2024 Federal Polling Year In Review

 2PP Aggregate Average For 2024: 50.9 To Labor (-3.9)
Labor lost aggregate lead late in the year

It's the time of the year when most busy pollsters take a few weeks off and I bring out an annual feature, a review of the year in federal polling.  Click here for last year's edition and for articles back to 2014 click on the "annual poll review" tab at the bottom of this one.  As usual if any late polls come out I will edit this article to update the relevant numbers.

2024 was another strong year in results terms for the Australian polling industry.  Pollsters came out in good numbers for the early 2024 Tasmanian election and did pretty well in a very hard to poll election, although the lobby group(s) that commissioned two Freshwater polls contemptibly failed to ensure the release of definitive results of either, leaving poll-watchers to play jigsaw puzzles with incomplete media reports. Polling for the Queensland election was mostly excellent though no one pollster nailed the result, and a mini-cluster of close-ish polls at the end led to some misreads of what in the end was not a close election.   Despite this there are a storm clouds about in federal polling in the form of inadequate transparency from several pollsters and a somewhat suspicious level of clustering of results, especially at a stage in the cycle where that doesn't usually happen.  (More on the latter later).  US polling this year wasn't as bad as 2020, but didn't quite get the real story in part because of the latter issue.

There were no major changes in the polling lineup.  But there was a significant change in the behaviour of Resolve relative to other pollsters.  Following the 2022 election (but not in the leadup to said election) Resolve had frequently showed much larger primary vote leads for Labor than other pollsters (not only federally but also often at state level in the eastern states), as a result of which my 2PP conversions for Resolve diverged from my aggregate by an average of 3.7 points from the 2022 election through the end of 2023.  But in 2024 the difference has dropped to 0.4 points for the year as a whole, and 0.06 points for the last nine Resolve polls (effectively nothing).  I would assume some kind of change occurred, but have not seen anything published as to what.  This should be kept in mind when reading Ninefax narratives that talk about how Labor has plunged from (insert very high primary vote number) to their current primary of a miserable 27 - no other polls had them on such huge numbers in the first place, and most other polls don't have them that low now either.  

The current batch

As usual a quick update on the state of play since my last roundup.  After Labor lost the lead in my aggregate in the second week of November, they briefly recaptured it but have now lost it again and currently trail 49.7-50.3 by last-election preferences.  This week's Freshwater (51-49 to Coalition) was little changed from the previous and fairly harmless for Labor by Freshwater standards.  Essential was bad on their respondent-allocated "2PP+" at 48-47 to Coalition (=50.5) but the primaries were fairly similar to the last election after adjusting for the way Essential handles undecided.  The way Essential uses recalled vote creates a high risk of its primaries looking too much like the last election (a common issue with US polling this year) and for this reason my aggregate is currently adjusting its numbers down.  (By last-election preferences the latest Essential came out at 51.8 and nobody else is getting that now).  

The stinker of the week for Labor was the Morgan with the Coalition jumping to a 41-27.5 primary vote lead, the highest primary vote lead of the term for them by a striking 2.5%.  By last-election preferences this came out to a 48.5-51.5 deficit after a run of Morgan being pretty ALP-friendly on this measure.  Morgan is a fairly bouncy poll and not too much should ever be read into its single readings (and perhaps even less so this close to the holidays) but results like this still move the probability dial.  The probability at the moment is that the Coalition is just in front if last-election preferences still hold, and they probably don't given the shift in One Nation preferencing seen in the Queensland election and the Fadden by-election.  My One Nation adjusted figure has had the Coalition nudging 51 lately.  An election held now would not be pretty for the Government - they could well still win, but it would be the kind of victory you don't recover from.

How many polls?

This year again saw a swing to the supply side in federal polling.  Excluding ANUpoll which has been wildly inaccurate and is therefore not included in my tally, there were 132 federal polls (50 Morgans, 24 Essentials, 14 Newspolls, 12 Freshwaters, 11 Resolves, 11 YouGovs, 5 Redbridges, 3 Accent/Research MRPs, one DemosAU and one offering from the enigmatic Wolf+Smith.) That's an increase of 23 compared to 2023 and makes this year the busiest since 2013 (when there were 142). The main causes of the increase were YouGov running separately from Newspoll for the whole year, and Freshwater running monthly polling for the whole year after starting federal polls late in 2023.

2PP Voting Intention

124 of the 132 polls listed above released a headline two-party preferred number of some kind; those not doing so included seven of the 11 Resolves and one of the three Accent/Research MRPs.  Of these 2PPs Labor won 59, tied 28 and lost 37; my last-election estimates for the eight with no released 2PP were six Labor wins and two to Coalition, though one of the Coalition wins would have been rounded to a tie, so let's say +65=29-38 for the Government in chess scoreline terms.  Morgan released last-election preferences as a secondary figure for 26 of its 50 polls; using these instead would have turned five of Labor's losses into wins, four losses to draws and three draws to wins.  Resolve, when 2PPs were reported, varied as to the form of preferences reported and whether one number or two were reported; in one case last-election prefs (a win for Labor) had the most prominence but respondent preferences had Labor behind.  I should note of course here that winning the 2PP is not the same as winning a hypothetical election.  How much it is not the same is a very big question heading into the real deal.  Finally, one of the YouGov 50-50s has been the subject of a comment from a YouGov analyst that the 2PP should really have been 49-51.  This has, however, not been corrected on the YouGov website so I'm continuing to treat it as 50-50.  

Coalition 2PP wins on released figures became commoner through the year with three in the first quarter, six in the second, 12 in the third and 17 in the fourth.  There was some lumpiness by month in this with none in June but seven in July; otherwise November (6) and December (8) unsurprisingly saw the largest numbers.

Many of the Coalition's 2PP wins based on pollster-released estimates would not have been wins by last-election preferences; on that basis the Coalition saluted only 28 times, 18 of which would have rounded to 50-50 to the nearest whole number.  My highest last-election conversion was a 53.9 to Labor for Morgan in early March and the lowest was 48.1 from the September Freshwater offering.  By pollster-published 2PPs the same Morgan topped the list at 53.5 (tied with another Morgan in the second week of June) and the worst was an Essential that converted to 46.8 in late March (thanks to volatile respondent preferences).

My average last-election aggregate figure for 2024 was 50.9 to ALP (down 3.9).  However, again my aggregate liked Labor's old stuff better than their new stuff.  Apart from some weirdness in January caused by a single Morgan outlier at a time when there was not a lot of polling happening, the story of the government's year is down.  From the 52-48ish position it ended 2024 in, the government lost one point between mid-February and early April, hovered around 51 before dropping another half-point in July, and then clung to the tiniest of leads (on my reckoning but not everyone's) until mid-November.  We end the polling year with the government in a third decline phase that has yet to convincingly stabilise. 

It's not too easy to link specific events to the cases where government polling slumped, though the loss of half a point in mid-year did directly follow the departure of Fatima Payman from the Labor Party.  Unlike some other years, there hasn't been an obvious single big poll-shifting movement, and the difference through the year hasn't been that large.  

Herding With No Predator In Sight?

2PP polling has obviously been very close this year, especially in the second half.  But what's odd is how consistently close the headline 2PP readings have been.  I noticed this in early September, and the pattern hasn't changed.  Since Morgan's equal year high 53.5 in the second week of June, the average pollster-released Labor 2PP has been 49.9 +/- 0.9.  There hasn't been a single 2PP outside the range 48-52 in the last 69 readings!  The headline 2PPs have only about 60% of the variation one would expect if they were completely random samples with a margin of error of 3% and if there were no house effects between different pollsters and if there was no underlying change in voter intentions during that time.

If there is some kind of volatility suppression going on (and it could be just from one or two firms if so) the question is why bother.  Pollsters are judged on the accuracy of their final polls and historically that's when herding peaks because nobody wants to be wrong by themselves.  If a pollster produces the most accurate final poll in 2025, surely nobody but the most hardcore statistical purists will care if it threw a 46-54 rogue or bounced like a frog in a sock a few months out?  

One thing I have seen a lot of this year is that lay poll consumers are more likely to notice (and exaggerate the meaning of) relatively minor differences in polls when the polls are tight. I've been getting "the polls are all over the place, I dunno who to believe!" type comments from people on social media when one pollster releases a 51-49 and another the same week releases a 50-50!  (It's quite exhausting actually; I ask those doing this to kindly stop.) I get complaints that Morgan is useless because of its bounciness when even Morgan with an average 2PP shift from week to week of 1.3% is actually not that bouncy (and that average has dropped from 1.58% to 1.04% in the second half of the year, making me wonder if something changed in Morgan's methods at the same time as Morgan started releasing two sets of 2PPs).  

Another is the intensity of groupthink among the commentariat about an inevitable close contest and a nearly inevitable hung parliament, when by historic standards there's still plenty of time for something else to happen.  It may be that any pollsters who might be prone to make a decision influenced by other pollsters, their own prior polls or the zeitgeist would think there is no point putting out a sample in which the race isn't at all close when everyone "knows" it is and will remain so.   

The ALP Primary

One thing that pollsters are not herding on and that has triggered a lot of comment this year is Labor's primary vote.  In the latest reading from each pollster Labor has 27 in Resolve, 27.5 in Morgan, 30 in Essential, YouGov and Freshwater, 32 in DemosAU, 33 in Newspoll and 34 in Redbridge (but 31.6 by my estimate in the Accent/Redbridge MRP).  They can't all be right!

As averages through the year (noting that the time scales are not all exactly the same) Resolve had Labor at 29.5, Essential 30.4 (but really 32.1 after adjusting for "undecided"), Morgan 30.8, Freshwater 30.9, YouGov 31.3, Newspoll 32.6 and Redbridge 33.0 (but Redbridge only from five polls and the latest Redbridge/Accent MRP is lower off a very large sample).  Resolve and Morgan both have "independent" available as an option everywhere, which drags down primaries for other forces (I suspect especially Labor) compared to what happens at an election when voters who might in principle vote independent find there is none or only a silly or obscure one in their seat.  It's possible Resolve's use of forced choice (you can't say "don't know" and continue in the survey) drives up their independent response during the term further.  (Their campaign period polls work differently and tend to be accurate on the IND vote).  So in real terms, rather than the spread of readings of the ALP primary between different polls being the six points it was in the current rount, on average through the year it might be something like two.  Newspoll gets the highest ALP primaries of the monthly or more frequent polls, but not massively so.  

It's also notable here that Newspoll (12.1) has had a lower average Greens primary this year than Resolve (12.5), Essential (13.0 after adjusting for undecided), Morgan (13.3) Freshwater (13.4) and YouGov (13.5).  Among the more frequent polls that don't have high IND breakouts, one can pretty much throw a blanket over the average combined ALP/Green primaries of YouGov (44.8), Newspoll (44.7), Freshwater (44.3) and Essential (43.4 adjusted).  

Leaderships

I usually use Newspoll alone for the annual leadership averages but that comes with a big asterisk this year because Newspoll has in some regards been the odd one out.  In Newspoll, Anthony Albanese averaged a net satisfaction of -9.1 for the year, with a best of net 0 in May and a worst of net -15 in November.  Peter Dutton averaged net -12.7, with a best of net -8 in late July and a worst of net -16 the poll before in late June.  On Better Prime Minister, an indicator that historically favours incumbents by an average of about 15 points, Albanese led every poll, but only beat the historic average once (a 19 point lead in May), with a lowest lead of four points in November; his average was 9.6 ahead.  Albanese in fact has the second-longest Newspoll streak of Better PM wins against the same opponent ever in time terms (behind Turnbull vs Shorten), but that's mainly because Opposition Leaders who were consistently losing Better PM were mostly losing it by lots and getting removed.  

However in Newspoll it took til the final two polls of the year for Dutton to get a better net satisfaction score than Albanese.  In every poll that wasn't a Newspoll since early June (26 in a row from five different pollsters) Dutton's personal rating of whatever form was better than Albanese's - the average of these wins being a far from trivial 11.6%.  The major difference between Newspoll and the others is that Newspoll finds more disapproval of Dutton.  Newspoll's average for the time in question has been 42-53 for Albanese and 39-51 for Dutton, while the other polls have averaged 37-50 and 40-42.  It's possible Newspoll's harder pushing of respondents to answer the question is contributing to more voters expressing mild negatives about Dutton.  Dutton even managed to lead on preferred PM polling in four polls this year (three Resolves and a YouGov) and tie another two Resolves.

Betting

Betting isn't reliably predictive but is interesting to keep an eye on.   The US Presidential election this year was the first example I can ever remember where headline betting and predictive markets turned out to have a better take on things than most of the poll-based modelling (DecisionDeskHQ excluded).  Immediately after the POTUS election the Coalition flipped to favouritism on Australian markets, but I think this could have been more than people just lazily assuming that as goes the US so go we.  Specifically, the aftermath of the US election shone a spotlight on the generally poor performance of incumbent governments in the current global economy.  Checking a bunch of betting sites I found the government's implied chance of re-election down to an average of 43.4%, again with not much variation.  That's pretty amazing for a first-term government that hasn't fallen badly behind in the polls, hasn't spent the term fighting with itself and has the pendulum on its side - especially as if the Coalition falls say four or five seats short of majority, the government will have the option of making its crossbench supporters put their name to it with a no confidence vote on the floor of the House. 

The road ahead

At the moment 2025 looks like a really interesting federal election.  Hard economic times have strongly challenged the assumption that the government will win just because first-term governments do.  The near-constant decline in government polling over more than 18 months belies the fact that the government really isn't far behind and was ahead for a very long time.  (Indeed on my numbers they kept the lead longer than any government in the history of regular polling).  But the fundamentals seem bad - voters strongly think the country is trending in the wrong direction, and Australian standards of living have declined.  In last year's edition I called weak polling near the end of 2023 a wake-up call for the government and raised the question of whether the government could improve and put some heat on Peter Dutton.  They did neither of those things, but nor did they collapse in a heap.  Nonetheless as the year ends things have gradually been getting uglier for them.  

The Government retains three options - an early election in late February or March without parliament resuming, an April election with perhaps a brief resumption or a May election with a full Budget as currently scheduled.  Depending on which path is taken there may not be all that much polling before the campaign kicks off, or there could still be a few solid months of it.  As mentioned in the previous article here, the recent history of close leadup polling suggests that a lopsided result (like say 53-47 either way) would be quite surprising from here, but there's still a good chance one side or the other will have a clear win on the 2PP and (not always the same thing) the seat tally.  As against that, there is still the possibility that neither side will get all that close to a majority.  

The Coalition should be well pleased with how the year has ended, but they should also be nervous about what happens if they start to look like clear favourites.  There's not been that much scrutiny of the Coalition's plans until the recent nuclear debate.  I also think concern is warranted about the weakness of the Coalition's team.  Peter Dutton as leader has done better than many would have expected, but he has had to be everywhere in the media cycle to do it.  His frontbench simply isn't a patch on Labor's and remains a mostly B-grade relic of the Morrison days than a distinctive new direction.  Maybe none of this matters if voters are cross enough with the incumbents and feel that the government has just not done enough to help them through. 

Media Fail Again Over MRP Reporting

Redbridge/Accent MRP model projects Coalition would be likely to have the most seats if the federal election was held now.  

It does not say Coalition would be likely to have a majority.

It does not predict the result of the election.

---------------------------------------------------------

I thought an article was in order to unpack some of what is going on with the recent Redbridge/Accent MRP model and the woeful reporting of it by pretty much every outlet that has so far mentioned it.

MRP models (stands for Multilevel Regression with Poststratification) are not the easiest to explain to lay readers at the best of times, but what we have seen from several media sources reporting on this one goes beyond understandable confusion and into the realms of reckless innumerate false reporting.

What a MRP model does is to build a picture of how certain types of seats are likely to vote based on small samples of all 150 electorates.  Although each seat's sample is uselessly tiny by itself, by assuming that seats that resemble each other in ways that affect voting intention will vote similarly, one can smooth out a lot of the rough edges in the sampling, and samples of a few dozen voters per electorate can build a model that's about as good on a seat-by-seat basis as if those samples were actually a few hundred.  That still isn't very good on a seat-by-seat basis, but on a nationwide basis, the model could capture some general trends about the kinds of seats where each party is likely to be doing well or badly, and about how a party might be going in converting vote share to expected seats.  

A standard issue with the Redbridge/Accent MRPs has been that they report probabilities of various outcomes, but those probabilities only apply if an election was held right now, and yet these statements are confused for predictions - something I think the pollsters involved could do more to ward off in their reporting and publicity.  A model that finds that in an election held right now there would be a 98% chance of a no-majority parliament does not mean the chance of a no-majority parliament when the election is held is anywhere near that high - it's a nowcast, not a forecast.  Media misreporting of it as a forecast gives the false impression that the outcome is already more or less locked in, when in fact five and a half months (if the election is in May) is still plenty of time for things to change a great deal.  (Also, this is only one model, albeit a large one.  In theory, a different pollster using a different panel and weightings but doing the same exercise might get a more substantial but probably still low chance of majority government now for one side or both.)

Again assuming a May election, historically on average polls taken now have been about 3% 2PP away from the actual result, and limiting things to more recent elections and higher quality polls doesn't change a lot there.  (The average difference between results and Newspolls taken five and a half months out has been just under 2.5%, with governments on average improving by nearly 1% in that time.)  That said, I find with Newspoll at least that polls taken this far out tend to be closer to the result when the polls themselves are close.  Most federal elections these days are pretty close on the 2PP front, with only two of the last 13 outside 53-47.  So it's more likely to see a massive lead shrink than to see a close race blow out into a landslide.  Even so, if I halve the average error and say there's historically a 50% chance of polls taken now being within 1.5% of the final result, there's still plenty of room for one side or the other to win outright.

In terms of what this MRP is saying now, exact voting intention figures have not been published yet (there is a graph), but the report includes primary and 2PP figures for every seat.  After weighting these by October 2024 division enrolement multiplied by 2022 division turnout, I estimate the national primaries in this model as ALP 31.6 Coalition 38.9 Green 11.4 others 18, and the 2PP as 50.8-49.2 to Coalition.  (This is by last-election preferences which might be over-generous to Labor, but the Coalition seem to have done rather well on those for whatever reason - could include high One Nation or low IND votes, for example - as I get 50.2 as the expected 2PP for those primaries.)

Off such primaries after taking into account personal votes and allowing for otherwise random variation in seat swings I would expect something like 69 of the 135 current major party seats to go to Labor and 66 to the Coalition.  However, the model's median result (from a fairly wide range of possible outcomes) is 65 Labor seats and 71 Coalition.  The main difference here is that in the Redbridge/Accent model, the swing is significantly non-uniform; it falls more strongly in outer suburban seats hitting Labor in more marginals.  (MRP models also don't cater for personal vote effects to any real degree, so this might be a seat or so pessimistic even on that basis).  The MRP model also expects the Coalition to recover on balance one teal seat.  

The median parliament in this model would be fascinating.  Contrary to a fairly common myth, the Coalition wouldn't automatically form government or even necessarily get the first go at trying to just because it won the most seats.  Indeed, if the incumbent PM chooses to dig in and make those wanting to support an alternative government put their votes to it on the floor, Anthony Albanese could in this situation choose to "meet the parliament" and force the Coalition to find 75 votes for a no confidence motion against him if it wanted to govern.  Katter (but he may name a crazy price), Sharkie (unless she finds out what a 2PP count is), Dai Le (perhaps), Allegra Spender (maybe),  ... it's likely but it isn't straightforward.  Some of the teals and other independents might use the fact that the Coalition had won the most seats and the 2PP to justify supporting it, or might do so simply out of fear of oblivion at the following election.  Or they might not.  (Although their seats are just not that conservative anymore on a 2PP basis, the conservative ends of the teals' support bases may be more likely to turn on them for backing Labor than the left-wing ends would be for backing the Coalition.)

This is a similar picture to the previous Redbridge/Accent MRP, which also projected the government to be a few seats worse off than voting intentions implied, and for the same reason (outer suburban seats).  That's important because in 2022 Labor did very well with the 2PP distribution in the Labor vs Coalition seats, which means that with an even swing back the Coalition needs something like 51.3% to win the most seats.  But if the Coalition does better where it matters this time, that 51.3 can come down, and things can then get very messy for Labor if they lose the 2PP by any more than a whisker.  I've been of the view for some time that while a 50-50 2PP at the election would probably not be too bad for Labor, 49-51 is a rock they should not want to turn over.  

But still, the model's 71 is far from a majority.  Indeed the report finds that:

"The probability that the Coalition would have a majority in the House of Representatives is currently less than two per cent, and for Labor, essentially zero. If an election were held now, there is a greater than 98 per cent probability of a minority government."  (my bold)

So, you're telling Sky there's a chance ...

We have here a model that finds that the chance of anyone winning a majority if the election was held now is negligible.  But the media reporting on it didn't report it that way.  I am not linking to any of the media pieces in question here because they do not deserve any links from which they might obtain revenue.  Indeed some of the worst offenders should be banned from journalism until they have retaken the entirity of primary school.  

At the less severe but still bad end was the original Daily Telegraph version with a headline "Shock poll reveals Peter Dutton on track for major win at next Federal Election".  What on earth is a "major win"?  Major gain (in seat or swing terms) would have been a fair description, but a scraped minority government (and not certainly even that) is not a "major win" in the context of landslides or majorities, though it would be great going for a first-term Opposition.  The article started with "Peter Dutton is now a chance to win an outright majority in his own right at the next election [..]" before noting nearly 400 words later that that chance was under 2% in the model.  This is a good example of how the nowcast/forecast confusion leads to bad reporting - there has always been some chance of a Coalition majority at the next election simply because nobody really knows that it can't happen.  All that has happened here is that for the first time one of these MRPs has found that that chance would be non-zero in an election held now.  

Sky "News" was much, much worse:

"Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is on track to win a majority at the federal election next year, while PM Anthony Albanese is set to lose several seats, according to a new poll.

Accent Research and Redbridge Group conducted a survey of almost 5,000 people and mapped out the findings to predict the electoral map ahead of Australians voting.

It found the Dutton-led Coalition is on track to pick up at least nine seats and win an outright majority, pointing to a potential defeat for the Albanese government."

Again, the model is not a prediction, it's a claim about what would happen if the election was held now.  What the report does say about future tracking based on the "linear trend" is actually the opposite of Sky's commentary:

"The trends observed for the number of seats won by the Coalition parties and Labor are essentially linear, and now means that a majority government is unlikely."

There is absolutely nothing in the report that justifies Sky's claim.  Anyone with the slightest ability to add and subtract numbers knows the Coalition needs more than nine seats for a majority.

The Nightly, whatever that is, was equally useless:

"A new poll has revealed Opposition Leader Peter Dutton looks likely to win the yet-to-be-announced Australian election with a clear majority."

(Neither of these outlets in the report quoted from mentioned that the model's probability of a Coalition win now was less than 2%).  

The Daily Mail (probably saving its effort from greater embarrassment by not having Peter van Onselen write it) sub-headlined its article "Federal Labor heading for defeat" and carried on in such a vein when the report actually said nothing whatsoever about who would form government with what probability even now.  The model says only that the Coalition currently would have an 82% chance of being the largest bloc (which is not the same thing.)

Seven News managed to sanitise the less than 2% nowcast chance as merely "slim", and the poll was also mentioned on breakfast TV but one never expects to find anything with a brain there.  

There is far more that could be discussed in technical terms about MRP models, how accurate they are, how good this particular one is and so on.  (This model is the heir to the YouGov model which performed remarkably well in classic 2PP seats but less well in crossbench seats at the last election, but it is also a smaller sample.)  The main theoretical debate I have seen is over whether a sample of around 5000 with an average of 33 voters per electorate is really enough for the method to work its magic or not.  But in terms of public understanding, before we can even get to that sort of debate we need to get past the stage where incompetent, lazy and biased media companies churn out complete misrepresentations of what a poll is actually saying.  And we're not there yet.  Where we are instead is at the point where I dish out these.

image source

Wirrah Award For Fishy Poll Reporting

Awarded to Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail

Porcupine Fish Award For Ultra-Fishy Poll Reporting

Awarded to Sky News and The Nightly  (image credit)

Queensland 2024: Final Results And Poll Performance

Queensland: LNP 52 ALP 36 KAP 3 GREEN 1 IND 1

2PP Estimate 53.76% to LNP (+6.89% from 2020)

The 2024 Queensland election is over.  At one stage it looked like it could be a bloodbath, and it was far from close despite some close-looking returns from the day booths, but it still ended up being only a routinely medium-heavy defeat for a decade old federally dragged government.  Labor was criticised for running so far to the left in this election but they did the right thing by ensuring they would hold a mass of seats in Brisbane in an election they were never going to win anyway.  The same strategies that were effective in not merely stopping the Greens taking more Labor seats but in recovering a seat from them (very narrowly) were also effective in holding off the Liberals in most of Brisbane, cutting losses to three seats on the city's eastern fringe.  For the LNP, mission accomplished, with a workable majority but without the hazards of an overly large backbench.  For the ALP, relief.  It could have been a great deal worse.

EMRS: Is Labor Finally Making Some Progress? / Hobart Poll Controversy

EMRS Lib 35 (-1) ALP 31 (+4) Greens 14 (=) JLN 6 (-2) IND 11 (-1) others 3 (=)
IND likely overstated, others likely understated
Liberals would be the largest party but Labor would make seat gains 
Possible seat estimate in election "held now" off this poll LIB 14 ALP 12 Green 5 IND 4

The final EMRS Tasmanian voting intention poll of the year is out and it provides some evidence that the Labor Opposition might be taking baby steps on the road back to government at last.  Labor is up four points, albeit from a poor base.  The Liberal government is at its lowest vote since it got down to 34% in December 2017 (a reading that I doubt was accurate given their rapid recovery months later) and the major party gap is also as low as it has been since then.  This said, Labor still hasn't been above 32% since the last "pre-COVID" poll back in March 2020 and if the ALP is going to make a serious push for government, at some point in the term it will need to break out of the very low 30s.  This is a movement in the right direction for once; let's see if it continues.  The poll comes following a quarter dominated by the Spirits of Tasmania fiasco that led to the forced resignation of Deputy Premier Michael Ferguson from Cabinet.  I suppose that yet again, as with bad polls following the 2023 defections, the Government might say that in it could have been worse.  

Poll Roundup: Labor Loses The Lead!

 

All things must pass.

2PP Aggregate (Last Election Preferences) 50.1-49.9 to Coalition (+0.4, first Coalition lead of term)
With One Nation adjustment 50.6-49.4 to Coalition

Election "held now" could leave Labor with about 70 seats

--

It finally happened!  After endless months of Labor's 2PP lead being painfully whittled towards zero, last weekend's Newspoll finally put the Coalition into the lead on my last-election 2PP aggregate.  It is true that I said they were eight weeks away from breaking Kevin Rudd's record for the longest aggregated 2PP lead since there was nothing much to aggregate, and they actually lasted nine.  So there is that, but it's not much consolation, and a lot of the other aggregates flipped two or three months back anyway.

Historically, it's no big deal, and perhaps not even a medium one.  Almost every government falls behind in polling at some stage in every term, except the first Hawke government which went to an election not long after the half-time siren.  Governments, albeit the other side's are better at it, have frequently recovered from being well behind and tend to poll badly in the last year before elections.  Labor has the benefit of a friendly pendulum from last time and the Coalition needs to win a lot of seats in some very different places to get another sniff at government in 2025.  

Rebecca White and Anne Urquhart To Run For House Of Reps

I have four (!) articles I'm aiming to write for this site in the next week or so but the first cab off the rank should be the one where my local knowledge is most relevant, that being today's news that Rebecca White and Anne Urquhart will be running for Labor in the federal House of Reps seats in Lyons and Braddon respectively, resigning their State and Senate seats to do so.  The candidate to take on Bridget Archer in Bass, Tasmania's other competitive House of Reps seat, has still not been announced.

Rumours about White and Urquhart running have been around for some time and frequently canvassed on the Fontcast podcast and at times in mainstream media, the White one steadily gathering pace despite having been denied by the candidate in a debate for the March state election.  The Urquhart rumour, together with one that Shane Broad might quit state parliament to run for the federal Braddon seat, has been on and off but it is now clearly on, with the Prime Minister's social media announcing both Urquhart and White as candidates during his visit to the state today.

The Pressure Valve: Does The Defeat Of Same-Party State Governments Help Federal Governments?

It's 1992.  The unpopular Cain/Kirner Victorian Labor government has been sent packing.  In comes Jeff Kennett and some voters are soon alarmed by his New Right agenda.  Cue massive protests.  The Keating federal Labor government has been struggling in the polls but it springs to life soon after Kennett's win (though that was far from the only cause).  In the 1993 election Labor gets a 4.34% swing in Victoria and gains four seats.  Across Bass Strait, where a short-lived Labor government had been removed in early 1992, there's an even bigger swing that yields another three.  The three Tasmanian losses are the first signs on counting night that something has gone terribly wrong with John Hewson's unloseable election, and these seven seats picked up by Labor in these two Liberal states combined are the backbone of Keating's against-the-odds win.  

Victoria 1992 is the paradigm case for a theory that one might call the "pressure valve" theory of state elections, that there is a drag effect of state elections upon federal elections and that federal governments benefit if the voters let off steam by throwing out an unpopular state government of the same party instead of taking their anger with it out on the feds.  Better still if the new state government has started to frighten the horses.  I have talked a lot about "federal drag" on here, which refers to the fact that state governments do much worse at elections, all else being equal, when the same party is in power federally.  Age and federal drag are the two biggest killers of state governments and it is for this reason that the Miles Government was always likely to lose by about as much as it did.  But does it work the other way?

Not-A-Poll Reset 2 of 2024: Miles Defeated

Following Labor's heavy defeat in the Queensland election (and no it wasn't close) it's time to start another round of the sidebar Next Leader To Go Not-A-Poll, which includes the six Premiers, the two Chief Ministers, the PM and the federal Opposition Leader.

Inheriting the job after Annastacia Palaszczuk resigned, Miles served for less than a year, the first Premier to not make it to a year in office since Rob Kerin (SA) in 2002.  This is the longest gap between cases with Premiers with such short tenures in history.  Leading a government that was federally dragged and almost a decade old, and coming to office with mixed personal perceptions, Miles was always at long odds to retain.  He did, however, not die wondering in his attempt to hold on to as many Labor seats as he could, and in my view the result could have easily been worse.

David Crisafulli scores the Coalition's first win from opposition in a state election since SA 2018 and takes over with the potential to be Premier for a long time.  My metaphorical advice to him to secure that longevity would be to install a ten-foot high portrait of Campbell Newman in his office and write across it "JUST DON'T BE THIS GUY".  

Not-A-Poll voters overwhelmingly got this one right.  The totals after deleting votes cast after 6 pm on election night (as I always do when the incumbent loses) were:

The new round is more interesting.  Albanese and Dutton go to an election in the next seven months, though it's possible that they could both survive it in their current roles; if Albanese does win will he go a full second term? Rockliff won an election earlier this year but his government has had a bumpy ride.  Barr just won another election and might retire sometime in the next 20 years, or lose an election in the next 60.  The rest are four first-termers elected from opposition (none facing elections before 2026) and two replacement Premiers.  Cook faces an election next year but is against a very weakened opposition, while Allan could be at risk in 2026 given the age of the government at that time.  

Queensland 2024 Postcount

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Donations welcome!

Cleaning up the mess in Queensland postcounts is hard work!  Donation links for PayID, paypal, bank transfer in sidebar - please only donate if you can afford to do so (poll deniers and Courier Mail editors excepted, they should both give me everything they have)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Final result LNP 52 ALP 36 KAP 3 GRN 1 IND 1

--

Aspley (ALP vs LNP), has been won by ALP, covered below 

Gaven (ALP vs LNP) has been won by ALP, covered below

Mirani (LNP vs KAP) has been won by LNP, covered below

Mulgrave (LNP vs KAP), has been won by LNP, covered below

Pine Rivers (ALP vs LNP) has been won by ALP, covered below

South Brisbane (Green vs ALP) has been won by ALP, covered below

Estimated final result if current leads/expected favourites hold LNP 52 ALP 36 KAP 3 GRN 1 IND 1 

This is my postcount thread for the 2024 Queensland election which has been very decisively won by the LNP, the scale of their victory becoming more apparent late in the night as the prepoll swing was higher than the day booths.   I will be unrolling seats of interest through the day.  With only 66% of enrolment counted on the night it may well be that more seats become more competitive than they looked as counting continues.  I note for instance that Labor's apparent miracle retain in Bundaberg has tightened late at night and is still awaiting a major prepoll.  (Edit: Labor has survived that)

Queensland 2024 Election Night Live

2020 Election Result ALP 52 LNP 34 KAP 3 Green 2 PHON 1 IND 1

At 2024 Election ALP 51 LNP 35 KAP 4 Green 2 IND 1

Substantial swing to LNP, 2PP likely to exceed 53% and may reach 54%

LNP has won election with a small to moderate majority (probably 50-53 seats won)

Seats expected to change (some not absolutely confirmed):

LNP to ALP: Ipswich West

ALP to LNP:  Aspley, Barron River, Caloundra, Capalaba, Cook, Keppel, Hervey Bay, Mackay, Maryborough, Mundingburra, Nicklin, Redcliffe, Pine Rivers, Rockhampton, Townsville, Thuringowa

ALP to LNP or KAP: Mulgrave

Incumbents struggling:

ALP trailing LNP on projection: Pumicestone

Greens trailing ALP: South Brisbane (but may be saved if ALP falls to third)

Close ALP incumbent seats: Gaven

Close KAP incumhent seat: Mirani

Close Green incumbent seat: Maiwar

Complicated seats:

Mulgrave (possibility of KAP win from third)

South Brisbane (possibility ALP could be knocked out saving Greens)

Queensland Polling Narrows Further In The Final Days

LAST-ELECTION PREFS AGGREGATE: 52.4-47.6 TO LNP 

SEAT PROJECTION OFF STATE POLLS IF THIS 2PP IS ACCURATE: LNP 48 ALP 37 GRN 4 KAP 3 IND 1

(AVERAGE OF FINAL POLLS BY RELEASED 2PP: 53.5-46.5 TO LNP, PROJECTION FOR THAT 2PP IS 51-34-4-3-1).  

As the final polls come out, we seem on for a closer Queensland election than earlier this year looked the case.  For much of the year the Miles Government has had classic hallmarks of a doomed state government - almost ten years in power, federally dragged, beset by crime complaints, and polling terribly.  Even four weeks ago there were signs of some recovery, but nothing that looked like life.  Now in the final week the LNP has recorded a couple of polls based off which it would be only slightly more likely than not to get a majority.  As the pendulum slightly favours Labor, it's even still plausible that if there is a modest polling error, Labor could scrape home.  Equally it's still plausible that the LNP could outdo the polls or get a good seat distribution and get a very solid majority.  But the very heavy drubbing that for so long looked so likely now seems a much more remote prospect.  If the late polls are spot on, Labor will almost certainly still lose, but they won't have trouble with saving the furniture.  Not that they needed the furniture the last time they were voted out.  

This has been accompanied by some remarkable changes in leadership ratings.  In the final Newspoll, Steven Miles has recorded a Better Premier lead, albeit of 3%, which is typically nowhere near enough because preferred leader polling skews to incumbents.  But such as it was, that was his first Better Premier lead ever, and the first for a Labor Premier since April 2023, snapping a run of 17 losses from various pollsters.  Crisafulli has gone from a personal rating of net +12 at the start of this campaign to net -3, his first negative rating of the term that I can find after at least 19 positives.  This sort of recovery by a state government that has started losing heavily in polling is very uncommon.

The Commonest Arguments For OPV Are Overrated

In the leadup to the Queensland election (which I'll have a roundup post on overnight) there's been some undignified arguing about whether Queensland should use optional or compulsory preferencing, with both major parties accusing each other of seeking to rig or corrupt the system.  Opposition Leader David Crisafulli has repeatedly used misleading language to attack compulsory preferencing, claiming that it forces voters to "vote for" candidates they don't want.  (It actually only forces them to rank them, which lacks the same level of obvious moral repugnance).   

In New South Wales, the debate about optional preferencing is typically a lot more sedate.  Optional preferencing has obvious formality benefits in NSW especially at state elections (though this can flow on to worse informal voting rates at federal).  Perhaps partly because OPV is in the NSW Constitution, and perhaps because any government wanting to do so would have a tough time getting its way in the upper house, there doesn't seem to be any serious push to get rid of it.  It also seems that for whatever reason, non-major-party candidates (who might be thought to be disadvantaged most by OPV since they most often rely on winning from behind) actually do well in NSW state elections, much better than in Victoria.  

However, in Queensland, where there's no upper house and the election winners can write the rules for the next election, the debate is an on and off culture war item between the major parties.   In Queensland, OPV first came in from the 1992 election after it was recommended by the post-Fitzgerald Electoral and Administrative Review Committee, although the arguments considered had very little to do with corruption.  It was repealed for the 2017 election in unusual circumstances.  Katter's Australian Party and the LNP had supported an electoral amendment bill to increase the number of seats from 89 to 93.  The minority Palaszczuk government moved an amendment to add the return of compulsory preferencing, which then passed and the whole package was then passed over the LNP's vehement objections.  

ACT 2024 Postcount

Numbers in the form Labor-Liberal-Greens-I4C-others.  

BRINDABELLA: Final result 2-2-1-0-0 (Greens defeated Liberals for final seat)

GINNINDERRA: 2-2-1-0-0 (no change)

KURRAJONG: 2-1-1-1-0 (Independents for Canberra gain from Greens)

MURRUMBIDGEE: 2-2-0-0-1 (Fiona Carrick gain from Greens)

YERRABI: 2-2-1-0-0 (no change)

Final total 10-9-4-1-1

WARNING: ACT election analysis is highly technical.  This page is rated Wonk Factor 5/5.

The letter Q, where used without explanation, means the number of quotas.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to my page that will follow the ACT postcount until all seats are resolved.  This year each seat has its own section with updates scrolling to the top for each seat.   Updates will be added frequently for the close and complex races in Brindabella (three party fight for one seat) and Murrumbidgee (within-party contest between two Liberals).  The other seats will only be updated if anything I consider notable happens.  

Last night Elections ACT were extremely fast at getting two provisional distributions out with the second arriving at 8:21.  I believe this was all the electronic votes available to include on the day and the reason there were no more afterwards is all remaining votes were paper ballots that still need to be scanned over coming days.

ACT Election 2024: Counting Day Live

Startline from 2020 election: 10 Labor 9 Liberal 6 Greens 

Likely result 10 Labor 9 Liberal 3 Green 1 Ind for Canberra 1 Carrick 1 undecided

In doubt: Labor vs Liberal vs Greens (Brindabella) - Liberal appears likely 

(some others not fully confirmed)

Labor/Greens combined majority (as opposed to shared balance of power) looks extremely likely.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Comments will appear here scrolling to the top from 6 pm

11:15 End of night wrap: What we have seen in the ACT election is no major change for the major parties, with Labor, Liberals and Greens all down a bit on vote share at the moment with the emergence of Independents for Canberra.  The Greens were extremely lucky to win six seats in 2020 and an unsurprising but small decline in their vote was always a risk of costing them three.  While 10-10-3-1-1 still looks like the most likely scenario there remain some different scenarios in Brindabella where the flow of preferences between the left parties could still see the Greens retain against the odds, or there is a very weird scenario in which Labor gets three, but more likely is that postals snuff all this out with the Liberals winning.  A further distribution is needed here.

The two most likely fourth-party chances, Thomas Emerson and Fiona Carrick, appear to have won convincingly, but there has not been a wave of "independents" as some expected. Still, these are good breakthroughs after decades of only three parties winning.

Not much really changes in the ACT in terms of the majors.  If the Liberals do manage to tie Labor's seat count that will be another tick in the box for federal drag, but nothing like the tick seen in the Northern Territory.  I am not sure the question "how can the Canberra Liberals win?" really has an answer yet, until Labor really screw things up the place is simply too left-wing,  

NSW By-Elections 2024 Live

Pittwater (Lib vs IND 0.7%), Epping (Lib 4.8%), Hornsby (Lib 8.0%) - ALP not contesting any seats

Pittwater expected IND gain, Epping and Hornsby LIB retain.  

-------------------------

Updates will appear here from 6 pm, scrolling to the top.

8:08 Very distracted by ACT but a very large prepoll has come in and there is nothing dangerous there for Scruby.  Scruby's lead is too large.  

7:37 The pattern in the booth voting is quite set in Pittwater and something very radical has to happen in prepolls or it's all over and Scruby has won.  

7:11 Several more booths as well as postals in in Pittwater and things are not getting any better now for the Liberals after that aberrant third booth.  

6:57 Uneven swing between booths in Pittwater, the third one in actually swung to Ryburn on projected 2CP.   

6:51 Whopping swings to Scruby in Pittwater in the early booths, coming out at around 10% 2CP!  If this continues it will be over pretty fast.  Nothing scary for Liberals to see in the other seats, the Greens a distant second in both of them.  

6 pm: This thing is on, there's even a results page.  No action expected for at least half an hour.  

Queensland 2024: The Polls Aren't Getting Much Better For Labor

Recent polling LNP leads approx 55.5-44.5

Possible seat result of this 2PP LNP 56 ALP 29 Green 4 KAP 3 IND 1 

I last wrote about the Queensland polling leadup back five months ago - was it really that long? - in The Tide Is Going Out For Queensland Labor.  At that time, there had been a few polls out showing Labor trailing about 45-55 two-party preferred, which as I explained in the article is historically not surprising in the slightest.  Five months on and less than one to go til the election, they're still there.  

However it's not as if nothing at all has happened in the meantime.  Since my last article (which mentioned the 44-56 April YouGov and the 46-54 March Newspoll), things may have got worse and then got better for the Government.  There's no need for me to repeat all the details of polls that are recorded and linked to on Wikipedia but there was a string of shockers for the government through to early September.  On 2PP they had only 44.5% (est) in Resolve February to May, 43% (converted estimate) in Redbridge February+May (two waves, not a continuous sample), 43% in YouGov July 8-15, 45.5% in Redbridge May+August, 43% in Wolf + Smith 6-29 Aug (Wolf + Smith is a sort of Resolve spinoff), and 42% (est and possibly generous) in Resolve July through September.  

While the Resolve type polls in this mix have the Labor primary lower than others because of their handling of the independent vote, none of these six polls had the Labor primary with a 3 in front of it, and Redbridge's first sample had the LNP as high as 47.  The average major party primary gap across these polls was 17.5 points.

ACT Election 2024 Preview

2020 BASELINE: ALP 10 Lib 9 Green 6 (ALP-Green coalition government)

At election ALP 10 Lib 8 Green 6 FF1 (1 Liberal incumbent disendorsed and joined FF)

--

This is my preview page for the 2024 ACT election.  In the absence of any reputable polling whatsoever for the entire term (seriously!) there is not too much of use I can say about outcomes, beyond pointing to some possibilities.  What I can do is look at the nature of the contests based on the 2020 result and the history of ACT elections.  The ACT is of special interest to me because it uses a variant of Hare-Clark, the system also used in Tasmania.  I may get around to writing a special effective voting article but in case I don't here's one I prepared earlier.  Firstly, I've revised my view on something about the theory of ACT elections.

Well Yes There May Be A Bit Of Federal Drag In The ACT

Federal drag is the theory and fact that it is harder for state and territory governments to do well at elections when the same party is also in power federally, especially if the federal government is not that popular.  We saw this effect in spades in the recent NT election when the first of Labor's mainland dominos fell back with a drubbing that reduced Labor to 4 seats out of 25.  One could hardly blame the feds for all of that - though one could also blame them for more than some might like to.  (There was a lot of talk about how the Voice helped Labor hold up in the majority First Nations seat, the corollary of that is that it helped them get smashed everywhere else).  

Previously when I have looked at the federal drag effect in the very left-wing ACT I have not found anything to see - there just isn't a corellation between federal drag and government seat share change.  However, on a careful look at the history of ACT elections there seems to be something - you just need to ignore the swing from 1989 and 1992, and also looking at the balance of seats between the majors shows the effect up more strongly than whether a government gains or loses seat share, because the proportional size of the crossbench fluctuates a lot more than elsewhere.  The reason for ignoring 1989-1992 is that the 1989 ACT election saw a massive and largely once-off protest vote against self-government with the major parties managing only 37.7% of the vote between them.  Labor increased from 5 of 17 seats to 8 of 17 in 1992 in the face of federal drag, but this was mostly really about a protest vote in the 1989 election disappearing.  

Why I've Quit Doing Paid Election Coverage For The Mercury

Between 2013 and 2024 I covered four state and four federal elections via live blogging for The Mercury on contract on election night, as well as writing several commissioned articles in the leadup to various elections.  I enjoyed providing this coverage and working with The Mercury's reporters and staff on election nights tremendously.  I think The Mercury in general serves the population of Hobart well, as a rare example of a Murdoch tabloid that is not particularly slanted, and that the paper provides a lot of good coverage of local political matters.  I have high regard for several journalists who work there.  In general my relationship with The Mercury in this time has been excellent, albeit slightly strained at some state election times by some polling coverage issues (lack of transparency and detail around secretive local industry polls and passing off reader surveys as polls, for example).  One doesn't expect to have everything.  

However I have decided to end this association because the Mercury's online subscription system, and customer relations in the event of failure of that system, are so dreadful that I will not work for a company that continues to rip off its customers in this way.   I will think about options for future Tasmanian state and federal election night coverage, but probably not now, as I am very busy for the next few weeks.  It's sad to have had to move on from work I and many readers enjoyed in such disappointing circumstances, but it's time to do something else with my Tasmanian and federal election nights, whatever that may be.  

Crying Wolf: More Embarrassingly Bad Tabloid Poll Reporting

 "Anthony Albanese could be on track to being a one-term Prime Minister, with a new poll showing Labor's primary vote crashing in three major states.  The federal government is in serious trouble in the eastern states - where most of the seats are - with Labor down to 24 per cent in Queensland, 28 in Victoria and 32 in NSW."

"Labor’s primary vote has crashed to just 24 per cent in Queensland, 28 per cent in Victoria and 32 per cent in New South Wales, the wolf + smith shows.  But Labor is dominant in South Australia, where its primary vote is 41 per cent, and 60 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis.  The poll – which measured both state and federal voting intention – suggests the government is in dire trouble in the eastern states, with just 43 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote in Queensland and 48 per cent in Victoria."

This is how the Daily Mail and the Murdoch tabloids (Courier Mail/Daily Telegraph etc) respectively wrote up a massive new poll by an initially mysterious outlet wolf + smith.  But this was in fact another example of laughably incompetent poll reporting from these outlets, one that again happened to be in service of the narrative their right-wing readers would want to see.  What the poll in fact found is very different.  The state-level figures these outlets were commenting were state voting intention not federal.  This was made so abundantly clear in the poll report that, among other subtle hints, the whole of page 10 of the poll report is devoted to making it clear that the rest of the report is state not federal.

Poll Roundup: 50.5 Is The New 51

2PP Aggregate 50.6 to ALP (-0.1 since end of last week)
Aggregate has changed little since loss of about half a point in mid-July
Election "held now" would probably produce minority Labor government

I haven't done a federal poll roundup for a while and today is a randomly opportune time to do one following the second straight 50-50 Newspoll and mention some general themes in recent 2PP polling.  In the last week we have had:

* Newspoll at 50-50 (ALP 32 L-NP 38 Green 12 ON 7 others 11)

* Redbridge at 50.5-49.5 to ALP (ALP 32 L-NP 38 and the rest not published yet, but I'm expecting Greens either 10 or 11)

* YouGov at 50-50 (ALP 32 L-NP 37 Green 13 ON 8 others 10) (Note: normally the 2PP for these primaries would be 51-49 to Labor, though it is possible to get 50 from these primaries sometimes because of rounding and perhaps also the makeup of others.).  

* Essential at 48-46 to ALP, equivalent to 51.1-48.9 (raw primaries ALP 29 Coalition 33 Greens 13 ON 7 UAP 1 others 11 undecided 6 - meaning the major party primaries are effectively more like 31-35)

* Morgan at 50.5-49.5 to Coalition by respondent preferences (50-50 last election) (ALP 29.5 L-NP 39.5 Green 13 ON 4 IND 9 others 5 - Morgan has a standalone IND option on the ballot everywhere, which is likely to be overstated)

Supporting First Past The Post For Australia Is Pointless

Lately I've been seeing a lot of social media griping about the current government and/or the Greens and teals, mostly from alternative right-wing accounts, in which the writer attacks the Government and says it was only elected because of preferential voting, and we should get rid of preferences by switching to first past the post.   I don't think there is much significant advocacy for first-past-the-post in Australia though Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has unfortunately supported it (what, optional preferences is not enough for him?), as has Resolve pollster Jim Reed in 2022, and a steady flow of petitions to the Commonwealth Parliament generally with tiny signature numbers.  

The following alone is sufficient reason to dismiss all such calls: First past the post is a discriminatory system that violates the Australian value of a fair go.  Under first past the post, a voter whose most preferred party or candidate is unpopular must make a strategic decision between voting for someone who is not in fact their first preference and effectively throwing away their vote.  However a voter who is pretty sure their most preferred candidate will finish first or second does not have to face that strategic dilemma.  On this basis, having first past the post, in a country able to afford and count a fairer system, is not treating all electors fairly.   I do not think there is actually any valid excuse for keeping single-member first past the post anywhere (though the transition out of it needs to be carefully managed in those places that do have it) but this article is confined to the argument re Australia.  

Australia has a proud tradition of fair voting that started over 100 years ago when preferences were introduced to stop conservative parties from losing conservative electorates when voters were split between two different conservative candidates.  The famous case is the 1918 Swan by-election, but in fact the Hughes Government was working to introduced preferential voting months before it occurred but the legislation had not yet passed the parliament.   When I see supposed patriots with Australian flags in their social media profiles propose that we junk this fine tradition and replace it with unfair and primitive crud voting systems used overseas, I can only shake my head at their claims that they really love this country.   I am not going to let these people get away with it; to paraphrase a slightly different Doctor, this voting system is defended.  

Similar to my polling disinformation register, I've written this article mainly as a labor-saving device so that I don't have to keep making the same long replies on the same points but can simply say "see point 3 here" with a link.  I hope others find it interesting and useful, and more points may be added.

I should note that this article also applies to many criticisms of compulsory preferences made by supporters of optional preferencing - especially part 7.

EMRS: Surprise Boost For Rockliff In Pre-Lamblowup Poll

EMRS Lib 36 (+1) ALP 27 (-1) Greens 14 (-1) JLN 8 (+1) IND 12 (=) others 3 (=)
IND likely overstated, others likely understated
No significant difference from previous poll or election
Significant lead increase for Rockliff as Preferred Premier

A quick post about a poll I don't at this stage have a lot to say about.  The August quarterly EMRS poll is out, but it's showing its age as its in-field period (14-21 Aug) ended a few days before the dramatic events of the weekend, with two of the three Jacqui Lambie Network MPs kicked out of the party before they could leave, and Michael Ferguson resigning as Infrastructure Minister.   We may never know if even these events had had any impact on the government's standing with voters, as by the time the next poll rolls around, any impact may have washed out.

Labor would have us believe that the hung parliament is killing investor confidence, which would presumably flow through to voting intention somewhere, but this poll is indistinguishable statistically from the previous one and also from the March election.  If EMRS is correct, between the election and August nothing lasting happened at all.  An election held in mid-August would, based on this poll, have returned more of the same.  When the survey dashboard goes live I will check for anything notable in the seat-by-seat patterns but on such statewide numbers the Liberals would always be the largest party and would not be near majority.  

The surprise in this poll is that Jeremy Rockliff has jumped to a 45-30 lead as Preferred Premier over Dean Winter, up from 40-32 last time.  Better leader scores skew to incumbents and tend to disadvantage new leaders so to be only eight points behind in the first one was a solid debut for Winter, but now he is 15 behind, which is the biggest gap since Peter Gutwein led by 19 in March 2022.  (At the time Gutwein's COVID bounce in popularity was deflating following reopening of the state's borders).  Only two of the five points Rockliff has gained here come from Winter, with one from don't know and two from the fact that the previous poll, somehow, only summed to 98 (which I don't think even rounding can explain).  The most obviously controversial thing Winter has done in the last three months is announce support for the UTAS city move, which the Hobart City part of Clark voted three to one against in 2022 and nobody else seems to really care that much about.  The dashboard will be worth a look to see where the blowout in Rockliff's lead has occurred.

Once again though I would find it more useful to see approval scores for the leaders individually; better leader scores are always a mess where you don't know if what's happening is that the voters like the leader who has gained more, that they are displeased with the one who has lost ground, or both or even neither. 

Overall this is yet another poll where Labor doesn't break out of the high 20s/low 30s band it has been stuck in seemingly forever.  It's still in theory an extremely long time until the next election, but every time something happens that prompts the question "is this the thing that get's Labor's support moving towards government?" the answer continues to be "no".  

More comments later once the dashboard goes up. 

Not-A-Poll Reset 1 of 2024: Lawler Defeated

The Northern Territory election is over bar the odd seat in doubt with the CLP winning a crushing victory, the first loss by an incumbent Labor government since they won the 2022 federal election.  Lia Finocchiaro is the new Chief Minister and Eva Lawler has become the third NT Chief Minister to lose her seat (following Goff Letts who managed to still win the election and Adam Giles whose CLP was reduced to two seats - one of them Finocchiaro).  Finocchiaro follows Labor's Clare Martin (2001) as only the second female state or territory leader to win a majority from opposition in one go.  

Lawler was Labor's hospital-pass leader after Natasha Fyles succumbed to repeatedly having no idea what a conflict of interest was.  Historically the fate of third leaders in a term is grim, as was covered off in the poll launch article when Fyles resigned.  Lawler probably deserved better for her efforts to clean up the mess than being dumped from her seat with a 21% swing but Palmerston had had a gutful, as had north-east Darwin, and the NT's history of turbulent electoral swings continued.  Can Finocchiaro put a lasting end to the chaos?  

How did the sidebar Not-A-Poll go at predicting that Lawler would be next to get the boot?  This was one where the historic federal drag based argument that she would lose was pretty strong, but there were more votes overall for Steven Miles, who is up in a couple of months.  There were also more for Jeremy Rockliff, who had to deal with two hostile crossbench defectors then called an election that many people probably thought he was going to lose.  Because this site has a lot of Tasmanian readers, if some portion of the Tasmanian readers think the Tasmanian Premier is doomed then the Tasmanian Premier is likely to dominate the voting.  But Rockliff survived.

Looking at votes cast solely after the March 23 Tasmanian state election, Miles led with 91 votes to 70 for Lawler and just 40 for Rockliff and 15 for Dutton.  However late in this Not-A-Poll run awareness grew that Labor was at high risk of losing in the NT first, and from mid-June onwards Lawler received a plurality of votes, getting 44% of votes cast in August.   Not-A-Poll might have done better had the middle of this year not been a pretty quiet time for the site in terms of events that attract high interest levels.  

(A note that in theory Not-A-Poll should be closed during elections but I often forget.  So votes cast after the polls close for an election where the incumbent loses are deleted.)

Not-A-Poll did not do brilliantly re the NT election result either with a narrow plurality only tipping a CLP majority.

The way ahead

It's only two months before the ACT (on Oct 19) and Queensland (Oct 26) have their elections. The Miles government is generally expected to fall (and probably even more likely to do so off the NT's reassertion that federal drag is a theory and a fact).  There is no polling for the ACT where it is historically very difficult for anyone but Labor to win, so it would be brave for anyone to vote for Andrew Barr to be gone before Queensland, but maybe it could happen.  None of the others appear likely to succumb in the next two months though Rockliff has encountered some instability with two crossbenchers who were supporting him kicked out of their party, and the probably forced resignation of the Infrastructure Minister (who is also the Treasurer) from that portfolio.  

2024 NT Election Postcount

RESULT CLP 17 ALP 4 IND 3 GRN 1

Fannie Bay: CLP has narrowly defeated Greens with Labor failing to make final two.

Nightcliff Greens have defeated Labor.

This post will follow the post-counting in remaining seats of interest in the NT election, though at the time of writing only one or two seats are really in doubt.  I've started the thread anyway because a couple of the remaining seats are interesting. The general rule in NT elections is that once the margin goes over 100 that's the end of it, but that's all subject to rechecking, and wins from just outside 100 do happen sometimes (eg Barkly 2020).  If any more seats come into play I will include them in the list below.  

I'm confident that Justine Davis (IND) has won Johnston as she leads Labor by 4.4% and will presumably go further ahead on Greens preferences; I cannot see even the famous tendency of INDs to go badly on absents changing that even in a seat where absents were 12.4% of votes last time around; she would have to get almost no absents at all. I have also had info from scrutineers that the flow to her from Greens is strong enough that she will win. 

Lambie Network Blows Up After Only Five Months

In the beginning there was the Deal, and the Deal was stupid.

Nobody seems to know for sure who actually "negotiated" the JLN side of the confidence and supply arrangement with the Rockliff Government but, for whatever reason, the three elected JLN MPs signed it.  The Deal so needlessly limited the JLN MPs in terms of their ability to vote against the Government that when they broke the Deal by voting for a doomed Greens motion to compel the Government regarding its coastal policy, the Government either didn't notice or ignored the breach and it took the Labor Opposition to point it out.  (Edit: The Government then claimed the Deal hadn't been broken when it had, which soon resulted in the JLN MPs breaking it again on a motion re Forest Reserves.)

Tensions were apparent within the JLN from early on with Rebekah Pentland and Miriam Beswick having one approach and Andrew Jenner another.  Staffing was one issue where this came to a head.  There were further problems in early July when it emerged that the three state MPs had sent Jacqui Lambie a letter in June insisting she keep out of Jacqui Lambie Network state business, and alleging that she was directing state MPs on how to vote.

The catalyst for yesterday's events was the recent news that upgrades to the Devonport ferry terminal, needed for the overdue replacement for the Spirit of Tasmania ferries, had been bungled.  Lambie issued a release on August 15 demanding that Treasurer and Minister for Infrastructure Michael Ferguson resign.  On 19 August JLN MP Andrew Jenner made comments that Ferguson's position was "untenable".  

On 20 August Lambie seems to have issued a press release - the verbatim text of which I have not seen because the Jacqui Lambie Network is beyond hopeless at publishing its output - saying that if Premier Rockliff did not sack Ferguson she would rip up the government's confidence and supply arrangement with the JLN.  This was bizarre to say the least since Lambie herself was not a signatory to the deal which, whoever drafted it, is between the government and the individual JLN MPs.

2024 Northern Territory Election Live

Postcount tracking is continuing here. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

START POSITION ALP 14 CLP 7 IND 4 (1 IND retiring)

POLLS HAVE CLOSED.  Massive swings to CLP, CLP has won a majority

EXPECTED WINS (some may not be absolutely certain) CLP 14 ALP 4 IND 2

Expected seats changing

Expected CLP gain vs IND (vacancy): Goyder, Blain

Expected CLP gain vs ALP : Karama, Fong Lim, Drysdale, Wanguri, Port Darwin, Sanderson

Seats in doubt:

Barkly: CLP likely to hold vs ALP

Casuarina: CLP likely to gain from ALP

Johnston: IND appears very likely to gain from ALP

.Nightcliff: Likely ALP hold

Fannie Bay: ALP vs Greens (outside chance CLP), Greens ahead.

If all current leaders/favourites hold, CLP 16 ALP 5 IND 3 Green 1

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Updates scrolling to the top  - refresh every 10 mins from 6:30 on for new comments

"Unrepresentative Swill" - A Keating Line Way Past Its Use-By Date

"But one Treasurer borrows and turns a short term borrowing into a medium term borrowing—no more money is borrowed; a short term borrowing just becomes a medium term borrowing—without telling our Treasurer and our Treasurer immediately responds and tells him he has to regularise it and you, who let 75 per cent of borrowings run everywhere, have the gall to get up and talk about the Loan Council and to set up a Senate committee. Then you want a Minister from the House of Representatives chamber to wander over to the unrepresentative chamber and account for himself. You have got to be joking. Whether the Treasurer wished to go there or not, I would forbid him going to the Senate to account to this unrepresentative swill over there—"

With these words, spoken on 4 November 1992, then Prime Minister Paul Keating created a colourful insulting description of the Senate that has endured to this day, and is commonly seen when anyone wants to attack a Senator they do not like.  In the last month alone, Twitter users have used Keating's line at least 76 times, mostly but not exclusively to attack Senators or the Senate itself.  In the last month for instance it has been used especially to attack UAP Senator Ralph Babet, but also to attack Coalition Senators Linda Reynolds, Michaelia Cash, Gerard Rennick and Bridget McKenzie, JLN Senator Jacqui Lambie, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, ex-Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe and ex-Labor Senator Fatima Payman.  But no Labor Senators, funny that.  

"Safe Seats" Falling Is Nothing New

The Australia Institute and its director have been putting out a lot of its usual Hung Parliament Club type stuff about how "power sharing parliaments" are the new normal, how there are no safe seats anymore and so on.  They've been trying to claim that the rise of teals and the decline of major parties means the traditional 2PP swing-based model is more or less dead, although I actually nipped that view in the bud days after the election.  If major party vote shares keep declining we may sooner or later get to a point where 2PP swing-based models cease to be of much use, but 2022 wasn't even close.  See also here, where I point out that the Coalition didn't actually get a raw deal in the "non-classic" seats and what actually caused it to lose so heavily in 2022 was that Labor beat it on 2PP and thumped it on 2PP distribution in the classic Labor vs Coalition seats.

The "power sharing parliaments" analysis misleadingly lumps stable Coalition majority governments and non-majority upper houses in with the sort of thing we saw in 2010.  They're totally different: a true minority parliament involves a government that must make a fresh negotiation for supply and confidence and that continually depends on the crossbench for those things.  (Yes the Coalition has its own internal arrangement but it's a long time since there's been the slightest doubt that the Nationals or their precursors would continue to support a Coalition government).  When there is a "hung Senate" the passing of legislation is often at stake, but except in the most extreme cases supply is not, confidence is not, the composition of the Executive is not.  Hung Senates aren't generally perceived as causing potential stability issues, and the ability of governments to send them to double dissolutions if they keep blocking things can make it easier to browbeat them than it is to browbeat minority Reps crossbenchers.  The most successful governments use Senate obstruction, where it happens, to extend their own lifespans, by being able to signal to their base without having to put up with the consequences of policy their base likes being passed unamended.  A government majority in both houses can easily go to a government's head - cf Howard 2005-7 and Workchoices.

Northern Territory Election 2024: Prospects and Polling

Welcome to my coverage of the Northern Territory 2024 election, which has snuck up on us all with just four weeks to go til polling day as I write.  NT politics often attracts derision among election-watchers for its tiny/barely inhabited electorates, crazy seat swings, frequent MP defections and elementary ethics fails.  Despite that though, I reject the view out there that NT elections deserve no more attention than a medium-large council.  NT elections are somewhat like state elections in their own unusual way, and are informative.  This one is something of a prelude to Queensland as the first chance for one of Labor's seven state and territory dominos to fall on PM Albanese's watch ... but will it, and how heavily if so?  Beyond this article, my coverage of NT 2024 will include a live article and a post-count piece (a la this, but they will be separate articles this year) and there may be prospects updates if there is anything to see.  

General properties of NT elections

The history of NT elections since self-determination splits neatly into two halves, 1974-1997 during which the CLP frequently changed Chief Ministers but invariably won, and 2001 onwards which, starting from Labor's first win under Clare Martin, has been a rollercoaster.  The 2020 election with a 2PP swing of 3.9% against the then Gunner Labor Government was in fact the most placid this century, with the five before it having swings (ALP) of 6.0, 11.1, -9.2, -5.1 and 13.3.  

The Northern Territory is affected (see bottom of article here), much as the states are, by what I call "federal drag" - all else being equal, incumbent governments are more likely to be whacked when the same party is in power federally.  2020 was one case where the swing went to the side in power federally, but that was off a ridiculously low base and still an easy win for Labor anyway.  

Effective Vote Spreading: Labor's Hidden Hero At The 2022 Federal Election

This article is about two incorrect narratives about the 2022 election.  I commonly see false claims on social media that Labor only won the 2022 election - not just in majority but at all -because of Green and teal preferences.  These claims are made by certain right-wing posters, mostly of the silly and Trumpy variety, who seek to delegitimise the result because the primary vote winner didn't win the election and the winner's primary vote was unusually low.  But there is another narrative that is more mainstream, which is that while Labor's win was fair enough, the Coalition was hard done by in seat terms because of its seat losses to teal independents.  I show here that that narrative is not really true either, and that the real reason the Coalition's seat share was so bad compared to Labor's was that its vote was poorly distributed in the classic two-party seats.  Most of this article is very numbery so it's been graded Wonk Factor 3/5.

Of course, Greens voter preferences do greatly benefit Labor, and had Green voter preferences split 50-50 Labor would not have won ten seats that it did, and who knows who would have governed in that mess.  But Green preferences favouring Labor is simply part of the scenery, and some other parties' preferences assist the Coalition.  The Coalition only "leads" on primary votes because it is a coalition of two parties that, after decades of fighting each other in some states, choose to mostly work together instead of wasting resources competing everywhere.  Labor and the Greens could sort out their differences and make a similar arrangement if there was any strategic point in doing so, but in their case there currently isn't.  

As concerns teals (whether they won or not), while their 2PP preferences heavily favoured Labor, in most seats where they ran that did not help Labor since Labor failed to make the final two.  This included seven seats that teal independents won, and six where independents who were generally teal-adjacent made the final two but lost.  Yes there were some seats where such candidates were cut out and the contests finished as classic Labor vs Coalition contests, and yes teal preferences helped Labor in those.  But Labor mostly didn't win those anyway (Boothby is one they did win), and there is not a single one where Labor won but would have lost had the teal voters' preferences split 50-50.  In strategic terms the teals were a nuisance to the Coalition, forcing them to fight a second front and making criticisms that may have driven votes to Labor in other seats.  In terms of votes actually polled, however, all they did was take six seats from the Coalition in an election it had already lost outright.  Labor won 72 classic seats where it did not need an edge on their preferences, plus five seats where the Coalition was excluded in lopsided Labor vs Greens contests.