Three federal poll results to relate, two new and another less so. The latest DemosAU poll for Capital Brief is a distinctly weak result for Labor, who are down three points on the February poll to 26%. One Nation are now level with them, despite being down two points. The Coalition is up two to 23% and the Greens are up one to 13%. A seat projection suggests Labor would likely be left scrambling for a minority government with the support of Greens and independents.
Anthony Albanese has a positive rating of 26% (down one), neutral of 28% (down four) and negative of 46% (up five); Angus Taylor debuts at 25%, 47% and 28%; and Pauline Hanson is respectively down one to 34%, up two to 27% and down one to 39%. A set of leader attribute results notably extends to Hanson, whose 59% for “has a vision for Australia”, 58% for “decisive and strong” and 55% for “in control of their party” are substantially more favourable than any result for Albanese or Taylor.
The poll found only 28% rating the United States “a reliable military ally for Australia”, with 47% disagreeing. Twenty-two per cent agreed that the government should “closely support President Trump”, down from 36% in January 2025, with 59% holding that it should “distance itself” from him, up from 45%. Nineteen per cent agreed that “Australia needs a Prime Minister like Donald Trump”, down eight points on January 2025, with 69% disagreeing, up ten. The poll was conducted last Wednesday to Tuesday from a sample of 1439.
The weekly Roy Morgan poll has Labor down half a point to 30%, One Nation up three to 24.5%, the Coalition down one-and-a-half to 22.5% and the Greens up half to 12.5%. Labor’s two-party lead over the Coalition is unchanged at 56-44 on respondent-allocated preferences, and out from 53.5-46.5 to 54-46 based on 2025 election preference flows. The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1512.
Freshwater Strategy has released polling it conducted late last month for “News Australia” (I’m not clear who that is exactly) that included a voting intention result, showing Labor on 32%, the Coalition on 23%, One Nation on 25% and the Greens on 12%, with Labor leading 51-49 on two-party preferred (presumably going off respondent-allocated preferences) and Anthony Albanese leading Angus Taylor 42-36 on preferred prime minister.
The poll also features extensive attitudinal questions, the most instructive of which relate to the Iran conflict. Twenty-six per cent expressed support for “the United States and Israel’s military campaign” with 48% opposed and 21% neither; 40% rated the US and 14% Israel as most responsible for it, compared with 18% for Iran.
Thirty-one were satisfied with, 33% dissatisfied with and 30% neutral about the Albanese government’s handling of the conflict (I invariably wish questions like this would break down the dissatisfied into hawks and doves); 22% said they would support, 59% oppose (45% strongly so) and 15% be neutral about Australian military participation if requested by the US; 28% would support, 47% oppose and 20% be neutral about Australia accepting refugees from the region “if the current conflict leads to a wider humanitarian crisis”.
Other questions find a distinctly poor result for national mood, with 28% rating the country headed in the right direction and 60% the wrong direction, and striking insights into the popularity of One Nation: not only is Pauline Hanson rated favourably by 47% and unfavourably by 37%, and even Barnaby Joyce, who was rated favourably by 35% and unfavourably by 34%, compared with 20% and 47% at a RedBridge Group poll in December. The poll was conducted March 27 to 29 from a sample of 1050.
Also of note:
• I have a guide up for the Farrer by-election, for which the ballot paper draw was conducted on Tuesday. I’ll have a full post for discussion closer to the big day.
• The ANU Press has published its regular post-election tome, this one called Landslide: The 2025 Australian Federal Election, which is available for download in full and for free. Of particular interest is Simon Jackman’s analysis of the four waves of surveying conducted by the Australian National University from December to May, allowing for changing attitudes and voting intentions of the same panel of respondents to be tracked over time. It concludes that a very substantial improvement in Labor support over the period came at the expense of the Greens (particularly among the tertiary-educated) and the Coalition (particularly among those of ethnically diverse backgrounds), but not “others”; that change in voting intention from the Coalition to Labor was closely linked to changing assessments of the two leaders; and that the Voice referendum cost the Coalition more support among yes voters than it did Labor among no voters.
• The Tasmanian Greens have chosen Vanessa Bleyer, an environmental lawyer who ran in Braddon in last year’s state election, to fill the vacancy that will arise in August from Peter Whish-Wilson’s resignation from the Senate. The ABC reports the party membership ballot, which was conducted by the Tasmanian Electoral Commission, resulted in 42.25% for Bleyer; 30.47% for Tabatha Badger, who has held a state seat for Lyons since the March 2024 election; 15.82% for Scott Jordan, an environmental campaigner and frequent election candidate; and 11.45% for Alistair Allan, a former Sea Shepherd captain and candidate for Lyons at last year’s federal election.
Affairs of state:
• I also have a page up for the Victorian state by-election in Nepean, and will likewise have a post up about it a week or so out from polling day. I am impatiently waiting for a new Victorian state poll, of which there have been none in two months, at which point I will unload the huge accumulation of preselection news I have gathered over the past few months.
• Seven months out from the election, the High Court has invalidated Victoria’s entire regime regulating campaign spending and donations, including donation caps, disclosure requirements and public funding. This went well beyond what was sought by the plaintiffs, Paul Hopper and Melissa Lowe, who challenged an exemption to the donation caps after running unsuccessfully as independents in 2022. This allowed for unlimited contributions from the major parties’ entities holding income-producing capital assets, a benefit effectively unobtainable by newer parties and independents. The court unanimously ruled that this made the donation caps an impermissible burden on freedom of political communication (a concept that separately had a run this week through the invalidation of the New South Wales government’s protest laws), in a way that implicated numerous other provisions of the relevant part of the act. As constitutional scholar Anne Twomey relates, the government will be “scrambling to reconstruct and reenact it in a constitutionally valid manner” in time for the election. Further, the ruling may have implications for a challenge to the federal government’s campaign finance reforms being pursued through the High Court by former Senator Rex Patrick and former Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel.
• There has been a late twist in the South Australian election with the discovery of 642 out-of-district votes that were cast in the regional seat of Stuart and not sent on as required for transfer to the relevant electorates’ vote-counting centres. This is particularly noteworthy for the neighbouring seat of Narungga, which Chantelle Thomas of One Nation won by 58 votes, a number exceeded by the 81 votes (77 cast on election day, four during early voting) that are now known to have been overlooked. These votes will be examined today to see if they would have changed the result, which would have to be rated highly unlikely. But as Antony Green relates, the official vote tally cannot be changed at this point as the result has been declared and the writ returned: any remedial action, either to the tally or the actual outcome, would require a ruling of the Court of Disputed Returns. The Electoral Commission will assuredly refer the matter to the court if the votes are found to favour the Liberal candidate so overwhelmingly as to overturn the margin, that being its only recourse. However, Antony Green notes that the Liberal Party “already has concerns about rejected postal votes”, and may pursue its own court action come what may. The other aspect of the count to be determined is finalising the result for the Legislative Council, which is still over a week away.
