Category: Federal Politics 2022-2025

I’m not seeing any reporting on it in the Sydney Morning Herald or The Age, but the papers’ collective Resolve Political Monitor page features results of the latest monthly Resolve Strategic federal poll (hat tip to Nadia88 in comments), an early intimation of which was Saturday’s New South Wales state results. The federal primary vote shares have Labor down two on last month to 35%, the Coalition down one to 30%, the Greens up one to 13% and One Nation steady on 7%. I make this out to be 57-43 in Labor’s favour on two-party preferred, little changed on last month, which maintains the pollster’s form as the strongest series for Labor.

Anthony Albanese’s personal ratings continue to deteriorate, his very good plus good performance rating being down five to 39% with poor plus very poor up three to 46%. Peter Dutton is respectively at 35% and 40%. Conversely, Peter Dutton records his best results yet from Resolve Strategic, being rated favourably by 35% (up five, although the previous result was down five on the one before) and unfavourably by 40% (down five on the last poll and three on the one before). Albanese leads 40-27 on preferred prime minister, in from 47-25 last time. The lack of accompanying reporting leaves us none the wiser on field work dates and sample size, but it was presumably conducted Wednesday to Saturday from a sample of about 1600.

UPDATE: The Age/Herald report relates the poll was conducted the Wednesday to Sunday before last from a sample of 1602. It also has further results illustrating growing economic pessimism, with between 41% to 46% expecting conditions to worsen over various time frames from a month to a year, with the share expecting improvement increasing from 5% for a month from now to 23% for a year. The 70% who said they expected more interest rate rises this year were vindicated shortly after the poll was conducted, and fully 64% said they expected inflation to get worse in the near future, which is not strictly speaking what any economic forecaster expects.

Once again, the latest haul of federal preselection news is dominated by both action and inaction on the Liberal Party front:

• Matthew Denholm of The Australian reports the Tasmanian Liberal executive has delayed until March preselection votes that were scheduled for Braddon on November 12 and Bass for November 18 amid a conservative push to oust Bridget Archer from Bass. Candidates will also be required to sign an agreement not to speak out against the party line, which was likely prompted by Archer’s outspokenness on issues such as the party’s push in parliament for a royal commission into child sex abuse.

• A report on the above matter from Benjamin Seeder of the Burnie Advocate draws my attention to the fact that Liberals preselected Susie Bower, who was also the candidate in 2022, in the central Tasmanian seat of Lyons back in April. Bower is chief executive of the Bell Bay Advanced Manufacturing Zone and a former Meander Valley councillor. Brian Mitchell has held the seat precariously for Labor since 2016, Bower reducing his margin in 2022 to 0.9% with a 4.3% swing that was partly a correction after a troubled Liberal campaign in 2019.

• A Liberal preselection will be held tomorrow for Russell Broadbent’s seat of Monash in regional Victoria, where the 72-year-old incumbent faces challenges from Nathan Hersey, mayor of the Shire of South Gippsland, and Mary Aldred, head of government relations for Asia Pacific at Fujitsu. Aldred is the daughter of the late Ken Aldred, who held various federal seats for the Liberals from 1975 to 1996. While her father was a figure of some controversy, The Age reports Mary Aldred is “viewed as a moderate”, in common with Broadbent.

• The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks column reports displeasure among Liberal National Party members at the time being taken to begin preselection proceedings for the Gold Coast seat of McPherson, which will be vacated at the next election on the retirement of Karen Andrews. Mentioned as possible contenders are Ben Naday, former migration agent and federal ministerial adviser; Leon Rebello, solicitor at King & Wood Mallesons; and David Stevens, managing director of a private strategy and investment consulting firm and Howard government cabinet policy unit adviser.

• Canberra CityNews reports the Liberals have preselected Joanne van der Plaat, Cooma lawyer and former president of the Law Society of New South Wales, as candidate for Eden-Monaro. Van der Plaat was chosen ahead of Vanessa Cheng, a management consultant.

There is also the following to relate on the polling front:

• This week’s Roy Morgan poll has Labor leading 52-48 on two-party preferred, in from 53-47 last week, from primary votes of Labor 31.5% (down one), Coalition 35% (steady) and Greens 13.5% (down one-and-a-half). The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1371.

• SEC Newgate’s regular bi-monthly Mood of the Nation survey finds 32% rating the federal government’s performance as good, down four points from August, with poor steady at 36%. Expectations about the state of the economy three years from now have taken a hit, with the positive rating down eight from the last survey to 50% and negative up six to 34%. The question of whether Australia is headed in the right direction, on which opinion was evenly divided through 2022, is now running 63-37 against. Of the mainland states, small sample state breakdowns have consistently found optimism highest in Western Australia and lowest in Queensland. Queensland was targeted with an elevated sample of 603, of whom 27% rated the state government’s performance as good compared with 43% for poor. The poll was conducted October 18 to 23 from an overall sample of 1610.

• The Australian reports Newspoll found the most favoured options for helping with the cost of living were, in order, subsidising energy bills (84%), subsidising fuel prices (81%), cutting government spending to reduce inflation (77%), personal tax cuts (73%) and cash payments to low-income families (56%).

• Kos Samaras from RedBridge Group offers further results from its poll last week showing 34% consider the Albanese government has the right priorities compared with 50% who disagree, while 30% believe “the Coalition led by Peter Dutton” is ready for government and 50% think otherwise.

The Australian reports the latest Newspoll has Labor’s lead at 52-48, in from 54-46 at the poll conducted from October 4 to 12 in the lead-up to the referendum, from primary votes of Labor 35% (down one), Coalition 37% (up two), Greens 12% (steady) and One Nation 6% (steady). This is the narrowest two-party Newspoll result since the election, eclipsing two of the last four results which had it at 53-47.

Anthony Albanese’s personal ratings have taken a tumble, down four on approval to 42% and up six on disapproval to 52%. The net rating of minus 10 is substantially weaker than his previous worst results for the term of minus one, likewise recorded in two of the previous four polls. Peter Dutton is at 37% approval and 50% disapproval, which is respectively up two and down three on the previous Newspoll result, but equal to the poll before. Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister is now 46-36, in from 51-31 last time. The poll was conducted Monday to Friday from a sample of 1220.

Also out today was the latest federal poll from RedBridge Group which has Labor’s two-party lead at 53.5-46.5, in from 54.1-45.9 in the pollster’s previous result from early September. The primary votes were Labor 34% (down three), Coalition 35% (down one), Greens 14% (up one) and others 17% (up three). The poll was conducted October 27 to November 2 from a sample of 1205.

The fortnightly Essential Research result brings a return of federal voting intention numbers from the pollster, which were not provided for the poll that coincided with the referendum weekend. Research director Gavin White relates they have added education to a weighting frame that had encompassed age, gender, location and past vote following the referendum, the margin of which they underestimated. This should be kept in mind when comparing the voting intention results from the last set four weeks ago.

The most striking feature of the new numbers is a four point drop for the Greens, whom the pollster had long had hovering around 14% as compared with a 2022 election result of 12.3%. Now they are at 10%, with Labor down a point to 32%, the Coalition up two to 34%, One Nation up one to 7%, the United Australia Party up one to the top end of its long-term range of 1% to 3%, and uncommitted up one to 6%. The pollster’s 2PP+ measure has Labor down two to 48% and the Coalition up one to 46%, the remainder being uncommitted, which surpasses the mid-September result of 49% to 45% as the narrowest of the term. The gender breakdowns bear examination – where the pollster had hitherto reflected the usual pattern in having Labor doing better among women than men, this time it’s quite markedly the other way round.

Most of the other questions relate to electricity and the environment, including a semi-regular question on whether the government is doing enough to address climate change maintains a consistent pattern since Labor came to power, at which point a large gap between not doing enough and doing enough almost disappeared. Here the former is down one since April to 38% and the latter is up three to 36%, with doing too much up a point to 17%. Thirty-one per cent think it likely Australia will reach its target of net zero emissions by 2050, with 57% thinking it unlikely. A question on nuclear energy finds 50% supportive of developing nuclear plants for electricity with 33% opposed, all but unchanged when the same question was asked two years ago. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1149.

Also out are the weekly Roy Morgan numbers, which do not repeat last week’s unusual preference flow to the Coalition and resulting 50.5-49.5 lead for them on two-party preferred. This time Labor leads 53-47, from primary votes of Labor 32.5% (up half), Coalition 35% (down one) and Greens 15% (up one). The poll was conducted last Monday to Sunday from a sample of 1375.

Because of the change in methodology and the likely related change in results, Essential Research going forward will be treated as a new series for bias adjustment purposes in the BludgerTrack poll aggregate — meaning in won’t be included at all until there are enough results to get a handle on its peculiarities relative to the other pollsters. The results can nonetheless be found on the poll data page, together with Roy Morgan results which likewise aren’t used to calculate the poll trend.