Not-A-Poll: Australia's Worst Opposition!

I've started a new Not-A-Poll in the sidebar where readers can vote on who is Australia's worst Opposition.  The exasperating behaviour of Tasmanian Labor over the last few days (weeks, months, several years ...) has drawn comparisons to the Canberra Liberals and Victorian Liberals and suggestions they are now a forever opposition.  I was thinking about this as I struggled for words to explain to some rusties just how unready for government Tasmanian Labor have just shown themselves to be.  It suddenly occurred to me in a flash that we are living in a golden age of dreadful Oppositions.  Not all Australia's nine current Oppositions stick out as terrible but in any normal time most of these would go straight to the bottom of the pile, if not the sea.  

What we have at present is surely the worst average quality of oppositions that has been seen for decades, and this is bad for democracy as some of the governments they are up against (by no means all) are very mediocre.  So in round 1 of this Not-A-Poll, which will run for two months in the sidebar, voters can vote on which of the current Oppositions is the worst.  In round 2 we will vote on how many of them are actually going to win!  A reminder, if viewing on mobile you can scroll down and click "view web version" to see the sidebar and participate in Not-A-Polls.

In considering the dreadfulness of a state or territory Opposition, this poll is mainly about their performance in state and territory politics, but efforts of the local branch in screwing up federal and local performance can also be considered.  

Our contenders, sorted by time in opposition ...

Canberra Liberals

In opposition since 2001, the Canberra Liberals' central problem is they are Liberals and they are in Canberra; it seems surprising now that they ever won there in the first place and it's hard to get your hopes up when winning would be a category error.  But it is more than that; in an electorate where one would think the need to have as moderate/left as possible a platform should be ever obvious, the Canberra Liberals have frequently chosen to run to the right of the federal party in a pattern dunked by federal Labor MP Andrew Leigh in a 2020 article called Why Are The Canberra Liberals So Extreme.  The Canberra Liberals are now on to their eighth leader in opposition (approaching the national all-time record of ten) and are famous for leadership squabblings.  After current leader Leanne Castley pulled off a neat Game of Thrones plot to step around Jeremy Hanson and oust Elizabeth Lee (who had committed the cardinal sin of considering forming government with the Gr**ns), the latest outbreak of disunity was in June when Peter Cain decamped to the backbench.  This caused some of my readers to say they had not previously noticed that he was an MLA.  The Liberals have had swings against them at the last three elections in a row including going backwards on seat share in both 2016 and 2020.  

The party also served up a spectacular dish of federal failure which received a special dud performance award in my Senate Notes for this year, crowned by losing the Senate 2CP to the Animal Justice Party.

Tasmanian Labor

A longer section because it is the one I know the most about.  In opposition since 2014, Tasmanian Labor just had its fifth leadership change in eleven years, a state record (the one previous case of five changes took 26 years) and the fifth fastest opposition to reach this marker in Australian state politics history.  But they couldn't even manage to throw their leader under the bus without salting the earth for the newbie Josh Willie by letting out that he had lost the caucus vote to incumbent Dean Winter 4-9 with colleagues then apparently trying for hours to talk him out of taking the matter to the broader party (and probably winning) in a 50-50 member/caucus ballot.  The PLP meeting appears to have run longer than 51 of the last 52 Bathurst 1000s.  There may well have been red flag stoppages but no they didn't fix the track.

Yet this was just the end for now of a cycle where Labor brought down the chaotic Rockliff minority government citing its shocker budget, Clark and Dawe level ferry terminal stuffup and dumped privatisation plans - yet still managed to cop a 3.1% swing against themselves at the resultant election.  Undeterred, Labor pressed ahead with a no-confidence motion to install their ten MPs out of 35 as the government and displayed a unique approach to negotiation which involved calling potential partners things like "not a serious party" and "enemies of working people" and refusing to concede anything on actual policy to anyone.  Even crossbenchers who were seething with fury at the Rockliff Government and had in cases already voted no confidence in it multiple times could not support Tasmanian Labor into government; they got no votes for the motion except their own.  

The party went under federal intervention after a 2021 election debacle where the hard left tried to block Winter (then a prominent local mayor) from running at all citing old meen twetes about the unions and some tale about a dog.  One of their own star candidates then got bowled over by a grotty texting incident but he was still the party president and fighting with then leader Rebecca White through the 2021 campaign.  Following a member and delegate ballot, the left's star David O'Byrne was elected overwhelmingly to the leadership but he then was brought down by an old harassment scandal after 22 days in charge. Exiled from the PLP he now lurks on the crossbench telling his former party just how much they suck at politics.  Tas Labor's other problem has been policy. At various points they've been hopelessly unclear on what they stand for, or crystal clear on what they stand for but it's almost all the same things at the Liberals.  That one time they tried something different it was a policy to ban pokies everywhere but two casinos, which tore strips off the Green vote in the very inner cities and had the entire rest of Tasmania going "huh?"

This said, Tasmanian Labor did do very well at the 2025 federal election with strong candidates and good health messaging.  And they're solid in the indie-dominated upper house where they've held three or four seats for a while now.  They just can't bang the rocks together in the lower house.  

Victorian Coalition

Also in opposition since 2014, the Victorian Coalition is up against a Premier with a net satisfaction rating of -31, who is trailing as Better Premier, whose government is eleven years old and federally dragged and they are ... losing 47-53!  How is this even mathematically possible?  Well such are the fruits of an entire term spent not just talking about yourselves but also suing yourselves.  The Victorian Liberals have been in turmoil ever since Moira Deeming spoke at a March 2023 anti-trans rally which also and predictably attracted Nazis.  Plainly a very bad look and leader John Pesutto tried to kick Deeming out of the party over it but in the process defamed her by implying she was knowingly platforming the Nazis, which he totally failed to establish.  Really if the party had a pifteenth of a grain of sense in its collective skulls and wasn't religiously infiltrated they would never have preselected Deeming for a safe seat (especially not the one previously held by Bernie Finn) in the first place.  The ongoing chaos was to eventually see Pesutto lose the leadership that he'd beaten Brad Battin to by just one vote in the first place, but even that was not the end.  It was just the beginning of a saga about potential bankruptcy, then a bailout to avoid bankruptcy, then party members suing each other over the bailout ... make it stop!

Amid all this it's nice to know the Victorian Liberals can focus on other things beyond the Deeming saga, like ... Sam Groth!  The party's current deputy leader is a first-termer best previously known for hitting a tennis ball faster than anybody else on earth.  His Deputy Leadership has consisted mostly of fending off questions about borrowed chauffers, expenses claims, being allegedly drunk at a tennis fundraiser and even how old his now wife was when their relationship reached what bases.  This latter too is generating legal action.  It makes a change for the Herald-Sun to be getting itself sued by Liberals  for its lurid and unconvincing gossip because at the previous two elections it was a cheerleader for woeful campaigns led (somehow twice) by Matthew "African Lobster Gangs" Guy, its output doing the Liberals no good at all. 

In fairness to this lot they did recapture Prahran in a great by-election result and nearly picked off Werribee as well.  That however was in February and it seems like long ago.  It also seems the voters like Brad Battin but they don't care for his party's squalid chaos.  

Western Australian Liberals

This lot, er, mob, er very small contingent, got the boot from government in 2017 but they were so bad at opposition that for four of the last eight years they haven't even been it, as their seat tally fell so low in their 2021 30.3-69.7 belting by Mark McGowan that the Nats became the actual Opposition for a term!  The Liberals only barely even managed to recover Opposition status at the 2025 election, scraping a pathetic one seat more than the Nationals - a lousy result richly deserved after disgustingly supporting malapportionment.  But if Libby Mettam was a mediocre leader when not being an enemy of democracy, the Liberals are now led by Basil Zempilas who came to the job mainly off a record as a sporting jock with the worst case of foot in mouth disease this side of Jeff Kennett.  He had also been something called "Lord Mayor of Perth" as a result of elections that attracted fewer votes than 17 of Tasmania's 29 local councils. The title is of such earth-shattering importance that five months after Zempilas ascended to state politics, the position is still vacant!

The WA Liberals are also infamous for their factional powerbroking, especially the long-running Clan saga which saw Nick Goiran removed by shadow cabinet by Mettam as a "powerful act of principle" then brought back two years later as a powerful act of not having enough semi-useful MPs to fill a Daihatsu Charade.  

South Australian Liberals

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.  The South Australian Liberals' defeat in 2022 after a single term in government was hardly a great surprise in the leadup to the feds copping the same several weeks later, but things have gone completely off the rails in their first term in Opposition.  Among other things they've managed the almost unprecedented feat of losing two by-elections to a Government in a single term (the only previous case was NSW in wartime and the losses were by the junior coalition partner), and even three years after their loss have been recording polls like 40-60, 41-59 and even 33-67.  One of the by-elections was triggered after their recently resigned leader was arrested (and later convicted) after a video emerged of him snorting cocaine, which he claimed to be a "deepfake".  

Not every state opposition has the bad luck to be up against Peter Malinauskas, but also not every state opposition is dim enough to let their party be overrun with happyclappies. Or worse to let it end up under the thumb of a Senator (Antic) who thinks sucking up to Donald Trump is a good idea for the Liberals, and who should have long ago been exported to a suitable minor right fringe "freedom" party fit for holders of that and his other views.   The SA Liberals are the same dummies who thought preselecting Cory Bernardi for a six year Senate term when he had already dropped strong hints that he could quit the party was a good idea.  Which of course he did seven months into said term.  They never learn.  Indeed the SA Liberals' inability to pick the ones who stick is amazing, having lost a staggering total of nine state MPs to the crossbench since 2010, some in disgrace and others in disgust.  

Federal Coalition

In opposition since 2022, the federal Coalition are just coming off the biggest 2PP thumping in fifty years in an election they should have been more than competitive in with a grumpy and pessimistic public hurting over cost of living rises.  Ah if only they could campaign to middle Australia instead of narrowcasting to people who watch Sky News, believing that anybody still cares that Labor lost the Voice referendum and thinking that attacking the Prime Minister for falling off a stage was clever politics.  

Sussan Ley is so far a better Liberal leader than she was a Liberal Deputy Leader, but that's a bar so low you'd need mining approvals to get under it.  What is especially concerning about this crew is that, in the face of the few months of honeymoon polling normally recorded by any federal government that outperforms pre-election expectations, there are several among them who think the answer is to go further to the right, especially on energy.  Oh and Barnaby Joyce is still in parliament.  

The most damning indictment on this lot is the hit that all the state parties have copped in polling since they lost the federal election, such was the brand damage to the Coalition of that effort - oh except in Tasmania of course.   

NSW Coalition

The NSW Coalition, in opposition since 2023, may fly under the radar a little in this poll because they're so anonymous under their current leader compared to the cases above, but that's also why they're bad.  In the leadup to the Kiama by-election there are already rumblings against NSW Liberal leader Mark Speakman, but many observers would struggle to identify why because they had barely even noticed that he was the leader yet.  His recent sin was to have his party vote in favour of the Minns Government's energy bills, for which he offered the stunning excuse "We don’t have the numbers."  Competing against a jack in the box like Chris Minns is no easy thing but the general perception has been that Speakman has lacked cut-through.  

The NSW Liberals have also covered themselves in glory with long-running internal wars over federal preselection, that involve some of the most bizarre delaying tactics ever seen from the moderates and also feature constant calls for greater "grassroots" control.  For some reason "grassroots" always means the Tony Abbott fan club.  After a few election cycles of this nonsense the feds put the branch into administration and imported octogenarians from south of the border (oh!) to teach the locals how to write a constitution.

And there was last year's awesome effort where over a hundred NSW Liberal council candidates including many sitting councillors were not nominated because of a bungle in submitting nomination forms on time.  Also on their ledger has been losing Pittwater in a by-election to the same teal they beat in the general, after their freshly minted MP quit to fight child sex charges.  Their polling hasn't been too bad til recently.

Territory Labor

Really haven't been following NT closely enough since the 2024 election to say if the Northern Territory opposition are doing that much wrong, but they have an obvious very big problem.  There's only four of them left after a turbulent term in office saw their party lose seats to the CLP, a teal and a Green leaving Labor cut back to four Indigenous dominated bush seats.   They will seriously have their work cut out getting anywhere near government in 2028.  

Queensland Labor

As I start this article Queensland Labor is the only Opposition without any votes in my poll and there's probably good reason for that - while being the first term opposition after a long spell in government is never easy Steven Miles and co don't seem to be doing too badly so far.  They even won a Resolve poll this week on my 2PP estimates! (A volatile series and much against the run of play, I'd like to wait for others).  At some point leadership might raise its head given no Australian Premier who lost the job at an election has won it back since 1972.