Category: Federal Politics 2022-2025

Resolve Strategic: Labor 36, Coalition 34, Greens 12 (open thread)

Labor still well ahead on voting intention, but Resolve Strategic records prime ministerial approval in net negative territory and an ongoing decline in support for an Indigenous Voice.

Courtesy of the Age/Herald, the latest monthly federal voting intention numbers from Resolve Strategic have with Labor down a point to 36%, the Coalition up one to 34%, the Greens up one to 12% and One Nation steady on 5%. As ever, no two-party preferred result is provided, but I make it to be 55-45 to Labor based on 2022 election preferences compared with about 55.5-44.5 last time.

As with last week’s Newspoll, the poll gives Anthony Albanese his first net negative personal rating as prime minister, with approval down four to 40% and disapproval up five to 47%. Peter Dutton is up four to 35% and down one to 44%, with Albanese retaining a 43-28 lead as preferred prime minister, in from 46-25.

The worst news for the government comes once again from the Indigenous Voice, with a forced response question now putting no ahead 57-43, out from 54-46 a month ago. A question allowing for an uncommitted response has no leading 49% to 35%. Combining this month’s results with last month’s to get reasonable sub-samples, no leads 56-44 in New South Wales, 51-49 in Victoria, 61-39 in Queensland and Western Australia and 59-41 in South Australia, with yes leading only in Tasmania by 56-44 off a particularly small sample.

The poll was conducted Wednesday to Saturday from a sample of 1604.

Weekend miscellany: Voice and Queensland polls, Liberal Senate preselections (open thread)

Bad news for the Indigenous Voice and Queensland Labor from RedBridge Group, and three doses of Liberal Senate preselection news, including Marise Payne’s looming casual vacancy.

We should be due for the monthly Resolve Strategic poll next week, followed shortly by a New South Wales state result, and there’s no telling when something might pop up on the Indigenous Voice front. For the time being, there is the following news to relate:

• Two reports on RedBridge Group polls in the News Corp papers today, one showing the Indigenous Voice headed for a 61-39 defeat nationally after the exclusion of 15% persistently undecided, the other putting the LNP ahead 55-45 on state voting intention in Queensland. Primary votes in the latter case were LNP 41%, Labor 26% and Greens 14% (UPDATE: Further detail from the ABC). The former poll was conducted at some point following Anthony Albanese’s announcement of the October 14 date the Thursday before last, the latter was conducted August 26 to September 6 from a sample of 2012.

• New South Wales Liberal Senator Marise Payne has announced she will retire from parliament on September 30. Two names are dominating speculation about the vacancy: Nyunggai Warren Mundine, presently enjoying an elevated profile as a public face of the Indigenous Voice no campaign, and Andrew Constance, former state government minister and narrowly unsuccessful candidate for Gilmore at the May 2022 election. Liberal sources said Mundine would enjoy strong support from conservatives and Alex Hawke’s centre right, and would “even peel off moderate voices”. The Australian further reports Catholic Schools NSW chief executive Dallas McInerney could again be in a preselection mix, although some doubted he was “a realistic candidate, particularly given his affiliation to the ‘imploded’ Perrottet/Tudehope right faction”. Further possibilities named by the Sydney Morning Herald are “former RSL head James Brown and Jess Collins”.

• Liberal sources cited by Alexi Demetriadi of The Australian say it is now considered unlikely that Scott Morrison will vacate his seat of Cook before the next election. Cook is a notable exclusion from the list of seats where the New South Wales Liberals are proceeding to preselection, together with Mackellar, where it is speculated that the way is being left open for an attempted comeback by Jason Falinski. An imminent preselection would present an obstacle to Falinksi given his present role as state party president.

• Matthew Denholm of The Australian reports Clarence mayor Brendan Blomeley and Hobart alderman Simon Behrakis will seek preselection for the two winnable positions on the Tasmanian Liberal Senate ticket. This involves challenging incumbents Richard Colbeck and Claire Chandler, though Behrakis “is understood to be content with the No. 3 spot, should party preselectors prefer to favour the two incumbents”. Both prospective challengers are conservatives, but Behrakis is associated with Senator Jonathan Duniam and Blomeley with rival powerbroker Eric Abetz. The issue will be decided by the party’s 67-member preselection committee on November 25.

• Shane Wright of the Age/Herald made the case last week for an enlarged parliament, a subject that appears likely to be addressed when the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters completes its two-stage inquiry into the 2022 election. A motion carried at Labor’s recent national conference calling for the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory to go from two Senators to six prompted opposition Senate leader Simon Birmingham to call for the government to rule out changes to the parliament or electoral system before the next election.

Essential Research 2PP+: Labor 51, Coalition 43 (open thread)

Three new federal voting intention results together with Newspoll produce Labor leads of around 53-47 to 54-46.

Federal voting intention numbers from the latest fortnightly Essential Research poll find both parties down on the primary vote, Labor by two points to 31% and the Coalition down one to 32%, with the Greens up one to 15%, One Nation up two to 7% and undecided steady at 6%. Labor’s lead on the 2PP+ measure is unchanged at 51% to 43%, with the remaining 6% undecided. The poll also features monthly leadership ratings which give Anthony Albanese his weakest numbers since the election, down two on approval to 46% and up two on disapproval to 43%, while Peter Dutton is up one on approval to 38% and steady on disapproval at 43%.

The poll records the no lead on the Indigenous Voice out from 47-43 to 48-42, which is at least a slower rate of decline for yes than other polls of late. Yes includes 30% for hard yes and 12% for soft, with no respectively at 41% and 7%. Small-sample state breakdowns have yes leading 45-44 in New South Wales, and trailing 44-43 in Victoria, 58-35 in Queensland, 58-34 in Western Australia and 45-37 in South Australia. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1151.

Two further sets of voting intention were released yesterday, one being the weekly Roy Morgan, which has Labor leading 53-47 on two-party preferred, in from 53.5-46.5 last week. Labor must have done quite a bit better on respondent-allocated preferences than last week, as they are down one-and-a-half on the primary vote 33.5% with the Coalition up two-and-a-half to 37.5% and the Greens down half to 13%. The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1404.

The other is from RedBridge Group, which had Labor leading 54.1-45.9 on two-party preferred from primary votes of Labor 37%, Coalition 36% and Greens 13%. There is no indication of sample size of field work period that I’m aware, but an accompanying graphic offers breakdowns by gender, age, AEC location category, education, income and language (English or non-English). (UPDATE: Full report here. The poll was conducted Sunday and Monday from a sample of 1001.)

Newspoll: 53-47 to Labor (open thread)

The first Newspoll conducted by Pyxis Polling & Insights provides the government with bad news on multiple fronts, despite still being ahead on voting intention.

The Australian reports the first Newspoll conducted by Pyxis Polling & Insights gives Labor its weakest result since the election, with a two-party preferred lead of 53-47 comparing with 55-45 in the final YouGov-conducted Newspoll six weeks ago. The Coalition also leads for the first time on the primary vote, up three to 37% with Labor down one to 35%. The Greens are up a point to 13%, their equal best result for the term, with One Nation steady on 7% and all others down three to 8%.

Anthony Albanese also records net negative personal ratings for the first time as Prime Minister, with approval down six to 46% and disapproval up six to 47%. Peter Dutton is respectively up two to 38% and steady at 49%, with Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister narrowing from 54-29 to 50-31. The news for the government is particularly bleak with respect to the Indigenous Voice, on which no records a lead of 53-38.

There is a further report in The Australian on the new polling arrangements, which says “Newspoll will continue to use the same set of questions it has asked since 1985, and the same methodology Dr (Campbell) White and Mr (Simon) Levy designed after the 2019 election while at YouGov”. However, there would seem to be differences in that the field work period is Monday to Friday and the sample size 1200, whereas previously surveys were conducted from Wednesday to Saturday and the sample was typically 1500 to 1600.

UPDATE: The Australian Polling Council-mandated methodology statement for the new poll is here. It shows a smaller gap than previously between the actual and effective sample size (the final YouGov Newspoll having been fairly typical in this respect), such that the latter is much the same as before and the effective margin of error little changed (indeed slightly lower) at a bit over 3%. Casey Briggs of the ABC notes this may reflect a simpler weighting frame than the one used previously, which encompassed income and AEC region (inner metropolitan, outer metropolitan, provincial and rural) as well as age, gender, education and location (the specifics of the latter are undisclosed).

Indigenous Voice referendum: October 14

A mixed bag of new poll results as the starter’s gun fires on the Indigenous Voice referendum.

To the surprise of nobody, the Prime Minister announced yesterday that the Indigenous Voice referendum would be held on October 14. The Australian Electoral Commission has a referendum timetable which, owing to the writ not having yet been issued, is incomplete, but it lays out that early voting will begin on October 2 in jurisdictions that will not mark my birthday with a public holiday and on October 3 in those that will. The Guardian has a poll tracker of such quality as to preclude any need for me to follow suit – but not so good that it yet includes any of the following, each of which have emerged over the past few days:

• SECNewgate’s latest Mood of the Nation survey finds no leading 54% to 46% nationally. However, when asked to rate their likelihood of voting on a ten-point scale, yes voters came in at an average of 8.3 compared with only 5.4 for no voters. Small-sample state breakdowns had yes ahead 51-49 in Victoria, and trailing 52-48 in New South Wales, 63-37 in both Queensland and Western Australia and 54-46 in South Australia.

• Mediaweek reports a poll of 1000 respondents conducted earlier this month by research consultancy Pollinate finds 31% intending to vote yes and 39% for no, leaving 30% unsure. Sixty-eight per cent expected the proposal to be defeated.

• The Australia Institute has a poll of 605 South Australian respondents, which it conducted between August 1 and 7 through Dynata’s survey panel with results weighted by age and gender, which credited yes with a lead of 52-48. However, the breakdown of only 49-36 in favour of no among Coalition voters looks rather optimistic from a yes campaign perspective.

Pollster’s progress (open thread)

A summary of the form of the four regular federal voting intention poll series since the last election.

Newspoll’s transition period from YouGov to Pyxis Polling is not yet complete, leaving us without a new set of numbers in over five weeks; we are in an off week for the fortnightly Essential Research series; the monthly Resolve Strategic was last with us a fortnight ago; and while Roy Morgan’s two-party numbers should be with us today, I don’t think we get the primary votes until later, and it’s past time for a new post already. So in the absence of new poll results, let’s reheat some old ones, in the shape of the following LOESS trends from the four regular pollsters since the last election, on two-party preferred and the Labor, Coalition and Greens primary vote. Note that the two-party preferred data is based on my own calculation using previous election preference flows, and not whatever the pollster uses for its headline.

Notably:

• Resolve Strategic has been Labor’s best series throughout the term, and to the extent that it appears that may be starting to change, it’s largely down to their most recent result. The series has consistently been higher for Labor and lower for the Coalition than Newspoll, but tracked very closely for the Greens.

• Essential Research has been distinctive in its high ratings for the Greens, who have been tracking at about 14% throughout this year even before excluding the pollster’s undecided component of 5% to 6%.

• Roy Morgan’s Coalition vote took a dive late last year that didn’t register anywhere else, leading me to suspect a methodological change. It’s since been about equal with Newspoll and Essential on two-party (at least until very recently, which may prove an anomaly) and at the high end for all three on the primary vote, which is to say it’s been low for “others”. I can’t be entirely sure about that though, because the numbers in its primary votes table consistently sum to a few points north of 100% (UPDATE: It’s pointed out to me that the table is missing a column for One Nation, whose support you can estimate as the balance of the other columns, not counting the uncommitted one).

Ticked off and very cross

A hitherto little-noticed detail of referendum ballot paper formality finds the no campaign for the Indigenous Voice in a lather.

As Anthony Albanese prepares for a referendum date announcement on Wednesday, universally expected to be for October 14, the no campaign has been on the rampage over the Australian Electoral Commission’s long-established practice of counting ticks on referendum ballots as formal yes votes while treating crosses as informal. The AEC explained in a media release yesterday that its determinations on formality are guided by “legal advice from the Australian Government Solicitor, provided on multiple occasions during the previous three decades”. Such advice must split the difference between two provisions of the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act: section 24, which has been on the books since 1965 and requires that voting be conducted by writing yes or no in the box provided, and section 93(8), a creation of the Hawke government in 1984 providing that “effect shall be given to a ballot paper of a voter according to the voter’s intention, so far as that intention is clear” (UPDATE: Someone who would know notes in comments that the provision had actually existed since 1906) (historian Andre Brett offers a useful summation of the evolution of the act).

The closest the finer points of the matter have come to being tested in court was in the case of Benwell v Gray, in which monarchists sought a Federal Court injunction to block the AEC’s guidance to those at the coal face a few days out from the 1999 republic referendum. This was dismissed on the grounds that the issue at hand lacked an urgency commensurate with the relief sought. However, the judge explicitly rejected the applicant’s contention that section 24 demanded that section 93(8) be limited to “an incompletely realised intention to write the words ‘YES’ or ‘NO’”. This being so, it is plainly appropriate for the AEC to allow markings other than yes or no, and to be guided beyond that point by its legal advice. Even so, Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers undoubtedly regrets not having batted the issue of savings provisions away when posed a seemingly innocent question on the subject on Thursday.

Whatever the merits of arguments about savings provisions, this has prompted some irresponsible nonsense from the rightward end of the media, and doubtless much worse on social media. Peter Dutton has joined in to the extent of telling 2GB that the infinitesimal number of votes involved amounts to a “very, very strong advantage to the Yes case”, while Liberal deputy Sussan Ley deflected a question about the Coalition’s past failure to act on the matter by charging the current government with responsibility for leaning on the AEC.

Weekend miscellany: The case of the disappearing preselection challenges (open thread)

Sussan Ley off the hook in Farrer, and Jane Hume thinks better of a bid for promotion on the Victorian Liberal Senate ticket.

Aside from developments in the Indigenous Voice referendum, covered in the post above, there are two developments to relate on the federal preselection front:

• Samantha Maiden at news.com.au reports Liberal deputy leader Sussan Ley will be spared a preselection challenge in her seat of Farrer after her challenger, Jean Haynes, was rejected by the party’s nomination review committee and suspended from the party for 90 days. The reasons behind this are unclear, but it comes after “a tit for tat round of expulsion motions in the Deniliquin branch of the party” that “included attempts to expel a group of party veterans who are loyal supporters of Sussan Ley, some of whom are women in the 70s and 80s who have given up to 50 years of service to the party”. Christian Ellis, who sought to challenge Ley’s preselection before the last election, has been expelled for bringing the party into disrepute shortly after pleading guilty to a firearm charge, with no conviction recorded. Contrary to other reports, Maiden relates that Ley “was expected to trounce challenger Haynes with over 70 per cent of the vote”.

• Rachel Baxendale of The Australian reports that Victorian Liberal Senator Jane Hume has abandoned a short-lived bid to elevate herself from second to first place on the Coalition ticket at the next election, amid conservative threats of retaliation by backing Greg Mirabella to take second position, potentially reducing Hume to third. Mirabella has recently relinquished his position as the party’s state president to pursue the third position, from which he unsuccessfully sought re-election last year. As Paul Sakkal of The Age described it, Hume’s move “pits her moderate wing against the Victorian Right faction led by figures including Paterson and lower house MP Michael Sukkar”. Hume owed her second position at the 2019 election to intervention by Scott Morrison that saw off conservative-backed challenger Karina Okotel.

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