A federal Newspoll conducted from March 29 to April 2 from a sample of 1,500 gave Labor a 55-45 lead, a one-point gain for Labor since the Newspoll in early March. Primary votes were 38% Labor (up one), 33% Coalition (down two), 10% Greens (stable), 8% One Nation (up one) and 11% for all others (stable).
56% were satisfied with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s performance (one increase), and 35% were dissatisfied (three drops), for a net approval of +21, up four points. Liberal leader Peter Dutton’s net approval fell two points to -13. The lead of Albanians as better prime minister increased from 54-28 to 58-26. Newspoll figures are from The Poll Bludger.
analyst Kevin Bonham said this is One Nation’s highest vote in a Newspoll since November 2018, and the worst net endorsement for Dutton. This poll was almost all conducted ahead of Saturday’s Aston by-election.
With almost all votes counted in the Aston by election, Labor won by a margin of 53.6–46.4, a 6.4% swing to Labor since the 2022 election. Primary votes were 40.9% Labor (8.3%), 39.1% Liberals (3.9%), 10.1% Greens (2.0%) and 7.0% for an independent (new). The UAP (6.1% in 2022) and One Nation (3.1%) did not participate. The turnout is currently 83.9% and will rise slightly.
Read more: Labor wins Aston by election; Updates on NSW Elections and Trump Polls
This article in The Century has a map showing the Liberals had seven metro seats in Melbourne in 2019: Goldstein, Higgins, Chisholm, Deakin, Menzies, Kooyong and Aston. In the 2022 election Labor won Higgins and Chisholm and teal independents Kooyong and Goldstein won, and now Labor has won Aston, leaving the Liberals with only Menzies and Deakin in metro Melbourne.
I wrote before the 2022 elections that the increasing polarization in education, where those without college education, especially in regional areas, will increasingly vote for right-wing parties while those with college education vote for the left, would ultimately favor Labor in Australia thanks to our big cities. The 2022 elections and now Aston validate this argument.
Read more: Will a permanent education gap ultimately favor Labor electorally because of our big cities?
Labor’s victory in Aston will give them 78 of the 151 seats in the House of Representatives, down from 77. It will increase their majority over all other parties from three to five.
Labor is also winning in Essential’s poll
A federal Essential bearing, conducted from March 29 to April 2 from a sample of 1,133, gave Labor a 53-42 lead in Essential’s bipartisan measure, including undecided, up from 52-43 over the past two weeks. Primary votes were 33% Labor (one down), 30% Coalition (one down), 14% Greens (fixed), 6% One Nation (one up), 2% UAP (fixed), 10% for all others (one up ) and 5% undecided (stable).
Albanian has a 52-35 approval rating, down from 53-34 in February. By 71-23, voters thought the federal government could make a lot or quite a difference in the cost of living. At 54-46, they said they were struggling financially over comfortable, a reversal of a 51-49 lead for comfortable last two weeks.
In terms of tackling climate change, 39% (4 per cent less since October 2022) said Australia is not doing enough, 33% (an increase) said we are doing enough and 16% (3 per cent more) said we are doing too much. Since Labor won the May 2022 election, not doing enough is down eight points and doing too much is up five points.
By 35-34, voters opposed the Greens’ policy of ending all future coal and gas extraction projects. By 90-10 they thought the prime minister should get parliamentary approval before going to war.
Morgan poll: 57-43 for Labour
In last week’s federal Morgan poll, Labor led 57-43, a one-point gain for the Coalition since last week. The primary vote was 35.5% Labour, 32% Coalition, 13% Greens and 19.5% for all others. This poll was conducted March 20-26, in the run-up to the NSW elections.
WA Voice poll: Yes leads 60-40
The Poll Bludger reported on March 30 that a Painted Dog poll for The West Australian had a Yes to Indigenous vote in parliament with a 60-40 lead in WA. This poll was conducted over the weekend of March 25-26 from a sample of 1,052. It used the wording of the question proposed by Albanian.
