A problem with insightful sayings is that they soon become cliches due to overuse. I was reminded of this last Saturday when the front page of the AFR Weekend ran a story titled “Is This Our Political Future?”. At least there was a question, I suppose.
The reference was to a Redbridge Group/Accent Research MRP poll that declared what the House of Representatives would most likely look like if an election were to be held now. An MRP poll occurs when a national survey is combined with demographic data from previous elections on a seat-by-seat basis.
The Labor Party was ahead on 76 seats, followed by One Nation on 53 seats, the Coalition on 12 and Others on nine. The poll of some 6015 voters was held between April 29 and May 14, with most of the research being undertaken before the May 12 budget.
In itself, the timing should have alerted some of the crystal-ball gazers in our midst. The Newspoll conducted on May 13-15 revealed that the 2026 budget was rated worst for the economy in recent Australian history – exceeded only by Labor’s 1993 budget.
No one knows how a similar poll would look if it were held in the two weeks after Jim Chalmers’ budget. Kos Samaras, director of the Redbridge Group, was interviewed by ABC TV 7.30’s presenter Sarah Ferguson last Monday.
Asked to describe the scale of the result the Redbridge poll had picked up, Samaras replied: “We’re clearly seeing a collapse of the Coalition. The medium result for them in terms of seat count is about 12. And One Nation’s clearly snatching up the bulk of the seats from the Coalition and a portion of the Labor base as well.” Ferguson put it to Samaras that he was talking about One Nation becoming the official opposition. To which the reply was “that’s right”. He went on to suggest that Liberal Party leader Angus Taylor would lose his seat of Hume in NSW and frontbencher Andrew Hastie would be defeated in his Perth seat of Canning.
Well, maybe they will. Or maybe not. For Samaras was asked another question. Namely, what would happen if the Liberals and the Nationals increased their primary vote by a few points? The Redbridge pollster responded: “That’s right, if they improve their primary vote by about 3 or 4 per cent or 5 per cent they would save them a lot of these seats … well in excess of 20 seats if the figure is 5 per cent.” The special post-budget Newspoll, commissioned by The Australian, has the primary vote as follows: Labor 31 per cent, One Nation 27 per cent, the Coalition 20 per cent, Greens 12 per cent and Others 10 per cent.
If the Coalition were to win back votes from One Nation to the extent that if its candidates get ahead of Pauline Hanson’s party, then its candidates can win seats off the back of One Nation’s preferences – presuming that One Nation preferences the Coalition ahead of Labor, the Greens and independents.
When preferential voting was introduced in the House of Representatives before the 1919 election, it favoured the non-Labor parties. This was the case into the 1950s and 1960s, when the Coalition benefited from preferences from the Democratic Labor Party, the members of which had broken away from, or been expelled from, the Labor Party.
However, since the emergence in more recent times of the Democrats for a while and then the Greens, preferential voting has primarily benefited Labor. Now, the Greens will always put Labor ahead of the Coalition and One Nation. But if the latter two parties can arrange a preference deal, preferential voting will benefit both.
The task of the Coalition – under the leadership of Angus Taylor and the Nationals’ Matt Canavan – is to build up its primary vote. It’s a difficult task since One Nation is benefiting from the support of voters who are disappointed with the major parties.
Writing in Nine newspapers last Monday, George Brandis (who, once upon a time, was associated with those Liberals who presented as moderates) commented: “Taylor’s budget reply speech could have been given by John Howard or Peter Costello, steeped as it was with the Liberal Party’s core values.” The appointment of Tony Abbott as Liberal Party federal president puts the organisation’s best communicator in a prominent role and is likely to assist with fundraising. And Canavan is the best-equipped National to challenge One Nation’s Hanson and Barnaby Joyce.
It’s not impossible for the Liberals to win back a seat or two from the teals – particularly Bradfield on Sydney’s north shore. After all, a lot of teal voters will not be all that impressed with Labor’s broken promises on capital gains tax and negative gearing.
Allegra Spender is a fine, intelligent politician. But the teal member for Wentworth in Sydney’s eastern suburbs has had scant input with her taxation policies. After all, the teals have only six seats in a 150-seat parliament.
Minor parties and independents usually only have real influence in the Senate. Hence the proposal by some teals to form a political party of sorts – seemingly with the encouragement of Malcolm Turnbull.
The former Liberal Party prime minister enjoyed his occasional (soft) interview on ABC Radio National last Monday and, once again, used the occasion to criticise the Liberal Party. But he advanced no proposal to revive the teals or establish a new party.
In any event, the next election is a long way off. It’s possible that One Nation will continue to surge. It’s possible that the Coalition parties will hold on. It’s possible that Labor will continue as the dominant party despite its low primary vote. No one knows. It’s much the same with Redbridge. In 2024, Redbridge-Accent conducted an MRP poll between October 29 and November 20 – around six months before the May 2025 election. It estimated that the Coalition would win between 64 and 78 seats, Labor between 59 and 71 seats and the Greens between three and five seats. The final result was Labor 94, Coalition 43 and Greens just one. Enough said about political prophecy.