Tasmania Redistribution: Draft Scraps The Franklin Divide

 

The much-awaited proposal redistribution of Tasmania's federal (and by normal standards, state) electoral boundaries has been published.  I discussed the challenges facing the Redistribution Committee in my piece Clark Must Expand, But Where?  In the draft proposal, the winner is "south".

The Committee (note, it is not correct to refer to the Committee as "the AEC" as two members are AEC and two are not) has proposed one of the more radical options that was considered in the process.  Somewhat against my expectations based on the large movement of electors, they've decided that the further creep of Clark into Kingston, cutting parts further south off from their urban centre, really was unsustainable and it is now time to bite the bullet.  They have recommended the southern boundaries of Clark, Lyons and Franklin as proposed by former Clarence Mayor Doug Chipman (there was a similar proposal by current Clarence Councillor James Walker).  Clark becomes Hobart City, Kingborough and the Huon Valley, Franklin becomes Clarence, Brighton, Sorell and the lower and central east coast and Lyons becomes, well, whatever that is.  In the north they've gone for the orthodox approach of Blackstone Heights and Prospect Vale into Bass, so I don't think anybody got their exact suggestion in full.  

Farrer By-Election 2026

Farrer (Lib vs IND 6.2%, Lib vs ALP 12.9%)
By-Election 9 May
Cause of by-election resignation of Sussan Ley (Lib)

The rolling of Sussan Ley as leader of a floundering Liberal Party has led to a fascinating by-election for her seat of Farrer.  This guide will be updated from time to time with any polling news and with items of interest re candidates etc.  I will be providing live coverage on the night of May 9.

Farrer

Much of the electoral history of Farrer has been told in Antony Green's post here.  It has had just four MPs since 1949, three Liberals and a National.  Until very recently it had only ever been of the slightest interest when vacant.  Tim Fischer easily won the seat for the Nationals at the 1984 general election.  On his retirement in 2001 Sussan Ley gained it for the Liberals by 206 votes after preferences, the result being so close only because Labor ran and recommended preferences to the Nationals.

The seat has never been 2PP-competitive, only sneaking into technical 2PP-marginal territory by a handful of votes in 1972.  It saw its first serious independent attempt when Albury Mayor Kevin Mack ran against Ley in 2019.  This attempt was so hyped that betting agencies gave Mack a roughly even chance of winning but Ley won very easily, clearing 50% on primaries with a 60.9% 2CP.  

Until the 2025 election Ley had the longest active streak of wins on first preferences in the parliament (seven) but the challenge from Voices of Farrer and Climate200 endorsed Michelle Milthorpe severely dented Ley's primary vote and Ley finished up with only a 6.2% margin after preferences.  However, Farrer remained one of the most conservative seats in the country, ranking 11th on Coalition House of Reps 2PP down from 8th in 2022.  Some might think its 2PP being near the top of the list was down to Ley's personal vote but this is actually not true at all; on above the line Senate 2PP Farrer was in fact the Coalition's fourth best seat nationwide. 

Who's in the mix?

There are five four possibly competitive forces in Farrer.  Comments re candidates will be added when known but this is not intended as a candidate guide.   All candidates can be seen in a debate here.

* Liberals.  Contesting.  Justin Clancy (MP for Albury (Lib 16.3%)) was reported as a possible Liberal contender (setting up a scenario where he and Helen Dalton might both resign their state seats to run) but isn't running.  The candidate is Raissa Butkowski, an Albury councillor.

* Nationals.  Contesting.  The Nationals candidate is Brad Robertson, a former military commander.

* One Nation.  Contesting.  Sooner than they might have liked, One Nation faces a potential get off the pot moment.  If their national polling is still as high as at present following the change in Liberal leadership then they would be expected to poll strongly in this by-election and failure to do so would damage their momentum and raise some questions about their standing in the polls. The One Nation candidate is David Farley, a prominent agricultural businessman.  As is common with One Nation candidates he already has a problematic past comment that has resurfaced - but this one is also attracting more endorsements than most.  Oh, more trouble - he claims it was an accident.  (Three times?)

Further debate broke out with news that Farley had sought to join and run for Labor in 2022 and had also donated to them as recently as 2023, although this seems to result more than anything from a dislike of the Coalition.  One Nation supporters have been defensive about this but the fact is that the party has a woeful defection rate and their habit of slurping up other parties' rejects is an obvious contributing factor to this.  

In the final days of the campaign perceptions that Farley is going to become an independent at some point, perhaps sooner rather than later, if elected are growing.  

* Milthorpe (IND).  Contesting.  Michelle Milthorpe immediately announced she would run for Farrer again.  

Also-rans 

Interesting by-elections often attract large fields of uncompetitive micro-party and obscure independent candidates, some of whom are often paper candidates from nowhere near the electorate.  

* The Greens' candidate is Richard Hendrie. 

* Family First (v 2) immediately announced they would re-run Rebecca Scriven who polled 2.15% in 2025. I have not been able to verify from her S44 declaration whether Scriven is eligible for election or not - though she plausibly could be - as this apparently depends on her year of birth.

* Gerard Rennick People First announced they were running, to the vivid interest of nobody; they came last with 2.02% in 2025.  Their candidate, James Bonniefin, as best I can tell has never lived in the electorate.

* Sustainable Australia is running Lucas James Ellis.

* Gary Pappin is an independent and a councillor on Murray River Council.  He has experience in mining, farming and water resource management.  Pappin is a Mutthi Mutthi man who has had a significant role in management of the Mungo National Park and the Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area.  Pappin doesn't seem to be any kind of easily classifiable independent, I would probably have put him under group 5 (others) in my federal election article.

* Legalise Cannabis are running Aimee Lee Pearson.  It appears she is ineligible for election as her S44 checklist says that she has applied to renounce New Zealand citizenship but has not received the renunciation yet.  

* Roger Woodward is a serial independent candidate with a pretty random collection of policies who has also run in Cook and Berowra.  He does not live in the electorate (in fact he lives in Hornsby in Berowra).  

* The Shooters Fishers and Farmers candidate is Peter Sinclair.

Not Contesting

* Dalton (IND) Helen Dalton is the state MP for the district of Murray, which is the western end of Farrer.  She won the seat in 2019 as an endorsed Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidate but running a largely independent-style campaign.  She quit said party in 2022 over water issues, and was returned as an independent in 2023 with an outright majority in a field of ten candidates.  Dalton was already canvassing a possible run for Farrer in 2028.  She would have to resign her state seat to contest.  On Mar 6 Dalton confirmed she would not contest.  

* Labor:  I did not believe Labor could have be competitive if they ran and I could not see much reason for them to risk embarrassment by doing so, so I was not surprised they decided not to bother.  Independents will miss that portion of their Labor preferences that comes from how to vote cards, but it is also possible in such a crowded field that an ALP run could have squeezed out independents and stopped them winning.

* Jordi Queiruga (IND): Announced running, has notified me he has withdrawn, website taken down.

* The unregistered Riverina State Party (which supports a new state covering the Victorian/NSW border areas) expressed interest in running but this may have been contingent on its registration being approved in time, which didn't happen.  The party submitted a list of 1646 putative members to the AEC in late October 2025 but has not been advertised yet.  The advertising phase followed by AEC assessment takes more than a month and party registration froze once the writ was issued for the by-election.  (I've heard they may have passed AEC checking prior to advertising.)

Prospects

This section will be edited where needed to update it.  As of 15 March we have a messy four-way battle where it is not obvious who the final two will be.    The AEC will have a challenging task in picking which candidate pair to use for the notional two-candidate count on the night (they may go with Liberal vs Milthorpe just because those were the final two last time, though there has been one poll suggesting One Nation could make the final two.)

Farrer is a relatively strong seat for One Nation, but not super strong.  Their Reps primary of just an average 6.6% is misleading because it would have been affected by Milthorpe and the relatively large field.  In the Senate, One Nation polled 9.96% in Farrer, compared to a NSW total of 6.06%.  If their national polling swing is real and flows through to Farrer they should be looking at a primary of at very least high 20s and probably much more (because One Nation tend to get inflated swings in strong areas) - but it's not that simple.

At the 2025 election, minor right preferences did not assist Ley vs Milthorpe, with One Nation, Family First and GRPF breaking only slightly to her and Trumpet of Patriots and Shooters Fishers and Farmers preferences breaking to Milthorpe.  This suggests a lot of the voters in Farrer while anti-Labor aren't wildly pro-Coalition either and are looking for any alternative ahead of the majors (something we also saw with strong ON flows to independents in the 2022 SA election).  I'd expect on that basis that any independents that run and One Nation are to a more than obvious degree fishing in the same pond.  Perhaps this will make it hard for One Nation to get a really high primary - but it is also a problem for the independent.  

It is possible that Milthorpe could get a large enough primary from many of the seat's non-conservative voters to lead on primaries, with the question then being how strong are the flows between the conservative parties and in what order they are knocked out.  Butkowski seems a good choice by the Liberals to attempt to cover off against Milthorpe.  

Dalton would have been a dangerous opponent on preferences had she run and made the final two, but with a splintered vote and having to sit between Milthorpe and One Nation it could have been hard for her to do so.

The South Australian election showed generally not very good performances by rural/regional independents, with One Nation polling fully as well as their polling implied.  

All kinds of modelling and calculations may be entered into as to what might occur here but in a rural electorate and with this being a by-election and not a general, I suspect a lot of it will be about candidate quality and the outcome could therefore be quite different from any modelling attempt.  

Polls etc

Single-seat polling is unreliable.

An Australia Institute seat poll (presumably a uComms poll) was reported on 9 Mar taken sometime between 5 and 9 Mar with "One Nation topped the count at 28.6 per cent of the total, followed by independent Ms Milthorpe (23.3 per cent), the Liberal Party (19.1 per cent), Labor (not running - 9 per cent), undecided voters (8.6 per cent) and the Greens (3.9 per cent), and the remaining 2.3 per cent favoured another party or candidate."  The news.com.au report omitted a feeble 5.2% for the Nationals.  While the media report said 64.1% of the non-One Nation voters would not consider voting for them at all ... which doesn't necessarily mean they won't preference them.  After reallocating Labor and undecided thanks to the full poll report (with a few minor design issues not helping) I estimate the primaries at One Nation 31.4 Milthorpe 29.4 Liberal 21.7 National 7.4 Green 5.4 other 2.7 (an underestimate as other was excluded from the undecided voter follow-up), unaccounted for 1.8.  Note that Milthorpe's support could be overestimated by her being named, so there's actually a good chance here that the final two would be One Nation vs Liberal, making it possible the Liberals could retain on Milthorpe and Greens preferences.  As with many uComms polls the 18-34 age group is curiously conservative looking in this poll.  A question in the form "who do you least want to win" gets One Nation 37.1 Milthorpe 29.5 Liberal 22.2 National 11.2. 

A second uComms commissioned by Milthorpe and taken April 9-10 has One Nation ahead - on raw primaries ON 30.9 Milthorpe 30 Lib 16.1 Nat 7.1 Greens 3.8 FF 1.2 SAP 0.1 (yay!) Others 2.9 undecided 7.9, coming out to 52.7-47.3 to One Nation by respondent preferences (which I would expect to underestimate the margin because of Coalition how to vote cards favouring One Nation).  The sample has Farley 14.6 points ahead on primaries of male voters with Milthorpe 12 points ahead among female voters.  I have not found a distribution of the undecided.  The major candidates were named.  One Nation's social media account has misleadingly published the breakdown for male voters as if it was the overall poll.

Sky News said that "leaked" (by which they mean given away) Liberal polling had One Nation winning easily but provided no further details, other than it sounds like One Nation are ahead on primaries.  

In non-poll news:

A projection tweeted by the 6 News @auspoll6 Twitter account (with One Nation very narrowly winning) was incorrectly claimed to be a poll by some accounts despite being explicitly labelled as a projection based off Newspoll and as not being a by-election prediction.  The tweet has now been deleted following criticism, including from Pyxis who conduct Newspoll.  What was not stated in the tweet was that the projection (with One Nation narrowly beating Liberal) was not even a uniform swing projection off Newspoll but was a projection of what would happen in Farrer if a general election was held now based on various (as far as I'm aware) unpublished assumptions about how the primary votes found by Newspoll would be reflected in particular seats.  There is a danger even if someone grasps that such a model is a projection of them thinking that there is one particular way to project a seat off a national poll, or even that projecting a seat off a national poll is any kind of reliable exercise.  

Other projections such as MRP outputs are of limited value too.  MRP outputs are meant to be collectively indicative of groups of seat types, and not reliable for a single seat at the best of times.  But also they are not designed for by-elections.  For a by-election what we want to see is seat-specific polling, preferably neutrally commissioned, transparent and certainly without any "aided vote" preambles.

Betting

Amusingly, seat betting has been seen.  Seat betting is not reliably predictive.  As of 16 Feb an early offering was NAT 2.00 Ind 2.99 ON 4.50 Lib 4.75 ALP 34 Greens 67.  

23 Feb: Ind 2.50 Nat 2.60 ON 3.50 Lib 7 ALP 51 Greens 101

5 Mar: Ind 1.91 Nat 3.40 ON 4.33 Lib 7 ALP 51 Greens 101

As of 13 Mar the above odds hadn't moved, a different site had Ind 1.65 ON 2.75 Nat 4.50 Lib 8.00.  On 15 Mar Ind was out to 1.75 and Nat in to 3.75 on that one.  

16 Mar: Second market now at Ind 1.90 ON 2.40 Nat 3.75 Lib 9.00. 

18 Mar: Both markets similar now: Ind 2 ON 2.60 Nat 5.10 Lib 8.00 vs Ind 1.85 ON 2.5 Nat 5.50 Lib 9.00 

24 Mar: 1.95/2.39/6.40/8.50 vs 1.80/2.30/7.50/8.00

8 April: One is offline, the second is 1.75/1.95/9/13, so the market increasingly sees this as a Milthorpe vs One Nation race.

24 April: Not sure when it finally flipped (had done so by April 20) but now ON 1.40 vs 2.80 and 1.38/3.10

30 April: 1.33/3.30/19/51.

7 May: 1.18/4.75/19/51.  Another site had 1.09 vs 6.50

The Low Impact Of Independent Preferences In Labor's 2025 Federal Win

At the 2025 federal election, more votes that were 1 One Nation or 1 Trumpet of Patriots (combined) finished up with Labor candidates as preferences than votes that were 1 Independent!

Among the various forms of whinging and nonsense I continue to see on social media about the election result, one of the commonest is that Labor were elected on "Greens and teal preference deals".  

Labor were, of course, ahead on primaries in 86 seats and would have won in any system (though well short of a majority without single-seat electorates) but the blaming of teals for the strength of their win reflects some limitations of looking at overall preference flows instead of examining the results seat by seat.

If one looks at the overall 2PP flow by party it appears that independents (particularly teals) were a huge contributor to the size of Labor's 2PP win and so must have had a lot to do with them winning so many seats.  After Labor's 5.35 million primaries and 1.67 million preferences from the Greens, independents (756K preferences) are easily the third biggest contributor, way ahead of the minority of preferences assigned to Labor from One Nation candidates (253K). 

What's the most federal electorates you have been to in a day?

A trip from Brisbane to Sydney in one day takes you through about 24 federal divisions.

This is a sequel to How many federal electorates have you visited?  The rules of that article don't count electorates one is just passing through for purely travel purposes, because you're not really visiting them as such.  This one is different.

For this article the challenge is to work out the most electorates you have ever been in in one day, excluding flying.  Any form of being effectively on the ground (or water) counts - driving, rail, walking, cycling, bus, boat if you are sailing through electorates with water boundaries and so on.  Flying doesn't count because flying over 14 extra seats in Sydney because your plane had to go around is just not interesting and unless you're paying insanely close attention to the flight tracker on a flight that has one you won't know which 14 anyway.  However, being on a plane that's on the ground for a stop en route is fine.  I also suggest defining "day" as a calendar day based on the current time in each electorate when passed through, but we could also count continuous trips within a 24 hour time period that don't include any overnight stopping.  

Preferences Help Non-Majors Beat Major Parties Far More Than The Other Way Around

This article is about single-member electorates, and cases where preferences result in someone who did not lead on primaries winning the seat, and how this affects battles between the major parties and candidates from outside the major parties ("non-majors") for seats.  

I've written a few articles on here in which I discuss mistaken views held by many Australian supporters of minor right-wing parties on social media.  Many of them rail against preferential voting, which they claim helps major parties to maintain a "duopoly" or "uniparty".  They often support scrapping preferences, although this would make it pointless to vote for the parties they support.  I've pointed out in these discussions that actually in the 2022 election, nine non-major candidates were elected from outside the parliament by beating one major party with help from the preferences of the other.  If there were no preferences, such candidates would need to rely on very organised strategic voting for any chance of winning.  Probably many would have lost.

Despite this, people keep claiming that the major parties conspire to keep smaller parties out of parliament by doing preference deals with each other so that if a smaller party leads on primaries the majors can beat them on preferences.  The supposed prime example is the defeat of Pauline Hanson in Blair 1998.  But the fact is that Hanson's loss was actually an unusual case, and examples of both majors cross-recommending against a competitive opponent are nowadays rare.  Indeed, including state elections, even One Nation has more often beaten majors from behind thanks to preference flows than led on preferences and lost, by a margin of 9 cases to 4.

I thought I would compile a list of all the cases I could find in single seat elections since 1990 (state, federal and territory) where either a major party has led on primary votes but been beaten by a non-major, or the other way around.  What I find is that non-majors beating majors by overtaking a major party primary vote leader on preferences is about nine times more common than the reverse.  

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?

Every Child Wins A Prize: Federal Seats With Swings To All Contestants

During last night's Cook by-election count there were a few comments about the swing column.  All six parties/independents had recorded a positive swing from the 2022 election.  In the case of Cook this was not at all surprising - three of the parties and the one independent had not even run in the seat in 2022, so their "swing" was automatically plus.  The Greens were always going to get a primary vote swing with no Labor candidate and no prominent left/centre independent.  That left the Liberals, and the question was whether they could gain enough primaries from the 34.6% who voted Labor, UAP or One Nation in 2022 to compensate for replacing a former Prime Minister and 17-year incumbent with some dude from outside the electorate.  This they did with 7% to spare and lo and behold there's a neat little line of pluses in the swing column for the recontesting candidates:

(Apologies to AEC, I've pinched the Wikipedia version for clearer display)

This is a common event in by-elections where one major party doesn't contest.  It has happened by my count in 9 of 21 such by-elections in the last 50 years, the others being Perth and Batman 2018, Higgins 2009, Isaacs 2000, Holt 1999, Blaxland 1996, Wentworth 1995, and Menzies 1991.  Perth 2018 achieved this feat despite having 15 candidates, however only three parties were recontesting.  Blaxland 1996 had five recontestants - I should note that I treat an independent as such only if it is the same person running and doing so as an independent both times.  

2024 Cook By-Election: Well I Don't Think I Should Call It "Live", But Anyway ...

COOK (Lib vs ALP 12.4% - ALP not contesting)

Cause of by-election: resignation of former Prime Minister Scott Morrison (Lib)

CALLED 6:46 pm Liberal retain - Simon Kennedy replaces Scott Morrison.  

Liberals win on first preferences. 

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9:09 Such postals as are going to be counted tonight is in now, and there is no change to the overall pattern with Simon Kennedy on a primary vote of 62.7% and a 2CP of 70.8%.  Nothing to concern the Liberals in one of their safest seats tonight but it is not in such places the next election will be won and lost. Unless something crops up that needs debunking, that is all from me for tonight.  

8:20 Animal Justice are opening up a gap to the Libertarians for third but postals might narrow this.  Overall the Liberal result is no cause for concern - they would expect some aspect of swing against them over the departure of an ex-PM, but also swings to them because there is no Labor candidate; to come out with a gain of 6.5% out of primary vote off those two things seems fine.  But I wouldn't say it's an especially good result because there's no basis for making such a call when the opposition is so weak.  

Making Seats "Marginal" At By-Elections Is Meaningless

Last night saw the Labor government get the good end of the stick in the Dunkley by-election, easily retaining a seat that was precariously above the long-term average swing for government vacancy by-elections.  It's no disaster for the Liberals who have got a modest swing with some mitigating factors but they (especially Jane Hume) were out in force last night spinning the outcome as a triumph.  Together with the usual nonsense about first-term governments not in recent decades losing seats and governments not losing by-elections caused by deaths (both based on trivially small sample sizes) I heard a lot about how they had turned Dunkley marginal and they were coming for the seat.

Marginal seat status where a seat is retained is determined by general election results not by-elections (so Dunkley is no more a marginal seat than it was before), but this made me wonder, does getting a seat inside the marginal range at a by-election predict anything at all?  I've found that such seats have historically almost always been retained by the government at the next election, although on average the election-to-election swing has been worse than the national average in such cases.  The idea that the Liberals have put Dunkley in serious danger next time with a swing that is not even bog-average for a government vacancy by-election has no basis.  

2024 Dunkley By-Election

DUNKLEY (VIC, ALP, 6.27%)  By-election March 2
Jodie Belyea (ALP) vs Nathan Conroy (Lib) and others
Cause of by-election: Death of previous incumbent Peta Murphy
Outlook: interesting; seat margin is just above average swing for government vacancies

Early this year we'll get the first electoral test for the Albanese Government on its own turf when the division of Dunkley goes to the polls in sad circumstances after the death of popular previous MP Peta Murphy.  Last year Labor sensationally captured Aston from the Liberals during a period of honeymoon polling, while the Coalition had a pretty good swing result when it retained the uncompetitive seat of Fadden in Peter Dutton's home state.  By-elections are more random and a lot less predictive than politics junkies tend to think they are, but an outer-suburban seat, on a loseable margin, with the honeymoon gone, seems much more significant.  

The by-election has been announced for March 2.  The writ will be issued Jan 29 with close of nominations Feb 8.

Voice Polling: The Sleeping Double Majority Curse

Yes trails about 45.0-55.0 in aggregated public polling (as of 13 Aug, pending new data)

No now leading on aggregate in every state, but Yes still ahead of national total in four states

Time for another Voice polling roundup.  There has been relatively little new data in the four weeks since the last update and this article includes some historic analysis that suggests that the current state polling picture for the Voice is actually highly unusual.  At the moment the state polling picture is irrelevant because No is ahead nationwide, but a benign state distribution is one thing Yes does have going for it should the national picture improve or if polls are underestimating Yes for some unprecedented reason.  What I find here is that it is almost unprecedented historically for the state picture not to be a drag, so it will be interesting to see if that holds up.  Is the double majority a sleeping curse that will wake up in the months to come or in the final results, or is it really going to be a non-issue this time around?  It turns out that if it is a non-issue, there's a reason for it, and that reason is Queensland.

Do Greens Do Badly At By-Elections When Both Major Parties Run?

(This article has been graded Wonk Factor 3/5.  It contains plenty of number-crunching and the odd statistical concept.)

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Today's article is a test of a hypothesis I thought was worth looking at.  In the recent Fadden federal by-election, the Greens were among the obvious losers, copping a 4.56% swing against them and falling to fifth on primaries behind Legalise Cannabis.  Then came the Rockingham state by-election in which the Greens were again smoked by the dope party despite having outpolled them at the previous upper house contest for the seat. The Greens did pick up a swing there (currently standing at 1.7%) but that was nothing but crumbs given that Mark McGowan's departure left a 33.4% swing for other parties to feast on.  On the other hand, there was a significant local-government based independent, Hayley Edwards, running.

Social media has been awash with Labor stans and the occasional op ed or media hack claiming that one poor result and one ambiguous result are clearly all about the party's stance on the Housing Australia Future Fund bill and are a portent of incandescent doom for the Greens at the next Senate election!  Given the variability of by-election outcomes and the fact that the Green vote is stable at its election level in national polling, those involved could as always improve the standard of Twitter psephology by desisting from this untestable game and deleting their accounts.   

On the other hand, I have seen a theory that the Greens will often do badly in by-elections because their by-election campaigns tend to be token attempts in seats they can't win and without the accompanying upper-house focused campaigns to drive up the vote.  So is there any truth in this overall, or is it really just the case that the Greens vote easily goes soft when there is even modest new competition?

Voice Referendum Polling: No Leads / Indigenous Support Levels

TWO-ANSWER TREND ESTIMATE YES 47.8 (-2.8 in four weeks)

Aggregated polls have Yes losing in five states and trailing the national average in three (two narrowly)

(Above estimates may be updated if new polls are added in next few weeks)

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Greetings.  I was going to call this article "Welcome to No" but thought of some wrong ways that that could be taken.

Four weeks ago my last Voice update still had Yes very slightly ahead but the lead was not long for this world.  Unsurprisingly in this edition Yes is still going downhill rapidly and is now clearly behind in my aggregated estimate.  The most recently added polls are Newspoll with a 46-54 result and Resolve with 48-52 (and an even worse 36-42-22 prior to the forced-choice question).  

Fadden Live: Who Gets The Swing?

Summary

Fadden (LNP 10.6%), vacancy for resignation of Stuart Robert

CALLED (7:26 pm) Cameron Caldwell (LNP) retain

Small 2PP swing to LNP ( 2.72%), slightly above average for contested opposition vacancy

Poor result for Greens, One Nation and obscure independents, strong result for Legalise Cannabis

Live Comments (scrolls to top)

12 August:  The final results have been published and the swing is 2.72%.  Legalise Cannabis stayed ahead of the Greens, failing to overtake One Nation by just 31 votes.  There are "swings" to both the LNP and Labor and away from One Nation at the 4CP stage, but this is not comparing like with like because Legalise Cannabis are the fourth party.  The most striking result in the figures is that the flow of One Nation preferences to LNP jumped to 77.06%, which exceeds the flow in any classic-2PP seat in the entire 2022 election except Gippsland.  In the Gippsland case One Nation were first on the ballot and the National's Darren Chester was second, so the flow included donkey and similar votes.  I would take this as a sign that One Nation voters are pleased that Peter Dutton is LNP leader, although it may also be they are happier to have Stuart Robert gone and/or that they are displeased with Anthony Albanese, his government or its Voice proposal.  

Friday 28th: The remaining postals count has gone to zero so the primary count is probably done now barring very minor corrections in the distribution of preferences.  88.5% of postals came back but 4.1% were disallowed, meaning 84.4% made the cut, a very common figure.  Swing is now 2.72%, turnout is 72.54% and the Citizens Party is last by 19 votes.  Next we get the distribution of preferences sometime next week maybe, which will yield some interesting order of exclusion and probably 3PP/4PP data involving One Nation, Legalise Cannabis and the Greens.  

2023 Fadden By-Election

FADDEN (LNP Qld 10.63%)

July 15 by-election
Cause of by-election: Resignation of Stuart Robert (MP since 2007)
LNP should retain seat easily

Welcome to my brief guide to the second by-election of the Albanese government's first term, for the northern Gold Coast seat of Fadden.  Fadden has been vacated by former Minister Stuart Robert, an endlessly controversial MP and close ally of former Prime Minister Scott Morrison (whose career as member for Cook is widely believed to be approaching its end as well).  

Fadden was created in 1977 and was initially very slightly Coalition-leaning compared to the national average, running at just over 1 point above the national 2PP in 1977, 1980 and 1983.  On this basis Labor won it in 1983 but an adverse redistribution made it notionally Liberal and the one term ALP incumbent, David Beddall, decamped to Rankin.  The seat was won back by the Liberals in 1984 and remained fairly marginal through the Hawke/Keating years but was won with a large swing in 1996 (partly fuelled by a further redistribution) and since then has generally favoured the Coalition by between 10 and 13% compared to the national 2PP.  In this time only in 1998 did the 2PP go below 60% to Coalition so it is now a very solid LNP seat with a serious claim to be one of the most electorally boring seats in the nation.

Aston By-Election Live

ASTON (Vic, Liberal 2.81%)
Vacancy for resignation of Alan Tudge (Liberal)
Roshena Campbell (Liberal) vs Mary Doyle (Labor)

ALP GAIN FROM LIBERAL - first federal government gain from opposition at a by-election since 1920.

Projected overall swing 6.4% to Labor

Refresh for updates

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Poll Roundup: No, Labor's Honeymoon Is Not Over Or Anything Like It

2PP Cross-Poll Average 56.1% To Labor
Labor would win an election "held now" with an increased majority (approx 92 seats)

Today's quick Poll Roundup is provoked by one of the more curious and spurious interpretations by an actual pollster that I've seen.  Today's Resolve poll had Labor leading 40-31 on primary votes, which while down on December and January is still the same 9-point lead they held in September and twice in October and off a one point higher primary vote than those.  It would come out to a 2PP of around 58-42 to Labor*, which if repeated at an election would result in Labor gaining about 20 seats from the Coalition and winning in one of the biggest landslides ever seen with about 97 seats to the Coalition's 38.  Yet Resolve's Jim Reed was quoted as declaring that “It looks like Albanese and Labor’s election honeymoon is over,”.  The main justification for this was that Labor had come down slightly from even greater highs in polls taken over the holiday season.  The other was movements of a few points from Labor and unsure to the Coalition across a raft of attribute and leadership polling measures, many of which were within the poll's in-theory margin of error and many of which still showed Labor way ahead anyway.  (The accompanying article says jobs was one of Labor's biggest setback areas, but on jobs the Coalition's gains came entirely from "someone else" and "undecided").  

Aston By-Election 2023

ASTON (VIC, LIB 2.81%)  April 1 by-election

Liberal to be announced vs Mary Doyle (ALP) and others
Cause of by-election: Resignation of Alan Tudge

Outlook: On historical patterns Liberals should retain - but it may not be easy

Yesterday what looks like a quiet electoral year was enlivened just a little by the news that there will be a by-election for the Liberal seat of Aston following the resignation of Alan Tudge, MP since 2010 and Minister between 2016-2022.  Tudge was once a minor star of the Coalition government but his rise was tarnished from late 2020 onwards by an extramarital affair with staffer Rachelle Miller, who accused him of harassment and abuse.  Tudge denies the accusations, which led to a substantial payout.  In recent weeks Tudge has been under the spotlight for his actions surrounding the illegal, disgraceful and barbaric "robodebt" scheme as Social Services Minister in 2016-7.  Tudge has cited family and health reasons in his resignation, having flagged his intentions with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in early January after his father passed away. 

This thread will follow the by-election campaign though I will lose interest in it and stop updating the thread if Labor doesn't run and there is no other serious challenger.  [Update 17/2 Labor is running and has re-endorsed Mary Doyle.]

Lidia Thorpe Quits The Greens

Good to be back from the longest posting hiatus in this site's history so far.  I have been working on a couple of other pieces during what little time I have had to spare during another round of having months of my life expended by moving house, but I thought I should first make some quick comments about Senator Lidia Thorpe quitting the Greens, largely over differences concerning the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament.  The Greens support the Voice but Thorpe considers the Voice to be tokenism and supports a treaty first.  This week's Newspoll showed that Greens supporters overwhelmingly support the Voice (at least for now) and further highlighted that Thorpe's position is a lonely one within the party.  

Thorpe's defection to the crossbench changes the balance of the Senate significantly.  Previously Labor and the Greens held 38 seats, meaning their easiest way to pass bills was to obtain the support of David Pocock.  The next easiest route involved the two Lambie Network Senators.  Now with Labor and the Greens down to 37 they need two votes out of Pocock, Thorpe, Ralph Babet (UAP), the two Lambie Network senators and the two One Nation senators.  They also need one of these votes to block motions.  While Thorpe will remain a safe vote on climate change related matters, there may be other issues where she is not, especially if she uses her power to horse-trade for her goals.  This means the Lambie Network senators may increase their own power since there may be times when it is easier to work with them than Pocock and Thorpe.  (Voice-related issues will probably not be those times - Lambie is quite sceptical of the ability of the Voice to deliver change on the ground.)

2022 Federal Polling Year In Review

2PP average for year 54.9 to Labor.
Labor led on 2PP in all 87 polls released this year.

At the end of each year I release an annual review of federal polling. See the 2021 edition here and/or click the annual poll review tab for articles back to 2014.

I'll start by saying this was a great year for polling generally with a good industry result in the federal election (after a famous failure in 2019), a very good result for final polls in the Victorian state election, and YouGov/Newspoll performing very well in South Australia.

How many polls?

Once again the business of counting how many polls there have been is complicated by Morgan's habit of often releasing only the 2PP from a poll sample.  In all I count 87 readings, the most since 2017, from what I consider to be mainline pollsters: 

* 12 Newspolls before the election and four after.  The dramatic slowing in release of Newspoll post-election makes me suspect YouGov had a contract for sixteen (the same number as 2021).

* Six Resolves before the election and five after, however only two of the pre-election polls and none since had a pollster-derived 2PP (I've calculated last-election preferences for those that didn't)

* 14 Morgans before the election and 30 Morgan readings post-election, however nearly all the Morgans since the election have been 2PP only.

* Nine Essential readings before the election and two afterwards.

* Four Ipsos polls before the election

* One Freshwater Strategy poll this month

There may be more pre-election Morgan readings that I missed. I have not included Dynata (lobby group poll) or anything from KORE (panel survey with numerous red flags) or ANUPoll (wildly inaccurate with incomplete data).