2026

2026 Victorian Election Pendulum

(Update – Three days after this post was published, Jacinta Allan was replaced as Premier by Ben Carroll. The post has been left as originally published.)

Victoria’s state election on 28 November will see voters pass judgment on Premier Jacinta Allen’s unpopular government and 12 years of Labor rule.

Most recent Victorian opinion polls reveal a three-way split of support between Labor, the Coalition and One Nation. Several have reported One Nation with the highest primary vote.

These are extra-ordinary polls in a state where two-party politics has traditionally been strongest and One Nation’s electoral support weakest.

One Nation’s poll ratings are also remarkable given the party has no state leader, no announced state policies, one upper house member and just one lower house candidate.

Were it not for other results this year, I would dismiss One Nation’s ratings as unlikely to hold until November, especially if it doesn’t hurry up and announce a leader.

But polls proved right in predicting One Nation would outpoll the Liberal Party at the South Australian election. The party polled well at the Nepean state by-election in May, and a week later matched expectations by easily winning the Farrer federal by-election.

If current polls prove correct, the result in November will have greater consequences for the course of national politics than any state election in my lifetime.

Australia’s two-sided party system has been around for more than a century. The two major parties have always clustered left and right of the centre. Smaller parties have come and gone, the most significant until now being the Greens who have staked out a significant base to the left of Labor.

Other prominent minor parties, like the DLP and Australian Democrats, lasted two decades and never built a base that could transmit loyalties to another generation. In retrospect, both were parties of transition, pathways for voters to change major party loyalty.

Until now, no new political entrant has threatened the foundations on which Australia’s two-party system is built. But the surge in One Nation support suggests the Coalition is in danger of being supplanted as Labor’s major opponent.

Is the Coalition about to fade away and be replaced by One Nation? Or will the Coalition and One Nation grow closer together and a new type of coalition emerge on the right?

It may sound odd to predict problems for the federal Coalition when it is a deeply unpopular Labor state government facing defeat in Victoria.

But if the Liberal-National Coalition cannot capitalise on Labor’s woes by winning majority government in Victoria, if it is forced into some governing arrangement with One Nation in a state where the party has previously barely rated, then there are consequences across the country.

It raises serious question about the Coalition’s future in states where One Nation has a stronger base. First cab off the rank will be the NSW election next March where optional preferential voting will magnify splits between the Coalition and One Nation.

Under optional preferential voting, parties can’t rely on voters to complete preference sequences. Especially if NSW Labor fills the airwaves with “Just Vote 1” messages. Many Coalition and One Nation voters will exhaust preferences and help deliver a comfortable majority to the Minns Labor government.

One Nation capturing the balance of power in Victoria will force some form of governing arrangement on the Liberal Party and (whatever remains of) the National Party. For the first time One Nation would have a say on who governs a state and how.

To date One Nation has been a powerless crossbench upper house party that chucks metaphorical rocks at government. It will need to learn new ways to behave if the election result draws it closer to the levers of government. Chucking rocks becomes a dangerous pastime from inside the glasshouse of government.

Plus One Nation has a terrible record of keeping its elected members within the party. If instability were to strike while One Nation filled a starring or support role in Victorian government, every failing of the party would be highlighted across the nation by its political opponents.

I’ve seen the pressure of governing splinter third parties before. At the 1996 New Zealand election, a similar populist party to One Nation, Winston Peters’ New Zealand First, won the balance of power. After weeks of negotiation, the party joined with National to form government. Over the next three years New Zealand First splintered, popular slogans mugged by the reality of governing. Its more sensible members were lured away by its coalition partner, the less sensible ostracised.

If the polls prove right, converting a three-way split of primary votes into seats in parliament has a range of possible outcomes. Some could produce a majority Coalition government. If not a majority, the question will be how far short of majority the Coalition finishes and whether a government supported by One Nation is possible.Read More »2026 Victorian Election Pendulum

FED2026 Redistributions – South Australian Boundaries Finalised

The South Australian redistribution of electoral boundaries has been finalised this morning. The Commission has abandoned a swap of suburbs between Kingston and Mayo, as well as the transfer of an area from Spence to O’Donoghue (formerly Grey). This means that Kingston and O’Donoghue retain their former boundaries without change.

The Draft boundaries released in March produced only minor changes to the boundaries used at the last three federal elections. Those changes have now been reduced with the Spence to O’Donoghue change reversed and the proposed suburbs swap between Mayo and Kingston abandoned.

South Australia was reduced from 11 to 10 House of Representatives seats by the 2017 redistribution. The current redistribution retains 10 seats and was triggered by the rule requiring boundaries to be re-drawn every seven years. The reason for periodic re-draws is to account for differing patterns of population growth, to bring all electorates back within permitted variation from quota.

Barker pushes closer to Adelaide and gains 3,365 voters around Woodchester from Mayo. Grey has been re-named O’Donoghue but proposed boundary changes abandoned. Population growth in the Adelaide Hills has seen Mayo shed voters to Barker and around 6,275 to Boothby. Adelaide’s outer north has also been growing rapidly and Spence has lost 14,043 voters in Brahma Lodge and Salisbury to Makin. Proposed changes to Kingston have been abandoned and Adelaide, Hindmarsh and Sturt retain their unchanged status from the draft phase.

The table below has been now re-calculated for the final boundaries.

South Australia Federal Redistribution – Summary of New Margins
District Old Boundaries New Boundaries Shift
Adelaide ALP 19.1% ALP 19.1% unchanged boundaries
Barker LIB 13.0% LIB 12.7% 0.3 to Labor
Boothby ALP 11.1% ALP 11.1% no change
Hindmarsh ALP 16.3% ALP 16.3% unchanged boundaries
Kingston ALP 20.7% ALP 20.7% unchanged boundaries
Makin ALP 14.7% ALP 15.3% 0.6 to Labor
Mayo (2-Party) ALP 5.0% ALP 4.8% 0.2 to Liberal
Mayo (IND v ALP) IND 14.9% IND 15.5% 0.6 to Independent
O’Donoghue (formerly Grey) LIB 4.6% LIB 4.6% unchanged boundaries
Spence ALP 15.3% ALP 15.2% 0.1 to Liberal
Sturt ALP 6.6% ALP 6.6% unchanged boundaries

Read More »FED2026 Redistributions – South Australian Boundaries Finalised

FED2026 Redistributions – Tasmanian Boundaries Finalised

The new electoral boundaries for Tasmania have been released today.

Reading through the proposed changes, the major changes to Clark, Franklin and Lyons in southern Tasmania have been agreed to. But there are changes in the north with Break O’Day council being moved into Bass.

There is also a proposed name change which has triggered the calling of a new round of comments specifically about changing the name of Franklin to Tongerlongter. As the proposal explains the name –

Following its deliberations, the augmented Electoral Commission proposes renaming the electorate of Franklin in honour of Tongerlongeter (c. 1790-1837), a Poredareme man of the Oyster Bay nation and a prominent Aboriginal leader whose Country encompassed much of south-east Tasmania, including areas within the reconfigured electorate boundaries. The name ‘Franklin’ is proposed to be retired.

Earlier I tweeted that the draft boundaries had been abandoned. That was confusion on my part by opening the wrong map and thinking that was the reason for calling a new round of submissions. It is rare for redistributions to engage in this extra consultation step. It appears the consultation is over the name change alone so the boundaries appear to be otherwise final.

The draft boundaries released earlier this year produced massive changes to the electorates of Clark, Franklin and Lyons. You can read more details in my post on the draft boundaries.

The table below summarises the two-party preferred margins between Labor and Liberal in the five divisions. I’ll go into more detail on the Independent positions in Clark and Franklin inside the post.

Tasmania Federal Redistribution – Summary of 2-Party Preferred Margin Changes
District Old Boundaries New Boundaries Shift
Bass ALP 8.0% ALP 8.3% 0.3 to ALP
Braddon ALP 7.2% ALP 7.2% Unchanged
Clark ALP 20.9% ALP 20.2% 0.7 to LIB
Franklin ALP 19.4% ALP 18.7% 0.7 to LIB
Lyons ALP 11.6% ALP 12.7% 0.9 to ALP

Read More »FED2026 Redistributions – Tasmanian Boundaries Finalised

FED26 Redistributions – Final Boundaries Released for A.C.T.

The final boundaries for the ACT have been released. Maps and numbers of voters transferred have not been released, but I have managed to estimate new margins using data published with the draft boundaries.

In short, nothing much changes. The table below summarise the margins for the ACT’s three electorates.

ACT Federal Redistribution (Final) – Summary of Margin Changes
District Contest Old Boundaries New Boundaries Shift
Bean 2-Party ALP 19.3% ALP 19.4% 0.1 to ALP
Canberra 2-Party ALP 26.4% ALP 26.4% No change
Fenner 2-Party ALP 22.1% ALP 22.1% No change
Bean ALP v IND ALP 0.3% ALP 0.2% 0.1 to IND
Canberra ALP v GRN ALP 19.5% ALP 19.5% No change

There’s more details on each electorate inside the post.
Read More »FED26 Redistributions – Final Boundaries Released for A.C.T.

2026 – Farrer By-election – Final Count Data Released

This morning the AEC finalised counting for the Farrer by-election with the release of detailed preference data.

It answers what I thought was a key question in the result – whether there was a difference between Liberal and National preference flows to One Nation. It was not possible to answer this question using the previously released full distribution of preferences.

Preference flow data tallies destination preferences from the primary votes for each excluded candidates to one of the final two candidates. In Farrer this data tallies preferences from ten excluded candidates to One Nation’s David Farley and Independent Michelle Milthorpe, the final pairing of candidates. Preference flow data ignores the intermediary stages published as part of the formal distribution of preferences.

The data released today reveals a difference in preference flows by supporters of the two Coalition parties . Liberal voter preference flows to One Nation were 59.0% compared to 69.1% for Nationals voters.

The flow data also reveals that One Nation’s David Farley did not need Liberal preferences to win. In the full distribution of preferences, Farley did not pass 50% until the Liberal candidate was the last excluded. Using the flow data where National preferences do not first flow through the Liberal candidate, Farley reached 50.2% on the flow of National preferences without the need for any Liberal preferences.

The question is whether the different flows tell us anything about how Liberal and National preferences would flow at a general election. In Farrer there was no Labor candidate in the final pairing. I suspect both National and Liberal preference flows to One Nation would have been higher in a final contest involving Labor rather than an Independent.

But it does suggest that Liberal preferences to One Nation will be weaker than those of National candidates. That was the case two decades ago in Queensland before the formation of the LNP. It in part reflects the different appeal of One Nation in rural electorates contested by Nationals versus the flows in urban electorates contested by Liberal candidates. One Nation polled a high enough first preference vote in Farrer for this difference not to matter. But a lower primary vote and weaker Liberal preferences would hamper One Nation hopes of winning urban seats.

Against this view, that the Liberal candidate drew top spot on the ballot paper with Milthorpe in second position suggests that the donkey vote may have played a party in the weaker Liberal preference flows to One Nation.

And it has to be remembered that preference flows from voters on the right of politics have always been weaker than from voters on the left. One Nation and the two Coalition parties rarely achieve the sorts of flows produced by the Greens in Farrer. Despite polling only 2.3% of the vote, Greens preferences flowed 91.8% to Independent Michelle Milthorpe. At general elections, Green voter preferences to Labor are consistently above 85%, a figure that the Liberal and National parties struggle to achieve from their supporters in three cornered contests.

I haven’t had time to pull apart the data by polling place, but the swing to One Nation was smaller in Albury, by far the largest regional centre in the seat. It was also in Albury where Liberal and Milthorpe support was strongest. Farley was better known in the west of the electorate where National support was also strongest. It may be the different preference flows reflect this familiarity with local candidates and the weaker One Nation support in Albury.

There’s more data on the preferences inside the post, along with an effort to graph the preferences data. Read More »2026 – Farrer By-election – Final Count Data Released

2026 – Stafford By-election – Count Centre Summary Tables

The tables in this post summarise the results by count centre.

  • The first table shows the Labor primary and two-candidate preferred vote by count centre and associated swings since the 2024 state election.
  • The second table shows count centre percentages after summarising the nine candidates down to four group totals, Labor, LNP, Greens and ‘Others’.
  • The third table shows change in results by count centre since the 2024 election using the four party group in the previous point.

Links: Result Summary | Commentary | Count Centre Summaries | Count Centre Results
Read More »2026 – Stafford By-election – Count Centre Summary Tables

2026 – Stafford By-election – Result Summary

Tonight and in coming days, this post will publish an overall summary of the results of the 2026 Stafford state by-election in Queensland. The page will be regularly updated on election night and in the days that follow. Tonight there will also be links below to commentary on the results and more detail on the results by polling place.

Links: Result Summary | Commentary | Count Centre Summaries | Count Centre Results
Read More »2026 – Stafford By-election – Result Summary

Stafford By-election Preview

Last week it was the Farrer by-election, a week earlier the Nepean by-election. Both Liberal held seats where the interest was how One Nation would perform against the Liberal Party in contests with no Labor candidate.

This week’s Stafford by-election flips the interest. This time it’s inner-city Brisbane and a Labor held seat with no One Nation candidate.

It’s a conventional two-party contest where Labor is defending one of its marginal seats two years after losing state government to the LNP. And there is added interest with how preferences will flow following a decision by the Greens to make no recommendation of preferences. Will leakage of Greens preferences cost Labor one of its traditional Brisbane seats?Read More »Stafford By-election Preview