ELECTORAL, POLLING AND POLITICAL ANALYSIS, COMMENT AND NEWS FROM THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CLARK. LOOKS LIKE 2026 IS THE YEAR VICTORIA IS FINALLY FREED OF THE CURSE OF GROUP TICKET VOTING! IF USING THIS SITE ON MOBILE YOU CAN SCROLL DOWN AND CLICK "VIEW WEB VERSION" TO SEE THE SIDEBAR FULL OF GOODIES.
GTV repeal has passed Assembly unanimously. Has passed second reading in Legislative Council and committee stage completed. On to third reading. ----------------------- There is more encouraging news on the Group Ticket Voting front today with the Allan Carroll Government finally amid the chaos introducing a Bill to scrap group ticket voting in the Victorian Legislative Council, called the…
It's another success for voters in the Next Leader To Go Not-A-Poll as the outright majority favourite was indeed the next leader to depart, improving the record of Not-A-Poll to 8/15 including six of the last seven. When I opened voting on 13 February there was a spirited initial battle between Jacinta Allan and Angus Taylor with the lead swapping a few times over several hours. In following days…
In 1984 there was a proposal to rename the electorate that is now called Lyons (and was then called Wilmot) "Truganini". For a little while this was being reported and discussed in papers, there was widespread opposition and the change was withdrawn. Wilmot became Lyons instead. I was twelve years old at the time and I remember this in broad outline. But I wonder if the Augmented Electoral…
Victoria Aggregate Labor 26.0 Coalition 27.3 Green 12.8 One Nation 23.7 others 10.3 (polls are probably underestimating "others" vote) 2PP estimate 52.0 to Coalition vs ALP, shadow-2PP ALP 50.1 vs One Nation Currently Coalition would be likely to govern in minority with One Nation support, with One Nation seat tally around the mid-teens One Nation and Labor seat numbers are highly dependent on…
The last week has brought the encouraging news via both The Age and The Herald-Sun that Victorian Labor is preparing legislation to scrap Group Ticket Voting at the last possible chance before this year's election. According to the reports, the legislation will be brought in in the sitting week starting July 28, and would presumably pass both houses quickly in order to meet the VEC's August…
Today could be a momentous day in the history of Tasmanian electoral boundaries! Or it could be a nothing-ever-happens. Around mid-morning today there will be a boundary announcement. If the announcement is either the same as the draft boundaries or only slightly different then that's it and the new boundaries will be official for federal elections after 8 October. It usually takes several months…
DemosAU Liberal 28 Labor 21 One Nation 21 Greens 14 IND 12 SF+F 2 Others 2 Seat estimate if these vote shares were recorded in election "held now" Lib 10 ALP 9 ON 8 Grn 4 IND 4 After a previous state poll which did not explicitly include One Nation, DemosAU have now included them in their Tasmanian state polling for the first time. The party, which has been advertised for state registration,…
I had a piece in drafts almost ready to release for weeks about this, but perhaps just as well I didn't since further developments have rendered the draft somewhat out of date. The last few weeks have seen major news in the leadup to the expected 2028 half-Senate election with the Tasmanian Liberal ticket to lose both its incumbents. Incumbent since 2019 Wendy Askew was to retire at the end of the…
Frequently I post federal polling results and calculations to the microblogging sites Twitter (X) and Bluesky (links to my accounts in sidebar); here is an example I posted today: The standard items I include are the primary votes for all parties, any two-party preferred or Labor vs One Nation "shadow 2PP" issued by the pollster, and what I call "my conversion". "My conversion" is a 2PP figure I…
Please explain! Yesterday I was posting some comments about how tweets on the Pauline Hanson twitter account mostly are not written by her, despite being frequently written in the first person. Tweets signed "PH" or "-PH", the supposed signs that they are actually hers, seem to have largely dried up; after 23 in 2023 (mostly re the Voice) there were according to the advanced search function just…
In an article way back in 2015 I noted that the faux-progressive website "Independent Australia" was independent of "Quality control, consistency, accuracy and editorial skill." Has it got better since? Well no, if a recent attempt to soothe reader concerns about the One Nation surge is any guide, it seems to have got even worse. I've decided to write a whole piece about this trainwreck to explain…
It was as sure as night follows day, as sure as daylight savings fading the curtains (oh wait) that the Stafford by-election result would see the Queensland right again beating the drum for optional preferences. On cue we have an op ed by Morgan Begg from the IPA in the Courier-Mail trying to argue that compulsory preferential voting is some kind of aberration that has saved Labor's seat with the…
2PP Aggregate 52.4 to Labor vs Coalition (term low, -0.8 since last week) Shadow-2PP 52.9 to Labor vs One Nation (-0.6 since last week) Labor would win election"held now" but most likely with only a small majority This is my usual annual post about federal voting intention polling after the Budget, plus a summary of what's been happening in the months leading up. The briefest summary of what…
EMRS Lib 25 (-4) ALP 24 (+1) ON 19 (+5) GRN 14 (-1) IND 16 (+1) others 2 (-2) Seat estimate off this poll if election "held now" Lib 8-9 ALP 10 ON 8 Grn 4-5 IND 4 others 0 The funniest thing about this week's EMRS poll is that it was taken before . Before we found out on Friday that, in proof of assurances that TT Line couldn't possibly be insolvent because the government could just keep throwing…
Stafford (ALP 5.32%) Luke Richmond (ALP) vs Fiona Hammond (LNP) and others Cause of by-election: death of Jimmy Sullivan (ALP/IND) ALP retain with c. 4.4% swing to LNP --- Monday: Not much more to see Casey Briggs has tweeted that he understands there are not more than (and probably less than) 2000 postals to come, so further changes to the current 51.2-48.8 margin will be in tenths of a percent…
Farrer (Lib vs IND 6.2%, Lib vs ALP 12.9%) Raissa Butkowski (Lib) vs Michelle Milthorpe (IND), David Farley (ON) and others Cause of by-election resignation of Sussan Ley (Lib) CALLED (7:46 pm) Farley (One Nation) gain from Liberal ------------------------- Live comments will appear here from 6 pm - once counting gets going from around 7, refresh every 10 minutes or so for latest comments. Monday…
Does this look like a Labor front to you? Group ticket voting in Victoria has again been in the news a lot lately - see my latest article about whether abolishing it would assist One Nation . With this latest discussion has come a resurgence of a longrunning online urban myth concerning the shortlived Sack Dan Andrews party (or more formally Restore Democracy: Sack Dan Andrews Party) in the 2022…
On this website I have frequently covered Victoria's ongoing failure to repeal the use of Group Ticket Voting in state Legislative Council elections. Victoria is now the last state that still has this system, which has been scrapped everywhere else after being gamed by preference-harvesting. In the current cycle the Electoral Matters committee in an outstanding report recommended the scrapping of…
Huon: Clare Glade-Wright (IND) elected, gain from Dean Harriss (IND) Rosevears: Jo Palmer (Lib) retain. NEPEAN (VIC): CALLED 8:30 pm Marsh (Lib) retain --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Donations welcome! If you find my coverage useful please consider donating to support the large amount of time I spend working on…
SA 2026 ALP 34 (+5) Lib 5 (-9) ON 4 (+4) IND 4 (-) (Changes from pre-election/notional; Labor gained two seats from Liberal during 2022-6 term) Estimated 2PP ALP 57.89 vs Liberal (+3.3) Estimated "Shadow 2PP" ALP 58.19 vs One Nation The 2026 South Australian lower house was remarkable in so many ways. It makes Queensland 1998 seem almost boring by comparison, except that Queensland 1998 was there…
ROSEVEARS (2020 margin Lib vs IND 0.57%) This is my second guide to the Legislative Council this year. My guide for Huon is here and my latest guide to voting patterns in the upper house is up. I expect to be doing live coverage of the Legislative Council elections on this site on election night, scheduled for Saturday May 2. However, updates to this page in the lead-up will probably be less…
Yesterday the AEC released public feedback on the proposed radical redistribution as previously covered here ( Draft Scraps The Franklin Divide ). Frankly I thought there might be more complaints than there were, but some of those that there are are pretty punchy. Of the 90 distinct submissions received, exactly half by my count discussed the proposed boundaries at all, and of these I counted 14…
In the leadup to the 2026 Legislative Council elections for Huon and Rosevears (link TBA when I've written it) this article is my annual review of voting patterns on divisions in the upper house in the previous four years. But before I get into it, I need to deal with some methods nerdery at the start. Shy Division Losing Some Labor MLCs aren't particularly fond of my findings, and they were…
FINNISS (Lib vs ALP 6.7%, Lib vs IND 0.7%) David Basham (Lib) vs Lou Nicholson (IND) Nicholson wins from fourth position on primaries. Unprecedented in state and federal elections ( Link to tallyboard thread ) The Victor Harbour/Goolwa seat of Finniss sees a similarly messy count to Kavel with four candidates with currently very similar primary votes, as I start this thread with the prepoll not…
Hammond (Lib 5.1%) Robert Roylance (ON) vs Simone Bailey (ALP) vs Adrian Pederick (Lib) Roylance expected to win ( Link to tallyboard thread ) The rural lower Murray seat of Hammond was one of those that stood out in pre-election modelling as being a seat on a relatively low Liberal vs ALP margin but nonetheless being apparently fertile ground for One Nation. And this looks like this is how things…