Category: Federal Politics 2022-2025

The voting intention numbers from the latest fortnightly Essential Research survey, which include a 5% undecided component (up one), have Labor down one to 33%, the Coalition steady on 31%, the Greens steady on 14% and One Nation down one to 5%. The pollster’s 2PP+ measure has Labor up a point to 53%, the Coalition down two to 41% and undecided up one to 5% (the missing point being down to rounding).

The Essential Research report also features the pollster’s monthly “leaders favourability ratings”, which invite respondents to rate Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton on scales from one to ten, as distinct from its separate and more conventional measure of approval and disapproval. After a seven point drop for Albanese in the previous survey for “positive” ratings (seven to ten), this survey has him up a point to 41%, while negative ratings (zero to three) are down four to 24% after a six point increase last time, and neutral (four to six) are up two to 30%. Peter Dutton is down three on positive to 23% and up two on negative to 35%, with neutral up a point to 34%.

A monthly question on national direction finds “right direction” sneaking back into the lead over “wrong track” after falling behind last time, being respectively up three to 41% and down four to 39%. Other findings from the poll include 48% support for raising the rate of JobSeeker with 29% opposed, and 52% support for allowing New Zealanders who meet character tests to become Australian citizens after four years of residency with 22% opposed.

Ahead of the budget, the poll finds 41% approving of Jim Chalmers’ performance as Treasurer with disapproval at 27%, although a forced response question on whether respondents were able to name him as Treasurer came down 67-33 against. Respondents were asked if they felt current spending in seven policy areas was too high or too low, which found health and Medicare leading the field by some distance on 56% for too low. Despite recent awareness-raising exercises on various fronts, only 18% felt national security and defence spending was too low while 26% felt it was too high, the latter being the biggest out of the seven.

Respondents were also asked if various categories of tax rate were too low or too high: only “taxes for international corporations” scored a plurality for too low, with super, property and income taxes all scoring a shade below 50% for too high. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1130.

Further recent polling:

• The most recent Resolve Strategic poll had 43% support for raising JobSeeker with 31% opposed; 34% support for cancelling or scaling back stage three tax cuts with 23 opposed; 60% support for increasing the corporate tax rate, with 13% opposed; 58% support for increasing the tax on resource company profits, with 12% opposed; and pluralities in favour of reducing concessions on negative gearing, capital gains, superannuation and franking credits. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday before last from a sample of 1609.

• This week’s Roy Morgan voting intention results have Labor’s two-party lead narrowing to 53.5-46.5, which is apparently in from 56.5-43.5 (though it was 56-44 when I checked a week ago), from primary votes of Labor 36%, Coalition 35.5% and Greens 13% (my record of last week’s results shows Labor at 37%, Coalition 33% and Greens 12%). The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday – as usual, nothing is offered on sample size, survey method of preference method (Kevin Bonham calculates that Labor is a point higher on two-party based on 2022 election flows).

• The Age/Herald reported on Monday that a YouGov poll for the pro-Voice Uluru Dialogue group, which encompassed a vast national sample of 15,060, had 51% in favour of an Indigenous Voice and 34% opposed, with yes leading 52-32 in New South Wales, 53-31 in Victoria, 47-40 in Queensland, 48-37 in Western Australia, 51-34 in South Australia, 50-35 in Tasmania, 64-24 in the Australian Capital Territory and 52-32 in the Northern Territory. Respondents were specifically asked how they would vote if the referendum to be held “on a proposal to establish a Voice to Parliament for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the Constitution” were held today. This turns out to be the poll cited by Rebecca Huntley of The Guardian last week which found support among Indigenous people at 83%, from a substantial sub-sample of 732. However, the poll was conducted well over a month ago, from March 1 to 21.

Starting off with news relevant to the Indigenous Voice referendum, which according to recent reportage in the Age/Herald could be upon us on October 14:

• The latest monthly SEC Newgate Mood of the Nation survey finds support for the Indigenous Voice* at 52%, down a point from February, with opposition up four to 26%. There has also been a three point drop in strong support to 30% and a four point increase in strong opposition to 17%. Support was over 50% in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, and solidly ahead of opposition in Western Australia and Queensland. The poll was conducted April 13 to 18 from a sample of 1200.

• Social researcher Rebecca Huntley writes in The Guardian that recent YouGov research has found only 40% of non-Indigenous respondents believed the Indigenous Voice had majority support among Indigenous people, whereas their polling of 738 Indigenous respondents had support at 83%.

Other news:

• The aforementioned SEC Newgate survey finds the most highly regarded mainland state governments are those of Western Australia and South Australia, followed by the Victorian and newly elected New South Wales governments, with only the Queensland government below water. The federal government has been doing unspectacularly on this measure, which asks respondents to rate them on a six-point scale, but it has steady since the February result while each of the state governments has lost ground.

• Katherine Deves has withdrawn from contention to fill Jim Molan’s New South Wales Liberal Senate vacancy, without Warren Mundine having entered the race, for whom she had previously said she would step aside. In Mundine’s absence, the favoured conservative candidate to fill a conservative vacancy would appear to be Jess Collins, who is variously said to be backed by the centre right and conservative state MP Anthony Roberts. Moderates are likely to back state party president Maria Kovacic, but hostility to her among conservatives raises the possibility that another moderate, former state Bega MP and Transport Minister Andrew Constance, will emerge as a compromise candidate.

• Warren Entsch, who has held Leichhardt in Far North Queensland as a Liberal for all but one term since 1996, has confirmed he will retire at the next election. He earlier retired at the 2007 election, at which the seat was won by Labor, but returned in 2010, and did not follow through on his announcement on the night of the 2019 election that the following term would be his last. James Massola of the Age/Herald reports that Pharmacy Guild president Trent Twomey has “long been discussed as a possible successor”, but that he denies any such plans. Entsch says Twomey would be “great in politics, but he would be better in the Senate”, preselection for the Liberal National Party Senate ticket being set for finalisation at the end of June.

• Anthony Galloway of the Age/Herald reports the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters’ inquiry into the 2022 federal election is looking at recommending increasing to the size of federal parliament as part of its brief to consider the “one-vote one-value” principle, which is presently strained by the Constitution’s guarantee of five seats to Tasmania. Enrolments in these seats would be brought broadly into line with the rest of the country if two further seats were added for each state in the Senate and twice as many seats again added to the House of Representatives, which represents the only permissible increase to the size of parliament given the Constitution’s “nexus” provision, whereby the House must not be more than twice the size of the Senate.

• Broede Carmody of the Age/Herald reports division within the party formerly known as the Liberal Democrats, which can no longer use that name owing to legislation passed before last year’s election, as to whether its new name should be the Libertarians Party, as favoured by New South Wales and Victorian state upper house members John Ruddick and David Limbrick, and the Liberty and Democracy Party, which the party used at the 2007 federal election and which is favoured by former Senator David Leyonhjelm.

* The wording of the question: “The federal government is planning to hold a referendum to update the Australian Constitution and create an Indigenous Voice representing the views of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. This would be a permanent advisory body to the Federal Parliament on issues relevant to Indigenous people but would not have the power to create or approve laws. To what extent do you support or oppose the creation of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament?

Capping off the week with another New South Wales Liberal preselection tangle and three fresh poll results:

UPDATE (Resolve Strategic poll): Make that four, because it seems I missed the latest Resolve Strategic federal voting intention results from the Age/Herald, which are a stinker for the Coalition: Labor is up three to 42%, the Coalition down two to 28%, the Greens down one to 12% and One Nation up one to 6%. This puts Labor solidly north of 60% on two-party by my reckoning, and has caused an observable uptick for them on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, as seen on the sidebar. Peter Dutton’s personal ratings take a particularly striking turn for the worse, with a six point drop in his combined very good and good rating to 26% and a ten point spike on poor and very poor to 54%, the latter encompassing an eleven point increase in very poor to 34%. Anthony Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister is out from 51-22 to 55-21, and he’s up one on approval to 56% and down two on disapproval to 29%. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1609.

• The Liberals have opened nominations for a preselection to fill the party’s vacant New South Wales Senate seat following the death of Jim Molan in January, which will be held in late May. Max Maddison of The Australian reports moderates are dividing between state party president Maria Kovacic and former Bega MP and unsuccessful Gilmore candidate Andrew Constance. In the former’s favour is a view that the position should go to a woman, with Salesforce executive director Gisele Kapterian rated another moderate option if conservative opposition to Kovacic looks decisive. Factional lines are blurred to the extent that Kovacic has support from the centre right, while Constance is supported by Catholic Schools NSW chief executive Dallas McInerney, a conservative who was widely identified as the favourite for the position before he announced he would not run. Constance will reportedly establish an electorate office on the South Coast if successful as a springboard for another bid for Gilmore in 2025. A late potential contender is Katherine Deves, whose conservative positions on transgender issues made national headlines during her unsuccessful run for Warringah last year. However, Deves says she would stand aside if Warren Mundine, who along with Senator Jacinta Price has been the leading Aboriginal campaigner against the Indigenous Voice, responds to conservative entreaties to throw his hat into the ring.

• The Lowy Institute has published results from its third annual Being Chinese in Australia survey, conducted online from a sample of 1200 “Australian citizens, permanent residents or long-term visa holders who self-identified as having Chinese ancestry”, between September 27 to December 10. Among its findings were that 60% expressed confidence in Anthony Albanese to do the right thing in world affairs, compared with 29% for not much or none, while Peter Dutton respectively rated 25% and 56%. The sample was more favourable on this score towards Xi Jinping (42% confident, 47% not confident) and Vladimir Putin (29% and 58%) than the Australian public at large, and less favourable towards Joe Biden (34% and 55%) and Voldymyr Zelenskyy (32% and 51%). Asked the same question in relation to countries, the sample broke favourably by 75-25 for Australia, 61-40 for China, 54-46 for Taiwan, 53-47 for the United States and 51-49 for Japan.

Presumably reflecting the change of government, those rating Australia-China relations as a “critical threat to the vital interests of Australia in the next ten years” fell from 51% to 37%, while concern over military conflict between the United States and China was little changed at 36%. Only 15% professed themselves very concerned about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, compared with 69% for a similar question in another survey targeting the population at large. Twenty-seven per cent said AUKUS would make Australia more safe compared with 26% for less safe, and 52% and 7% respectively for the Australian population at large. Notable changes from last year’s results were an increase in agreement that “democracy is preferable to any other kind of government”, from 34% to 48%, and more favourable results on questions regarding whether Australia was a good place to live, or if respondents had personally been vilified because of their heritage. There was a drop in those saying Australian media reporting about China was too negative from 57% to 42%, with as many deeming if fair and balanced and 13% thinking it too positive.

• Roy Morgan has published results from an SMS survey conducted from 1181 respondents to Friday to Tuesday which found 46% saying they would vote yes to an Indigenous Voice with no at 39%, compared with 53% and 30% when it last conducted the exercise in December. The pollster’s weekly federal voting intention numbers have Labor’s two-party lead steady at 56-44, from primary votes of Labor 37%, Coalition 33% and Greens 12%.

The Age/Herald has results from Resolve Strategic on the Indigenous Voice (hopefully to be followed shortly by voting intention results) finding effectively no change since it last asked in late February and early March, with yes steady at 46%, no down one to 31% and undecided steady on 22% (the total falling short of 100% on this occasion due to rounding). Respondents were also given the question without an undecided option, with the sample breaking 58-42 in favour. The accompanying report says a “rolling track of surveys over the past two months, using a larger sample size to allow a state-by-state breakdown, shows a majority in favour of the Voice in each state as well as nationwide”. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1609.

A second result on the Indigenous Voice emerges from the latest fortnightly Essential Research poll, as reported in The Guardian, showing 60% in favour and 40% opposed. However, “hard no” was up three to 26% and “soft no” was down three to 14%, while hard yes was down one to 32% and soft yes was steady at 27%. Essential had hitherto been tracking traditional personal ratings only for Anthony Albanese (as distinct from a separate series in which respondents are invited to rate the leaders on a scale from zero to ten), but this time there are results for Peter Dutton, who records 36% approval and 44% disapproval. Anthony Albanese is down one on approval to 51% and up one on disapproval to 36%. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1136 – other results, including voting intention, should be available later today.

UPDATE: Essential’s voting intention numbers have both Labor and the Coalition up a point on the primary vote, to 34% and 31% respectively, with the Greens and One Nation steady on 14% and 6%, from numbers which include a 4% undecided component, down one. The pollster’s 2PP+ measure has Labor down one to 52%, the Coalition up one to 43% and undecided down one to 4%. Also featured was a series of questions in which respondents were asked to rate Labor and the Coalition according to eight attributes, which produced an effective tie for “trying to divide the country” but was otherwise consistently more favourable for Labor than the Coalition.