Shock poll reveals Peter Dutton on track for major win at next Federal Election

New polling and seat-by-seat analysis has found Anthony Albanese has no chance of winning a majority, with the Coalition on track to pick up at least nine seats.

Exclusive: Peter Dutton is now a chance to win an outright majority in his own right at the next election and is the clear favourite to have the largest number of seats according to an analysis of the likely make-up of the next parliament.

Based on current polling, the seat-by-seat analysis of the House of Representatives has found Anthony Albanese has no chance of winning a majority, with the Coalition on track to pick up at least nine seats.

Based on a survey of almost 5000 people, Accent Research and the RedBridge Group have modelled the likely electoral map after the next election.

It shows NSW will be central to the outcome with five seats likely to change hands and another seven lineball.

The seats in play stretch from Port Stephens, through Sydney and Newcastle and their hinterlands in the Hunter and the Blue Mountains, down to the South Coast.

The data shows Anthony Albanese has a lot of work to do in regaining the trust of Australians. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The other state predicted to be critical to the result is Victoria where one seat is likely to change hands and another five are too close to call.

The polling comes a day after national accounts data showed economic growth had slowed to its lowest annual rate in more than 30 years, outside of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The seven consecutive quarters of negative per capita GDP had left Australians thousands of dollars worse off and suffering a so-called recession of the people.

The new RedBridge survey finds Mr Dutton’s strategy of concentrating on outer suburban and provincial seats – some of those hit hardest by cost-of-living pressures – is paying off with the primary vote swing to the Coalition in these areas averaging 5 per cent compared to 3 per cent in middle suburbia and 1 per cent in the inner cities.

Overall the survey predicts the Coalition is currently set to comfortably win 42 seats and is ahead in another 22.

Labor on other hand is likely to win 47 seats comfortably but is ahead in only another 12.

The Greens and crossbenchers between them are likely to have another 13 while 14 seats were too close to call.

Principal of Accent Research Dr Shaun Ratcliff said if an election were held now there was 82 per cent probability the Coalition parties would be the largest bloc in parliament, winning between 64 and 78 seats, compared with 59 to 71 for Labor.

“We estimate there is a 98 per cent chance of a minority government, and slightly less than a two per cent chance of a Coalition majority,” he said.

Peter Dutton is on track for a major win at the next federal election. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“The probability of a Labor majority is now approaching zero.”

He warned however the results did not mean Labor is destined to lose government, or the Coalition win but were a snapshot of current vote intention. 

“Previous governments have come back from further behind,” he said.

“However, the closer we get to the next election, the more Labor will need to provide in terms of a concrete and substantial policy agenda that addresses issues that are salient to the electorate.”

The nine seats the survey predicts will change hands are Macarthur, Robertson, Bennelong, Paterson and Gilmore in NSW and Aston in Victoria, Lingiari in the NT, Lyons in Tasmania and the new seat of Bullwinkel in WA.

The seats too close to call are Shortland, Werriwa, Macquarie, Dobell, Reid, Hunter and Mackellar in NSW, Corangamite, Chisholm, Hawke, Casey, McEwen in Victoria, Sturt in South Australia and Curtin in WA.

RedBridge Director Kos Samaras said economic deprivation was tearing through Labor’s red wall “like a wrecking ball”.

“Seats once considered relatively safe are now on a knife’s edge, as voters who historically backed Labor have moved from merely contemplating a change to fully aligning with the Coalition,” he said.

“Australia’s political fault lines were already shifting, but the inflationary crisis seems to have accelerated a realignment similar to what we’ve seen unfolding internationally.”

His colleague Tony Barry said while there is still a lot of work for the Coalition to do “it’s not going to be a very brat summer for Albo.”

“At the last election Anthony Albanese successfully played on the politics of grievance and leveraged those sentiments against the incumbent,” he said.

“But with cost-of-living pressures now more entrenched than they were in 2022 and with the prospect of difficult to manage Christmas credit card debt landing for some voters in the new year, there is a risk for Labor that they’ll continue to lose more of their base.”

The results were generated using multi-level regression with post-stratification (MRP) from a survey of 4909 voters conducted between 29 October and 20 November, 2024.