Federal polls: YouGov, DemosAU and Roy Morgan (open thread)

A new federal polling entrant produces results well in line with the general trend, while Roy Morgan finds Labor with its nose back in front.

Two new federal poll results to relate:

• New-ish polling outfit DemosAU has published what I believe to be its first national federal voting intention result, recording a 50-50 split on two-party preferred from primary votes of Labor 32%, Coalition 38%, Greens 12% and One Nation 7%. The full report for the poll, which was conducted last Tuesday to Thursday from a sample of 1038, features breakdowns by gender, age, education, residential tenure and personal income.

• The weekly Roy Morgan poll has Labor recovering a 51-49 lead on the headline two-party measure, reversing last week’s result, from primary votes of Labor 31.5% (up two-and-a-half), Coalition 37% (down two), Greens 12.5% (down one) and One Nation 6.5% (steady). The two-party measure based on preference flows from 2022 has Labor leading 51.5-48.5, after a dead heat last time. The poll was conducted Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1663.

UPDATE (YouGov): And now a third. YouGov, which has typically reported on Fridays, has its first federal poll since September, showing a dead heat on two-party preferred, unchanged on last time. The primary votes are Labor 30% (steady), Coalition 38% (down one), Greens 13% (down one) and One Nation 9% (up two). Anthony Albanese is steady at 36% approval and down two on disapproval to 56%, while Peter Dutton is steady at 40% and down two to 48%. Albanese holds an unchanged 42-39 lead as preferred prime minister. The poll was conducted last Friday to Thursday from a sample of 1515.

Too much money business

A deep dive into campaign finance reform legislation, federally and in South Australia.

The federal government’s proposed changes to campaign finance laws, to take effect in 2026, passed through the House of Representatives on Wednesday with the support of the Coalition and the opposition of the cross-bench. It will shortly come before the Senate, where the Coalition plans to move amendments to increase proposed spending caps and disclosure thresholds. Katina Curtis of The West Australian reports Labor maintains suspicions that the Coalition “might string talks along but backflip at the last minute for pure politics”, and is duly “keeping its options open” for a late deal with the cross-bench. In the absence of such a deal, Curtis further notes that amendments to the regime will assuredly feature in post-election horse trading in the event of a hung parliament.

That the 227-page bill looks set to proceed swiftly to enactment without a parliamentary inquiry has drawn criticism from constitutional law expert Anne Twomey and former NSW Supreme Court judge Anthony Whealy, the former concluding that the High Court will likely “end up doing the job instead”. At issue is the doctrine of implied constitutional freedom of political communication, by which the court disallowed the Hawke-Keating government’s attempt to ban political advertising in the electronic media, and more recently caps on third party spending in New South Wales. Twomey perceives two potential difficulties: that the spending caps are “so high that it undoes their aim”, and would make it difficult to establish that the laws serve a legitimate purpose justifying limitations on political communication; and that the bill’s provisions, as noted below, tend to favour parties over independents and incumbents over challengers.

The main provisions of the bill are as follows:

• What Graeme Orr of the University of Queensland describes as “the headline the government wants us to focus on” is that federal electoral donations will be capped at $20,000 per donor per year, increasing to $40,000 in election years, with individual donors allowed to donate no more than $640,000 in total. However, this is calculated at the level of the state or territory branch, such that an enterprising donor could contribute $720,000 to a party over a three-year term, plus extra for by-election campaigns. Joo-Cheong Tham of the University of Melbourne law schools notes loopholes include exemptions for union affiliation fees to Labor (uncapped, unlike similar laws in New South Wales) – and, “most significantly”, a failure to apply to donations made by candidates to their parties, which would seemingly amount to ongoing carte blanche for Clive Palmer.

• Caps on spending set at $90 million for general party spending and $800,000 for individual electorate campaigns. As proof against a legal challenge, this would barely clip Clive Palmer’s wings: his party spent $83 million on its 2019 campaign onslaught, and $70 million in 2022. The latter is an issue for the teals, whose campaign spends in some cases exceeded $2 million, which explains the Coalition’s enthusiasm for the package. Katina Curtis of The West Australian notes that spending caps are fair enough to the extent that “limiting donations without limiting spending heavily advantages people who have their own wealth and don’t have to pass the hat around”. However, the two distinct caps mean that parties trying to see off independents will be able to match their local campaign spend, and trump it by targeting the electorate with further spending that doesn’t mention their candidate, or mentions them alongside Senate candidates. Caps can also encourage third-party spending, which has reached its apotheosis with the “super PACs” that dominate election campaigning in the United States.

• The threshold for public disclosure of donations, which the Howard government hiked from $1500 to an indexed $10,000, will be cut from $16,900 to $1000. The Libeals are continuing to grumble about this, arguing that small businesses will feel too intimidated to donate to them. The bill will also dispense with the notoriously lax requirement that disclosures be made only twice yearly, henceforth to be monthly, then weekly during the campaign period, then daily in the week before and after election day.

• The public funding that currently allocates $3.35 per vote to candidates who exceed 4% will have the rate increased to $5. There will further be administrative funding amounting to $30,000 per lower house member and $15,000 per Senator, advantaging incumbents over challengers.

Meanwhile, the South Australian government last week introduced legislation to ban nearly all political donations and fill the gap with public funding, a move that has attracted the interest of The Economist. It may also yet attract the interest of the High Court, with Peter Malinauskas conceding the “challenging” task of drafting the legislation around the objections that might arise.

Weekend miscellany: economy, nuclear and abortion polling, preselection latest (open thread)

More signs that economic sentiment may have turned the corner; Labor recruits a former state leader for a key state in Tasmania; and more besides.

With every pollster in the game bar the increasingly intermittent YouGov having weighed in over the past fortnight, it’s likely that a lean week awaits on the federal polling front, barring the usual weekly Roy Morgan poll. Besides the other new post on campaign finance, that leaves the following to relate:

• SECNewgate’s latest Mood of the Nation survey finds signs of improving economic sentiment: 35% confident and 65% not confident inflation will decrease over the coming year, compared with 31% and 69% in September, and 35% (up eight) anticipate the economy will improve over the next three months, with 38% thinking it will get worse (down eight). Labor is rated better to tackle the cost of living by 29% with 30% favouring the Coalition, reversing the result in September. It also finds 33% support lifting the nuclear energy ban with 42% opposed, and 64% saying they would be less likely to vote for a party that restricted access to abortion rights, compared with only 11% for more likely. The survey was conducted October 31 to November 4 from a sample of 1417.

• Labor has confirmed two existing political figures as candidates for federal seats in Tasmania, with former state leader Rebecca White confirmed as the candidate for Lyons, which she has served at state level since 2010. Incumbent Brian Mitchell, who survived a 4.3% swing to hold out by 0.9% in 2022 (a correction after the Liberals disendorsed their candidate mid-campaign in 2019), agreed to go quietly, saying the party should “grab her with both hands” if White sought a federal career. The north-western Tasmanian seat of Braddon, where Liberal member Gavin Pearce will retire after boosting his margin from 3.1% to 8.0% in 2022, will be contested for Labor by Anne Urquhart, who has served in the Senate since 2011. Among the many factors considered by Kevin Bonham are the recount that will be required to fill White’s state parliamentary vacancy, and the appointment to fill Urquhart’s Senate vacancy.

• A Liberal preselection for Mackellar, which teal independent Sophie Scamps won from the party in 2022, was won by James Brown, chief executive of the Space Industry Association of Australia, former state RSL president and former son-in-law of Malcolm Turnbull. Other candidates included Michael Gencher, executive director of Israel advocacy group StandWithUs; Brook Adcock, former Qantas pilot and founder of Pandora Jewellery; David Brady, chair of Deafness Forum Australia; and Paul Nettelbeck, director of a foreign aid not-for-profit; Lincoln Parker, a defence analyst; and Vicky McGahey, a high school teacher. Nothing came of a reported push to reopen nominations so that Sophie Stokes, former Commonwealth Bank executive and wife of former New South Wales Planning Minister Rob Stokes, might be persuaded to run in a field deemed to lack a strong female contender.

• A particularly interesting state by-election looms in Victoria after the resignation of Prahran MP Sam Hibbins, who quit the Greens last year after admitting to an affair with a staff member from his office. The seat has successively been held by Labor, Liberal and the Greens over the past two decades, reflecting a close three-way dynamic similar to that of the partly corresponding federal seat of Macnamara.

Polls: Essential, RedBridge, Morgan, EMRS Tasmanian (open thread)

Three pollsters chime in with federal voting intention numbers, while a fourth finds state Labor gaining ground in Tasmania.

As Newspoll off-weeks go, a big week for polling, with three further federal voting intention results following upon Freshwater Strategy:

• The fortnightly Essential Research poll has Labor down a point to 30%, the Coalition up one to 35%, the Greens up one to 13% and One Nation down two to 7%, with undecided steady at 5%. The pollster’s 2PP+ measure has Labor moving into a 48-47 lead, after trailing 49-47 last time. Also featured are the pollster’s monthly leadership ratings, which have Anthony Albanese down a point on approval to 43% and steady on 48% disapproval, while Peter Dutton is down three to 42% and up two to 41%. A regular “national mood” question reports an improved result off a low base, with a five-point increase in the sentiment that the country is heading in the right direction to 35%, and a four-point decrease for wrong track to 48%. A forced response question on the cause of hotter temperatures records only a 52-48 break in favour of climate change over normal fluctuations, although only 19% rate that Australia is doing too much to address the problem, compared with 33% for not enough and 37% for about right. The poll also finds only mildly negative views on the Trump administration’s likely impact on the global economy and global conflicts, and records 28% favouring Labor’s proposed 20% HECS debt cut over 36% for no change and 36% for abolishing student debt altogether. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Monday from a sample of 1206.

• RedBridge Group has a federal poll recording a tie on two-party preferred, from primary votes of Labor 34%, Coalition 39% and Greens 11%. Further findings from the poll include 54% approval of how Australian federal and state governments handled the COVID pandemic, with 42% disapproval; 53% awareness that the federal government rejected Qatar Airways’ application to increase flights to Australia, with 39% unaware; and 61% perceiving the government gave Qantas preferential treatment in the matter, with 11% disagreeing. The poll was conducted November 6 to 13 from a sample of 2011.

• Both the RedBridge Group poll and last week’s Resolve Strategic poll had questions on perceptions of the Greens. Resolve Strategic found the party was viewed positively by 24%, negatively by 44% and neutrally by 29%, while Adam Bandt was viewed positively by 10%, neutrally by 26% and negatively by 26%, with 38% unfamiliar. With six propositions to choose from, 38% of RedBridge’s respondents favoured clearly negative propositions against 29% for clearly positive, while 14% opted a broadly neutral “party of protest and disruption”.

• The weekly Roy Morgan poll has the Coalition’s two-party lead out from 50.5-49.5 to 51-49, from primary votes of Labor 29% (down one-and-a-half), Coalition 39% (up one-and-a-half), Greens 13.5% (up one) and One Nation 6.5% (steady). The two-party measure based on preference flows at the 2022 election is at 50-50, after Labor led 51-49 last week. The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1675. Roy Morgan also has a forced response SMS poll, conducted during the royal visit on October 22 and 23 from a sample of 1312, recording a 61-39 split in favour of keeping the existing Australian flag.

• Also out this week was the regular quarterly Tasmanian state poll from EMRS, showing the Liberals’ lead at its narrowest in many a long year, with Labor up four to 31%, Liberal down one to 35%, the Greens steady on 14% and the Jacqui Lambie Network down two to 6%. Jeremy Rockliff’s lead over Dean Winter as preferred premier narrows from 45-30 to 43-37. Also featured are new questions inviting respondents to rate the leaders on a scale from zero to ten, recording 37% favourable, 36% neutral and 22% unfavourable for Rockliff, and 25% favourable, 38% neutral and 11% unfavourable for Winter. The poll was conducted November 5 to 14 from a sample of 1000.

Freshwater Strategy: 51-49 to Coalition (open thread)

Peter Dutton deemed “better placed to engage and negotiate with” a President who will make the world “less safe”.

The monthly Freshwater Strategy poll for the Financial Review (presently available online in the paper’s subscriber-only digital edition) records no change of consequence on voting intention, with the Coalition maintaining a 51-49 lead on two-party preferred, with Labor steady on the primary vote at 30%, the Coalition down one to 40% and the Greens up one to 14%. Anthony Albanese is down two on approval to 33% and up one on disapproval to 50%, while Peter Dutton is steady on 37% and up two to 41%. Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister shifts from 44-43 to 43-42.

The poll also finds 55% believe the world will be less safe with Donald Trump as President, compared with 28% for safer, and that 47% consider Peter Dutton “better placed to engage and negotiate” with Trump, compared with 36% for Anthony Albanese. The poll was conducted Friday to Sunday from a sample of 1046.

Black by-election live

Live results and commentary for the South Australian state by-election for Black.

Click here for full display of Black by-election results

8.00pm. All nine booths now in on the primary vote, and we won’t be getting declaration votes counted this evening, so all that remains to come is two outstanding two-candidate preferred results that are already known in outline. Labor has a 13% swing based on election day votes alone, and while it’s been shown that other vote types can behave quite differently, the Liberals would need an entirely implausible swing on both early votes and postals to get back into contention.

7.46pm. Seven out of nine booths now in on the primary vote, the latest both being in Hallett Cove, and both performing well in line with the remainder. They have also boosted the booth-matched turnout calculation that was at 60% in the previous update to 66%.

7.35pm. Antony’s caution seemingly informed by low turnout at the booths: by my reckoning, those that are in have recorded barely more than 60% what they did in 2022.

7.26pm. Antony Green on Twitter not quite willing to call it in the absence of early votes.

7.19pm. Now five booths in on the primary and two on two-party, the new results slightly moderating the projected Labor victory, but leaving the fact of it in doubt following a collapse in the Liberal primary vote.

7.01pm. With the second booth (Sheidow Park) even better for Labor than the first, my system is already calling it for Labor.

6.55pm. A big result for Labor at the first booth in, which is Seacliff South. A note of caution though — I have treated this as being the same as the Marino booth from 2022, which may not exactly be the case. Clearly the same decision has been made at the ABC.

5.30pm. Polls close in half an hour for South Australia’s Black by-election, at which the Liberals are defending a southern Adelaide seat on a margin of 2.7% after the spectacular demise of former party leader David Speirs. This will be my first run of an upgrade in my live results system that allows for multiple two-candidate outcomes in its probability estimates, rather than assuming two set candidates as it had done in the past. It can thus provide a three-way probability split where the situation is sufficiently complicated, although that situation is unable to arise here. More background on the by-elect
ion is available through my by-election guide.

WA miscellany: state polls, federal polls, Labor candidates

Another poll showing Labor headed for a much reduced but still substantial majority in WA, and holding up relatively well there federally.

DemosAU brings us a poll of 948 respondents in Western Australia, conducted from October 30 to November 4, showing voting intention both federally and for a state election that will be held on March 8 unless a federal election clashes with it. On the latter count, the poll credits state Labor with a two-party lead of 56-44, suggesting a swing against it of 14% from the extraordinary result of 2021. The primary votes are Labor 41%, Liberal 34%, Nationals 4%, Greens 12% and others 9%, with Roger Cook leading Liberal leader Libby Mettam 42-29 as preferred premier.

The federal component of the poll has Labor leading 52-48, a swing against it of 3% compared with 2022, from primary votes of Labor 34%, Coalition 38%, Greens 14%, One Nation 6% and others 8%. Anthony Albanese leads Peter Dutton as preferred prime minister by 40% to 33%. The linked reports for both polls feature breakdowns by gender, age, education, residential tenure and personal income.

Another federal voting intention poll from the state, by RedBridge Group, shows Labor travelling remarkably well with a two-party lead of 54.5-45.5. The poll is related in a report by Katina Curtis of The West Australian, whose Labor sources say the result is consistent with the party’s internal polling.

Further developments relating to the state election:

• Rhys Williams, who has served as the local mayor since 2017, has been confirmed as Labor’s new candidate for Mandurah after David Templeman, the member since 2001, announced his retirement in September. The Liberal Party’s initial nominee for the seat, James Hall, withdrew last month over social media posts from 2017 stating he was “proud to be white”.

• Michelle Roberts has announced she will retire at the election after a parliamentary career going back to 1994, all but the first two years of which have been spent as member for Midland. The West Australian reports her likely successor as Labor candidate is Stephen Catania, a former CFMEU lawyer now with Eureka Lawyers. Catania is the father of Nick Catania and brother of Vince Catania, both former MPs.

Resolve Strategic: Labor 28, Coalition 38, Greens 13 in Victoria

John Pesutto pokes his nose in front as preferred premier in another mediocre poll for Victorian Labor.

The Age reports the bi-monthly Victorian state poll from Resolve Strategic finds both Labor and the Coalition up a point on the primary vote, to 28% and 38% respectively, with the Greens down one to 13%. No two-party result is provided, but I would estimate it at around 50.5-49.5 in favour of the Coalition. John Pesutto takes the lead over Jacinta Allan of 30-29 as preferred premier, reversing the result from last time. The poll combining results from the pollster’s last two monthly national polls, with a combined sample of 1000.

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