Labor Moves Ahead In The Polls, Probability Of Early Election Rises

On Saturday, the liberal seat of Aston in outer Melbourne was won by the Labor party for the first time since 1990 after the Liberals faced a 6.4% swing against them. This brought the number of Labor held seats in the federal parliament to 78. While this was just a by-election, it is likely to have political ramifications.

• The latest Newspoll results reported by The Australian show that the primary vote for the Coalition has fallen 2pp to 33% while Labor rose 1pp to 38% and right-of-centre party One Nation rose 1pp to 8% (highest since 2018). The two-party preferred split is 55:45%, an almost 3pp move against the Coalition since the May 2022 election. PM Albanese gained 4pp to 58% as preferred PM in the latest poll while Liberal leader Dutton fell 2pp to 26%.
• It is extremely rare for an incumbent party to win a seat off the opposition and could embolden PM Albanese to go to the polls by the end of 2024, they are due in May 2025.
• While there has been a lot of speculation on the future of Dutton’s leadership of the Liberal party, since the by-election loss senior members have come out supporting him. He has also said that the party needs to reform its organisational structure to be prepared for upcoming elections. Dutton also said that the federal government is still in its honeymoon phase and that the opposition just needs to be patient while putting its policy agenda together.
• “The fundamentals of our party are not going to change. If we’ve got new policies to take to the election we’ll do it in good time,” Dutton said.