Not-A-Poll Reset 1 of 2025: Dutton Loses Seat

This morning Sussan Ley became the first female federal leader of the Liberal Party, elected 29-25 over Angus Taylor.  Taylor was running on a ticket that included the insane proposition that Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, a member of the Liberal partyroom for five earth minutes, should become deputy leader.  This was especially crazy because Price was such a totemic candidate for the toxic idea that the Coalition should be more Trumpy (making her a shadow minister for government efficiency when they already had one was one of the Coalition's many mistakes).  

All this is not to say I would have been remotely keen to vote for Ley if I was a Liberal party room member either, in fact, given this choice, I could not have possibly voted for either.  While Taylor generally seemed to be making very little effort in the previous term, Ley on the other side struck me as trying too hard and serially out of her depth.  Most notably so when she criticised the AEC over voting interpretation rules for the Voice Referendum during the ticks and crosses beatup, when the Coalition had not made any attempt to change the legislation, but there were many other examples.  

The good news for the Liberals is it probably doesn't matter.  If Ley is a success well and good, and if she fails they can tick and flick the box of having had a female leader and use it as an excuse to not do that again in a hurry.  Their two-term strategy for winning in 2028 is a crash scene (in part because they tried to turn it into a one-term strategy and wasted seats like Menzies in the process) and realistically this term is about rebuilding, trying to finish off the teals with help from the new donations regime (if it survives the High Court) and seeing how they go thereafter.  

Anyway, the Not-A-Poll has been restarted because Peter Dutton became the first Opposition Leader in federal history to lose his seat!  And not narrowly either; he currently has a 7.9% swing against him, the largest in all of Queensland.  The view that Dutton could lose was for much of the term a fringe one with its adherents derided on social media as "Dickson truthers" but as the Coalition's polling collapsed it became more realistic.  Still, it was not generally expected.

Dutton as Opposition Leader had a good run for a while and in late 2024 was less unpopular than Anthony Albanese.  However he was never popular in his own right and became the second Opposition Leader after Bill Shorten (2016-19 term) to go a full term without polling a single positive Newspoll net rating.  He also never beat Albanese on the incumbent-favouring Better Prime Minister metric in Newspoll (he did achieve 

However, Dutton being the next to cease to be leader was strongly expected by voters in the Not-A-Poll!

Albanese actually led this round until April 14.  From this point Dutton received 281 out of 366 votes to Albanese's 15.  Dutton's last 40 votes came without any votes for Albanese though there were a scattering of votes for others.  With this success, Not-A-Poll improves its hit rate to 6 of the last 13 departures correctly predicted including 4 of the last 5.  With Dutton gone and Albanese likely to want to stay on for at least a full second term, who will be next to go?

Of the current candidates Allan faces an election next November and has been polling poorly (though suspected brand damage failed to show up in the federal election where the Coalition couldn't even win back Aston).  There has also been low-level leadership speculation there.  Rockliff's government is in a somewhat unstable minority and perennially under the weather though Labor's disinterest in trying to form government has protected it from being brought down so far.  Barr might retire someday though this has been being said for many years.  Malinauskas is the next to go to an election but is generally not remotely expected to lose.  As for how long Ley will be leader who knows?  

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