results, starting by focusing on regional breakdowns from RedBridge Group’s four federal polls for this year, which helpfully use the same classifications employed by the Australian Electoral Commission. The table below shows combined party vote shares for these four regions at the 2022 election, together with their deviation from the national result, then repeats the exercise for the four RedBridge polls published so far this year, followed by a measure of how much these relativities have changed. So for example, the Coalition is up two points in “provincial”, but this translates to no change in the third table because it’s also up two points overall.

The results suggest Labor’s biggest improvement has come from the “rural” category, which might be thought unhelpful for them, raising the spectre of unproductive improvements in safe conservative seats. In point of fact though, the AEC employs the term loosely enough to encompass a number of important seats: Gilmore, Hunter, Eden-Monaro, Lingiari, Leichhardt, Lyons and McEwen. To the extent that outer metropolitan might nonetheless be thought most strategically important, the small-sample results from the four polls individually offer some suggestion that it is here Labor’s improvement has been strongest, despite Peter Dutton’s best efforts: Labor’s successive two-party preferred results have been 45%, 53%, 53% and 55%, whereas inner metropolitan and provincial have recorded little change.

More evidence of a tide to Labor from Nine Newspapers’ Resolve Strategic poll, which has been (at least since the end of 2023) one of the strongest series for the Coalition, but now credits Labor with a two-party lead of 53.5-46.5, compared with 50-50 in the post-budget poll and 55-45 to the Coalition with a distinctly poor result for Labor in the mid-February poll. Labor is up two points on the primary vote to 31% (amounting to a six-point increase from the mid-February poll), while the Coalition is down three to 34% (five since mid-February), the Greens are steady on 13%, and One Nation are down one to 8%. Independents are up three to 12% — presumably this is based on a generic question that will be superseded in coming Resolve Strategic polls tailored to the candidates running in the respondent’s electorate, causing this number to fall.

Anthony Albanese is now in net positive territory on his personal ratings, his combined good and very good result up six to 45% (an 11-point improvement since mid-February), while poor plus very poor is down six to 43% (a 13-point improvement). Peter Dutton is down three to 34% and up six to 53% (an 13-point deterioration since mid-February on both counts). Anthony Albanese now leads 46-30 on preferred prime minister, out from 42-33 last time. The poll also finds 33% saying their view of Donald Trump has made them less likely to vote Coalition, compared with 14% for more likely, with respective numbers of 21% and 22% for Labor. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Saturday from a sample of 1642.

There is also the regular weekly Roy Morgan poll, which has Labor leading 54.5-45.5 on two-party preferred, out from 53.5-46.5, which reflects improvement for Labor on respondent-allocated preferences rather than primary votes: Labor is down half to 32%, the Coalition is up half to 33.5%, the Greens are up one to 14.5% and One Nation is steady at 6%. The two-party measure based on previous election preference flows also has Labor leading 54.5-45.5, which is unchanged on last week. The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1708.

Resolve Strategic’s breakdowns show this poll to be distinctive for a strong result for Labor among men, at 34% on the primary vote compared with 29% among women. Breakdowns for the three largest states show Labor up five in Queensland and the Coalition down six in New South Wales, without correspondingly large movement for the other major party. All of which has now been incorporated in the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, giving Anthony Albanese’s personal ratings a substantial lift without adding anything noticeable to voting intention, on which Labor’s two-party vote shot up 0.7% with the addition of last night’s Newspoll. Essential Research, which a been a little stickier than other pollsters over the last month or so, should be along overnight.

UPDATE (Essential Research): Essential Research has broken out of its stasis, with Labor now holding a lead of 50% (up two) to 45% (down two) on the 2PP+ measure, which leaves room for a 5% undecided component. On the primary vote, which also includes a 5% undecided component, Labor is up one to 31%, the Coalition is down two to 32%, and the Greens are up a point to 13%. The pollster has followed its own course with Anthony Albanese’s personal ratings, which surged in January and have been fairly stable since: the latest result has him steady on 44% approval and up one on disapproval to 47%. Peter Dutton is down two on approval to 39% and up one on disapproval to 48%. The pollster doesn’t track preferred prime minister, but this result includes head-to-head questions on handling key issues, which find Albanese leading Dutton 34% to 28% on his presumed weak point of addressing the cost of living, and 30% to 20% on Dutton’s presumed strength of keeping Australians safe. Both leaders were favoured by 29% for responding to the Trump administration’s tariffs.

The foregoing is based on a report in The Guardian — a full report will be along later today. The poll had a sample of 2142 and was likely conducted Wednesday to Monday.

UPDATE 2: Full Essential Research report here. The Coalition continues to do better than Labor on firmness of voting intention. The voting intention numbers have increased Labor’s two-party lead on BludgerTrack from 51.6-48.4 to 51.9-48.1, and it now shows swings (however slight) to Labor in four of the five states being tracked, with the inevitable exception of Victoria.

A few days short of the half-way mark, both parties will today conduct what are quaintly known as campaign launches, which in effect are set pieces for Anthony Albanese to announce an expanded home deposit guarantee and Peter Dutton to promise a one-off income tax offset. Hopefully there will be a poll or two along shortly – consecutive Newspolls over the previous two weeks suggest one of those might be along late afternoon, but beyond that I can offer no further insight.

The latest:

• Labor’s member for Macnamara, Josh Burns, has announced his how-to-vote card will not direct preferences, so as not to put the Greens ahead of the Liberals as normal. Mohammad Alfares of The Australian reports “some Labor members” have related “internal rumblings about replicating Mr Burns’ move nationwide”. Macnamara aside, the seats where it could realistically make a difference are limited to the three held by the Greens in Brisbane.

• With suggestions former Victorian state Liberal leader John Pesutto may be driven to bankruptcy and from parliament over his defamation payout to party colleague Moira Deeming, John Ferguson of The Australian reports “powerbrokers” are considering Amelia Hamer as a potential candidate for a Hawthorn by-election if she is unsuccessful in recovering Kooyong from Monique Ryan.

• Alexi Demetriadi of The Australian reports Labor is more concerned about the south-western Sydney seat of Werriwa, held by Anne Stanley on a margin of 5.2%, than Parramatta, held by Andrew Charlton on 3.6%.

Yesterday marked the declaration of nominations, with ballot paper draws conducted and candidates lists published. The Poll Bludger election guide has duly been updated with full candidate lists for both House and Senate. Labor and the Greens are as usual fielding candidates in all seats, while the Coalition parties have 157 candidates between them — of the seven three-cornered contest, probably only the new Western Australian seat of Bullwinkel is of interest. The total number of lower house candidates is down from 1203 to 1126, or 7.96 candidates per seat to 7.51. Leading the pack are Calwell and Riverina with 13 each, which in the former case could deepen an already complex situation with a high informal vote.

At the other end of the scale, Fenner, Bean, Perth and Maribyrnong will have to make do with four. A contributor in the first two cases is that only the three Australian Capital Territory seats are spared One Nation candidates. Whereas the United Australia Party had a full complement in 2022, Trumpet of Patriots has only 100 candidates, followed by Family First on 92, Libertarians on 46 and Legalise Cannabis on 42. The 2022 result seems to have encouraged independents, who are up in number from 98 to 132.

The pace of decline in Senate nominations has quickened as aspirants acclimatise to the fact that preference harvesting is no longer a thing, providing relief to both voters and the Australian Electoral Commission in terms of the size of the ballot papers. The total number of candidates has fallen progressively from 458 in 2019 to 421 in 2022 to 330 in 2025, while the total number of groups across all states and territories is down from 151 in 2022 to 118. The Australian Electoral Commission has also published final enrolment statistics as of the close of the roll on Monday. There are 18,098,797 voters on the roll, a 5.1% increase on the 17,213,433 enrolled in 2022, which was in turn a 4.8% increase on 2019.

Polling latest:

• The News Corp papers today carry the third wave of the RedBridge Group-Accent Research marginal seat tracking poll, targeting 20 seats that had an average Labor two-party vote of 51.0% in 2022, as adjusted for redistributions. As such, its Labor lead of 52.5-47.5 might be considered the government’s most encouraging result of the campaign so far, comparing with Coalition leads of 52-48 in the February 4-11 wave and 50.5-49.5 from February 20-25. The Coalition primary vote has progressively sunk from 43% to 41% to 36%, but the dividend has gone almost entirely to “others” — Labor scored 33% in the first wave, 34% in the second and 35% in this one, while the Greens have been steady on 12% throughout. Anthony Albanese’s net approval rating has progressed from minus 16 to minus 11 to minus 8, while Peter Dutton has gone from minus 11 to minus 17 (or so I infer — the result published for the second poll combined the first two waves) to minus 16. One bright spot for the Coalition is that their supporters continue to register greater firmness in their intention, with 38% rating themselves merely soft or leaning compared with 57% for Labor. Albanese also had only 18% viewing his handling of the Trump administration’s tariffs favourably, compared with 40% for unfavourably. The poll was conducted last Friday to Wednesday from a sample of 1003.

• The News Corp papers report three sets of claims regarding internal polling in Dickson, with the Coalition saying their own polling by Freshwater Strategy has Peter Dutton leading Labor’s Ali France 57-43; Climate 200 offering uComms polling showing France leading 51.7-48.3; and Labor polling “understood” to have it at 50-50. Also “understood” is that Dutton’s campaign has spent $40,000 on advertising attacking Climate 200-backed independent Ellie Smith. Further, Samantha Maiden of news.com.au provides, in rather more detail, a separate uComms poll, this one for the Queensland Conservation Council, showing Labor leading 52-48, with primary votes of 37.6% for Dutton, 24.2% for France, 12.0% for Smith, 10.9% for the Greens, 4.6% for others and 10.8% undecided. The poll was freshly conducted on Wednesday and Thursday from a sample of 854.

• The Australian reports polling conducted for Climate 200 has teal independent Sue Chapman with a 51-49 lead over Liberal candidate Ben Small in the regional Western Australian seat of Forrest, where Liberal incumbent Nola Marino is retiring. The primary vote question recorded 34% support for Small and 20% for Chapman along with an unspecified undecided component, of which 27% favoured Chapman and 18% Small when prompted with a follow-up question. An unidentified Liberal MP is quoted saying the party was “not alarmed yet, but we’re anxious”.

• Local news outlet Pulse Tasmania reports a uComms poll for the Australian Forest Products Association shows a tight race in the key Tasmanian seat of Lyons, with Labor candidate Rebecca White leading 50.9-49.1 over Liberal candidate Susie Bowers. The primary votes are Labor 27.2%, Liberal 29.5%, Greens 14.6%, Jacqui Lambie Network 5.8% and One Nation 4.1%, with 13.1% undecided.

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.