The Herald-Sun relates that a RedBridge Group poll of state voting intention in Victoria has Labor leading 54-46, in from 55.9-44.1 at the last such poll in December, from primary votes of Labor 36% (down one), Coalition 38% (up two) and Greens 10% (down three). The poll was conducted March 14 to 20 from a sample of 1559. A full report will presumably be along shortly featuring detailed demographic breakdowns. We are also likely to get later this week the regular bi-monthly Resolve Strategic result featuring state voting intention numbers combined from its latest poll and the one conducted a month ago.
UPDATE (28/3): As foreshadowed above, The Age today has the bi-monthly Resolve Strategic result, and it concurs with RedBridge Group in finding the Coalition moving into a lead on the primary vote, with Labor down two from December to 33%, the Coalition up four to 35%, the Greens up two to 13% and generic independents down two to 12%. Where last time I calculated Labor’s two-party lead approaching 57-43, now I have it at around 53.5-46.5. Jacinta Allan’s lead over John Pesutto on preferred premier has narrowed from 34-22 to 34-25. The two field work periods for the polling were February 21 to 24 and March 21 to 24 – the sample size is not disclosed, but would have been around 1000.
Can we please keep this thread for discussion of Victorian politics. The open thread for general discussion is here.
It’s the narrowing. Keep up the good work John.
Keep chipping away.
Taylormade
Will John Pesutto still be leader when the next victorian election comes around
When you consider there has been a leader change (which the age doesn’t seem to have noticed, with continued attacks on Andrews) this is pretty good.
Taylormade says:
Tuesday, March 26, 2024 at 6:09 am
It’s the narrowing. Keep up the good work John.
Keep chipping away.
There was a time when the Liberals hoped for something more.
Pathetic opposition should be miles in front of the lefties who in state labor have put Victoria 120 billion in debt heading to 200-250 billion.
Another horror state budget coming up .Lib leader needs to be replaced asap.Greens vote most likely going to the labor lefties.
The Age 25/03
Glass said decisions Andrews made after he was first elected created a “legacy of fear” but admitted tensions were exacerbated by her decision to challenge the state government in the High Court in 2017, after attempts to prevent her from investigating allegations Labor MPs had misused taxpayer-funded allowances during the 2014 Victorian election.
The challenge had become a “battle for my independence, with gender overtones”, Glass said.
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The old ‘Red Shirts’ affair pops its head up again. Still can’t believe it went all the way to the High Court. They were that desperate to keep it hidden from public view.
I wonder what she is referring to with her gender overtones statement. He probably thought he could bully her into submission because she was female. We saw the way he treated poor Jane Garrett and Jenny Mikakos.
The more we hear about the Andrews era the worse it gets. His name will be mud in 10 years time if we keep going at this rate.
There are some issues that the Victorian state government are struggling to handle. The youth crime problem is bad, but it seems to be a issues in other states too. Same with housing and planning. Health appears to be issues.
But it is a classic case of “the boy who cried wolf” from the detractors. They spent so longer attacking the Andrew’s government over “non-issues” that when there are things that could be improved, nobody is listening.
As for Glass’s report, it was her last hooray so she went out throwing punches. But virtually every auditor general has ended their terms with an angry report about the government of the day. It will help the “haters” hate, but everyone else just yawns.
Glass demonstrated right to the end that her major problem was taking political positions on policy matters. It was not her job to agree or disagree with COVID lockdowns, it was not her job to say the Andrews government should have done more on justice reforms. And I agree they could have done more on justice reforms once Guy’s African Gangs campaign was beaten. I’m sure the pandemic got in the way, but they still could have. But it’s not the Ombudsman’s job to be in the political arena like that. Glass kept treating her job as being the Opposition to Andrews.
Arcing up and declaring a culture of fear because Andrews removed a particular public servant on day 1 who was regarded as too close to the Libs? Every new government in Australia removes top public servants who are regarded as the other side’s partisans, and the current Federal Government made a mistake by not doing more of it and having to sack them later.
This will be the LNP’s high watermark. Eventually the right wing nutcases will roll Pesutto and show their ass when they try African Gangs 3.0 and not be able to help themselves from exposing their anti-abortion, anti-lgbt archaic viewpoints, while not having any actual economic policy except service cuts and subsidises for the rich.
The real question is who will be the leader of the Liberal party at the election, it wont be Pesutto. If they stop fighting amongst themselves I thing Labor could be in real trouble, especially if they don’t scrap the ridiculously expensive suburban rail loop.
At 46% of the 2PP vote we have probably seen peak Pesutto. It is all downhill for him now. Mainly in the civil courts where a former nutter in his party backed by some of the other nutters still in his party. Will do all they can to get rid of him. Even if unsuccessful it will cost him votes. Which will just keep “slip sliding away” the longer these cases go on for.
Arkysays:
Tuesday, March 26, 2024 at 9:49
Arcing up and declaring a culture of fear because Andrews removed a particular public servant on day 1 who was regarded as too close to the Libs? Every new government in Australia removes top public servants who are regarded as the other side’s partisans, and the current Federal Government made a mistake by not doing more of it and having to sack them later.
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Glass showing her political bias here. Andrew Tongue, whom Andrews removed, was appointed by the Napthine Government after they got rid of Helen Silver. While Glass herself was a Napthine Government appointment too.
Though Glass’ main problem is she over values her own opinion. In a Covid crisis people with medical degrees opinions should outrank those with law degrees. Something Glass could never accept.
Bob at 10:24, just imagine if sometime soon we had a House of Reps, and a Senate, full of people like these who were in the majority and got to run the country-
Michalia Cash, Ralph Babet, Pauline Hanson, Malcolm Roberts, Alex Antic, Lyle Sheldon, Moira Deeming, Monica Smit, Matt Canavan, Barnaby Jouce, Jacinta Price, Gerrard Rennick, etc.
I am sure there are more loons either in various parliaments or think they should be.
Taylormade says:
Tuesday, March 26, 2024 at 7:52 am
…
up again. Still can’t believe it went all the way to the High Court. They were that desperate to keep it hidden from public view.
…
Do you actually remember what is was about? MP’s paid for election organizers out of office budgets. Labor paid it back and the Liberal have lost three elections trying to make it a central issue.
Having issues with posting glitching out, so trying again…
I always deeply disliked Glass, and thought she repeatedly crossed the line into wanting to be a political player while not necessarily being very good at the ordinary parts of the Ombudsman job.
Allan needs to do a bit better – she comes across as being without an agenda, which is unhelpful at the same time as delivering a horror budget that in some ways resembles an Abbott or Newman budget.
I also thought the fiasco in the upper house over the Greens’ bid to call an inquiry into the public housing tower demolitions was a sign that Allan has lost the touch Andrews had in terms of dealing with the crossbench. Allan has gone cold on drug reform and had an eleventh-hour backdown on duck hunting, antagonising both key non-Greens crossbenchers (Legalise Cannabis and AJP), and then expected both crossbenchers to do Labor a political favour while offering them no real reason to do so. It was a perfect example of how not to get one’s way with crossbenchers.
Of course, the ongoing saga of the Liberal leadership is a neverending gift to Allan, even while she’s got her own problems. Pesutto is the kind of guy who, if the far-right would stop whiteanting him for five minutes, could probably get within striking distance of Allan. His leadership rival, Battin, comes across as being completely nuts (and not in the Abbott/Dutton at least kind of disciplined nuts), and the scarier-for-Labor proposition of Sam Groth isn’t running. If the seemingly inevitable happens and Battin winds up leader, Allan is going to have to screw up far worse than she is at the moment to lose power.
My 2PP estimate for the Redbridge poll by last-election prefs is 52.5 to ALP.
Preference flow might be quite different this time with the cooker parties subsiding, mind you.
@Rebecca – can’t really disagree with any of that analysis.
I hope, more than expect, that by the next election campaign Allan has some new major agenda item of her own that is not merely continuing the Andrews agenda and that lets her be her own person in the pursuit of it, and not just a caretaker of Andrews’ agenda and/or the Minister for the Botched Commonwealth Games as the News press would like to present her. . She no doubt doesn’t want to depart from the established policies Labor took to the election for a number of good reasons, but so far it means the government looks so much like the Andrews government (just without Dan’s force of personality at the top) that the media seems to keep forgetting it isn’t anymore.
People keep going on about DEBT, seriously if the things you do help the economy than it is should be considered bad. Government debt is a good thing because Governments have the funds and assets to pay for it and will always be able to obtain the funds. Private debt is another matter, as funds are not guaranteed. I regard projects like railway crossing removals and public transport programs as having a positive impact on economic output and they create jobs and money for the economy. How did we get public transport, electricity infrastrucure etc in the first place? DEBT you ask? We would never have an economy without going into debt. So stop listening to the idoits in the media who mind you mostly in debt as well.
Taylormadesays:
Tuesday, March 26, 2024 at 6:09 am
It’s the narrowing. Keep up the good work John.
Keep chipping away.
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You do know the polls leading up to both Victorian elections underestimated the Labor vote. Some by quite a bit. From memory RedBridge poll just before the last Victorian election predicted Labor 2PP at 53.5% and they got 55%. How do you know RedBridge is not still underestimating it?.
sunny days: I think people could generally give a rats about debt in and of itself, as it never affected Andrews’ popularity in the least.
The dangerous thing for Labor is the budget aftermath – I cannot stress how brutal this budget is shaping up to be, with the public service getting LNP-levels of understaffed even before the next round of cuts hit and really important, proven programs set to get defunded that will have catastrophic results for people impacted by those cuts.
I don’t think anyone thinks they’re doing it for the hell of it unlike the LNP but it really risks increased scrutiny on some of their financial decisions (e.g. the Commonwealth Games debacle) and still-unfinished projects (I am staunchly pro-Suburban Rail Loop in principle, but have concerns about the planning, and the budget cuts are so extreme that I’m starting to think “at what cost?”).
All in all, it leaves them open to people thinking about giving the other side a go who mightn’t otherwise have been open to it.
Adem Somyurek has quit the DLP. He says it is because the party is in the process of being deregistered . Quote on X “Fancy not being able to muster up 500 members. I could have got that in one branch meeting, had I been asked”
I predicted in 2022 to a DLP supporter that Somyurek would not last one term in their party. So despite the spelling change to ‘Labour’ from ‘Labor’ and the election-pamphlet marketing as ‘Labour-DLP’ they still seem to have trouble keeping their members (parliamentary and regular!)
This is the list (so far) of representatives of the ‘reborn in 1980’ (after being legally dissolved in 1978) DLP.
Adem Somyurek – elected to Victorian Upper House 2022 (4.8% of vote in Western Metropolitan Region), quit DLP March 2024.
Bernie Finn – expelled from the Liberal Party in May 2022 – joined the DLP and continued as an Upper House member from Western Metropolitan Region – lost at November 2022 election (5.2% vote)
– then quite the DLP in May 2023 to join Family First.
Rachel Carling-Jenkins – elected to Victorian Upper House 2014 (2.6% of vote in Western Metropolitan Region), quit DLP 2017. In 2018 she ran and lost in Lower House seat Werribee (she got 5.4%, outpolling the DLP candidate on 3.0%)
Peter Kavanaugh – elected to Victorian Upper House 2006 (2.7% of vote in Western Victoria Region). Served full term then lost at 2010 election (2.2% vote).
ps – forgot John Madigan – elected to Federal Senate from Victoria in 2010 (2.3% primary vote), and then quit the DLP in 2014, remained in the Senate as an independent then ran in 2016 for ‘The Manufacturing and Farming Party’ and got 0.15% of the Senate vote, clearly not enough to get elected.
Greens down 3 is interesting.
Are the LNP really going to keep carrying on about the Suburban Rail Loop? The empty vessels making the most noise are opposed to it. Everybody else sees it as necessary infrastructure. Note all the electorates along the line elected Labor candidates.
Redshirts? 3 elections ago. Still no traction. What? Dan is no longer the Premier? Articles today bagging him in the vic papers. This is extraordinary.
Newspapers clearly don’t carry the sway they think they do.
Adem Somyurek is only member of the upper house, who is not from the Western Metro Region, who has quit his party whilst a MLC since 2006 reforms. And what is more his has now done it twice!
Western Metro has had 5 people defect from the parties that elected them – not sure what is going on out in the Western ‘burbs :).
Given that the press (Herald Sun, Age, Commercial Radio and Television and ABC) are unrelentingly critical of the Labor Government, these numbers are no surprise.
The administration of the Allan Government is competent rather than drama queen theatrics and federally the Albanese Government is governing rather than playing for the audience.
Both governments concentrate on governing while the LNP are negative headline hunters.
A Vic Lib government would only govern between rounds of their interminable inner conflict while a government led by Dutton would be a GINO characterised by empty bluster and never to be fulfilled announcements.
I found this quite interesting video (from a construction video channel) about Melbourne’s Suburban Rail Loop and Metro. It is a disappointing reality that other than the current City Loop (and the Altona bypass) there are no ‘cross connections’ in our radial spoke design.
The Alamein line comes close – as a relic of the old Outer Circle railway – the old ‘rail trail’ takes you past Alamein station near to East Malvern station where the line joined onto the Glen Waverley line.
And likewise you can still see some of the old tracks from the “Inner Circle” line from Royal Park to Clifton Hill in the ‘rail trail’ park through Carlton and Fitzroy.
https://www.theb1m.com/video/australia-is-building-a-125bn-mega-railway
I suspect that the ALP will be reelected in 2026. The Opposition is more on the nose than the Government. The big question is whether it will be a majority or a minority government?
It therefore looks likely that Allan will be the first successor premier since Hamer to be reelected and the first ALP successor premier to be reelected.
There is more of a chance that the 2030 is more competitive. Age and (presuming the current Commonwealth Government is reelected in 2025 and 2028, although predicting a government being reelected 2 elections away can easily be overtaken by events) Commonweath drag.
I really can’t see the Vic opposition stringing together enough seats to even come close to taking back power in 2026. 54-46 is an enormous lead in terms of seats, and if the Dunkley by-election is anything to go by the needle hasn’t actually shifted.
The Libs have nothing to offer besides brown person crime scares and a whole bunch of infighting – so it would be a case of Labor losing due to some disaster rather than the Libs actually winning off their own popularity. Long-term, their cultural shift is the opposite direction of Victoria as a whole.
Regarding state debt – we’ll see after the May budget, but as long as projects keep moving I doubt the average voter actually cares as much as the Libs scare campaigns think they will. They won’t cut things like the SRL or the level crossing removals, as besides being popular in the electorate, they are creating jobs and keeping money circulating… Same thing they do in China, when a city’s economy slows down, announce a megaproject like a subway or something – debt’s ok if it’s actually keeping the economy ticking along. People can still see the cranes on the ground and people working.
Allan’s biggest problem is probably just that she isn’t the same headkicker as Dan Andrews was and doesn’t really cut through the same. I’ll tell you for free though, that Allan’s been active in a few surprising channels such as Reddit, and it’s apparently really her, not a staffer. One result being that (in my anecdotal experience at least) teenagers all know who she is, maybe even more so than your average mum and dad voter.
Not surprised to see the greens down in the state with the larges Jewish population, surly they have given up on winning Macnamara. .
How could you support a riven rabble?
Resolve poll Age newspaper libs in front in Victoria.At last debt and crime is burying state labor government.
New labor leader is a dud.
Horror budget coming soon.
Changed my mind from yesterday keep the leader!
Oh look Sally Crapp the leftie failed Lord Mayor of Melbourne is going.
VIC is looking up!
@Pied Piper
Nope, Resolve doesn’t say the Libs are in front. They’ve marginally crept ahead on primary votes, but 2PP-wise (which The Age have left out) Labor is still leading.
In fact – if actually go back and read it, the Redbridge poll also had the primaries with the Libs winning the primary vote marginally (38-36), but still an 8% difference in 2pp, 54-46. The Libs can’t even come close to winning an election from that.
It’s very notable Costello’s Age didn’t actually report the 2pp at all, instead being desperate to claim “Libs in front” in the headline, when this is not the case.
Today primary vote tomorrow 2pp.
The tanks are rolling at long last.
Oh dear. The age continues to avoid publishing a 2pp as it doesn’t support their editorial line.
The COALITION has a slight lead on primary vote, but the 2pp lead harps not changed in Vic for a decade. It remains 54/5%.
The hung parliament chatter that has prevailed for all that time, primarily from desperate conservatives and wannabe relevant journalists, continues and yet the ALP has three times the number of seats in vic parliament as the cultist liberal party……
I think Greens will win MacNamara next time.
Their candidate is Sonya semmens who was Telstra spokesperson
People are tired of being silenced into towing the Zionist line
The Age reporting this as Liberals ahead is truly scraping the bottom of the barrel. They have learned zero after doing a mea culpa after the last state election for their overreliance on primary vote figures.
@Billie – I think the exact opposite, the Greens have no chance next time in Macnamara because they have no nuance and never put any blame on Hamas, a lot of Jewish voters who don’t agree with what Israel is doing still won’t be comfortable voting for the party that has some people who make anti Semitic statements in it like Jenny Leong and which clearly only has interest in supporting one side of the conflict. And the Jewish vote is strong in Macnamara.
It will be interesting to see if the Greens can put up surprising numbers in seats with significant Muslim populations or if people whose vote is decided by this issue find other candidates to support (or if in the end it doesn’t actually decide that many votes).
@ PP
Tomorrow never comes.
” tanks are rolling at long last”. Maybe, but a long, long way from the 2 PP front.
And while they’re at it , crushing any moderates that still survive in the Vic Libs.
Must fill your heart with joy.
Pied pipersays:
Thursday, March 28, 2024 at 7:28 am
Resolve poll Age newspaper libs in front in Victoria.At last debt and crime is burying state labor government.
New labor leader is a dud.
Horror budget coming soon.
Changed my mind from yesterday keep the leader!
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Pied Piper has been on pollbludger for how long?. Still gets fooled by The Age spin. Doesn’t appear to know the difference between primary vote and 2PP.
Note: All Pesutto’s defamation cases are still to come.
Mabwmsays:
Thursday, March 28, 2024 at 8:12 am
Oh dear. The age continues to avoid publishing a 2pp as it doesn’t support their editorial line.
The COALITION has a slight lead on primary vote, but the 2pp lead harps not changed in Vic for a decade. It remains 54/5%.
The hung parliament chatter that has prevailed for all that time, primarily from desperate conservatives and wannabe relevant journalists, continues and yet the ALP has three times the number of seats in vic parliament as the cultist liberal party……
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The ability of polls to pick the actual election result in Victoria has been pretty poor in the last two elections. With Labor’s vote often seriously underestimated. Last election most of the polls were around 53% for Labor. While the late newspoll did better at 54.5%. The actual result was 55% though.
This government politically peaked sometime ago and once that happens governments start losing support but some people brought into the narrative that Victoria was becoming more progressive by the day. The polling might have been worst had Andrews stayed because his government was starting to smell a bit so giving Allan three years was a smart move but she hasn’t changed much and if the rumors about the budget are true the polling might get worse but labor people will dismiss talk about debt but debt is a bigger problem for state governments and older governments find it harder to find new support and becoming less free spending will make that harder.
Kos Samaras
In today’s Fairfax Resolve poll for Victoria, the two-party preferred vote stands at 53% for Labor (Resolve does not report 2PP).
The second graph, from a cross-tab of their federal poll for Victoria, published this week, shows a similar trend, but also suggesting that both polls were likely taken very close together.
In our own poll, both major parties are slightly higher, with Labor at 54% two-party preferred. However, the overall trend indicates a slight dip for Labor and an increase for the LNP, although it’s important to note that the LNP is unlikely to win any election with a 35% primary vote. They need at least another 7 to 10%.
Victoriasays:
Thursday, March 28, 2024 at 12:16 pm
Kos Samaras
In today’s Fairfax Resolve poll for Victoria, the two-party preferred vote stands at 53% for Labor (Resolve does not report 2PP).
The second graph, from a cross-tab of their federal poll for Victoria, published this week, shows a similar trend, but also suggesting that both polls were likely taken very close together.
In our own poll, both major parties are slightly higher, with Labor at 54% two-party preferred. However, the overall trend indicates a slight dip for Labor and an increase for the LNP, although it’s important to note that the LNP is unlikely to win any election with a 35% primary vote. They need at least another 7 to 10%.
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It is only drop for Government when you compare to the election result. If you compare to the RedBridge poll from last election it is actually better for the Government. Which has gone from 53.5% 10 days before last election to 54% now.
Note: The resolve poll just before last election was 53% so it shows no change.
The only concerning thing for Labor from these polls is that it has a few seats vulnerable to the Greens (Northcote, Preston, Pascoe Vale and Footscray), so if Labor’s vote is down and the Greens are up, then that puts them in contention, especially since the Greens will probably be precision campaigning in these seats, and they’re starting to get good at that.
Not much to worry about from the Coalition though. Sure, a small swing would lose Bass, Pakenham and Hastings, but not enough to be forced into minority government. And when the Pakenham East railway project is completed, even then they might be hard for the Liberals to win, since voters may well be satisfied by the completed facilities.
Ripon on paper might be a concern, but sophomore surges tend to be strong in this seat, and it covers the quickly expanding Northern and Western suburbs of Ballarat, which trend to Labor. And the next seat down on the pendulum, Glen Waverley? Yeah, I’m sure Pesutto’s policy to cancel and mothball the SRL will be popular with them.
And on the whole I doubt voters are impressed with the constant internal party strife in the Liberals. If you see at least three of them in a room together you only have to say the magic words “Moira Deeming” for them to go at each other’s throats.
From memory during the week of the 2002 Victorian election, or maybe even on election day, the Herald-Sun headline was something like ‘Cliffhanger’ – citing a poll that had Labor ‘clinging to a one point lead over the Coalition’ something like 41 to 40 from memory. (on primary votes)
My memory is that Labor heavyweights saw this as gold – getting rid of any last minute complacency among Labor-leaning voters.
The result – Labor 48%, Coalition 34%, on TPP Labor 54.4/45.6, Labor 62 seats – Coalition 24. (2 Ind)
My memory may be wrong, perhaps it was the 2006 election – but I was actually worried about the result of the 2002 election on the day!
According to Denholm in The Australian the Tasmanian Liberals have ‘…gained enough cross bench support to govern.’
I really wouldn’t know.
‘Billie says:
Thursday, March 28, 2024 at 8:18 am
I think Greens will win MacNamara next time.
Their candidate is Sonya semmens who was Telstra spokesperson
People are tired of being silenced into towing the Zionist line’
—————-
You mean people like you?