‘Huge bump’: Peter Dutton’s path to victory revealed after dramatic shift
If you’ve been paying attention to election commentary and staying across the polls, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s already over.
This is not the same race it was in 2022.
If you’ve been paying attention to election commentary and staying across the polls, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s already over.
The final RedBridge-Accent national poll released on Wednesday showed Labor leading 53-47 in two-party-preferred terms, marking a one-point gain since April.
The result, driven largely by Millennials and Gen Z voters, is welcome news for Anthony Albanese who many predict will be returned as Prime Minister, perhaps with a majority.
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RedBridge Director Kos Samaras said the Coalition’s hopes are “being dashed up against the rocks of diverse and young Australians”.
But there’s something the polls aren’t showing — and it’s what holds the key to a potential Peter Dutton miracle come Saturday.
Andrew Carswell is managing director of Headline Advisory and a former adviser to Scott Morrison.
He says polling “picks up trends” but misses critical details including changes to preferencing that could see the race become much tighter than some have predicted.
“You need to tick all the correct boxes to get an accurate picture when you look forward in the polls,” Mr Carswell told news.com.au.
“The vast majority of polls in the market do not align their preferences going forward — they align them to what happened in 2022 so it’s a backward way of looking forward.
“A proper poll has to have a large collection of voters and must ask how people are directing their preferences. If it doesn’t do that then it doesn’t provide an accurate picture of what’s happening.”
Preferences nothing like they were three years ago
The preferences will be the difference, he says. And they are nothing like they were in 2022 when Albanese defeated Morrison and delivered 77 seats to Labor in the House of Representatives.
Mr Carswell says “protest parties” including One Nation and Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots are directing their preferences to the Coalition this time around. In 2022 they did not do that.
“This time around you’re going to see at least a 10 per cent increase in preferences being direction to the Coalition from the minor parties and that’s a huge bump.
“In 2022, there were not a lot of people who voted One Nation and Clive Palmer that wanted to give their preference to the Morrison Government.
“You’ve got to remember that groups like One Nation are a protest party, so they protest against incumbents.
“You’ll see a flip this time around where they protest against Anthony Albanese.
“I think we could see a record minor party count — One Nation got five per cent in the last election nationally, this time they’re polling around 8 per cent.
“If you throw in a couple of per cent for Clive Palmer’s Trumpet party and maybe 1 per cent for other right wing parties, it gets to the equivalent level or perhaps even more than the what the Greens deliver.
“Traditionally, for a Coalition candidate to win a seat they need a primary in the order of 41 per cent to get there. This time around, Coalition candidates in outer Melbourne seats will only need to get to around 34 or 35 per cent to be able to win that seat.”
Dr Rob Hoffman is a lecturer in politics at Swinburne University in Melbourne. He told news.com.au the question to ask about polls is ‘Are they accurate?’.
“The two-party preferred results are blowing out a bit lately but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the past 10 years it’s that polling is really hard,” he said.
“Polls have tended to underestimate conservative or populist support. We can see that in the Morrison/Shorten election, in both Trump elections and with Brexit to some degree. So there is that question mark hanging there.”
He pointed to a phenomenon dubbed the Shy Tory Factor which suggests that what conservative voters say to pollsters is very different to how they vote on election day.
“What we know is that some people may be unwilling to admit to voting for conservative parties,” Dr Hoffman said.
“Whether that’s socially or over the phone to a pollster. They will say ‘I’m undecided’, which they think might be a more socially acceptable answer. Then, in the privacy of the polling booth, they will make a different decision.
“The hope for the Coalition is that the polling is inaccurate. All they can do is keep campaigning on their strong points and in marginal seats that they absolutely have to win to at least get in a negotiable position, if not win a majority.”
Mr Carswell said Peter Dutton needs a 3-4 per cent swing and needs to take back 20 seats to win a majority or 15 for a negotiable hung parliament.
He believes that’s doable given the way things stand in various marginal seats around the country.
Dr Hoffman says there are big problems for Mr Dutton and “a mountain to climb”.
“The problems facing him, there’s a few. Trying to topple a first term incumbent government is an uphill battle at the best of times,” he said.
“Australian voters will tend to give any government except the very worst more than one term. To put that in context, the last single term Commonwealth government was Gough Whitlam’s in the 1970s which was an exception to the norm in most senses.
“Before that it was a Labor government in the 1930s which had the misfortune of being sworn in two days before the Great Depression kicked off.”
He said Mr Dutton’s big promises “haven’t stuck”.
“Nuclear, his will-he-won’t-he referendums, the housing policy that’s been fairly panned, the cost of living focus on petrol excise. None of that has really had traction with the electorate.
“There are also problems of generational change. Is the Coalition able to address the needs of younger voters? This is the first election where people born after 1980 form the majority of voters.”
But he said the race is not over yet.
“Can pollsters get an accurate representation of the electorate? That’s a challenge. Part of it is accuracy. Voting intentions change as an election gets closer. People will often say ‘I’ll vote for ‘other’.
“Then the reality hits and there’s a bit of a crush back into major parties. It may be that that pushes back into the Coalition.
At this stage, it’s Mr Dutton’s only hope.
Originally published as ‘Huge bump’: Peter Dutton’s path to victory revealed after dramatic shift
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