Australians have every reason to be nervous about another three years of a Labor government. The last three years have seen our standard of living plummet, our prosperity nose-dive, and our savings all but gone. The most recent YouGov poll has Labor with a comfortable election-winning margin of 52.5 per cent two-party preferred against the Coalition’s 47.5 per cent. This is Labor’s best poll result since late 2023.
But Albo isn’t winning the election. The Coalition is losing it.
While I have harped on about this before, voters hell-bent on overthrowing the Uniparty will help to deliver another Labor government. The historical rule that the Coalition must have 41 per cent of the primary vote and also beat the primary vote of Labor and the Greens is almost out of reach. According to Redbridge, the Coalition’s primary vote is now polling at 36 per cent. This low primary vote is completely in line with a new majority Albanese government in May.
Many punters suggest they can give their primary vote to a minor party and their second preference to the Coalition. Of course, voters can do what they want, but history suggests that conservatives exercise poor voting discipline, unlike the automatons of the left.
Don’t take my word for it. Accent’s chief pollster Shaun Ratcliff said this week that the Coalition’s primary vote was ‘bleeding off to minor parties and independents’. Proving that conservatives lack discipline when it comes to preferencing, Ratcliff confirmed that ‘preference leakage … is benefiting Labor, which is now polling better in … key battleground seats on a two-party basis than it did at the 2022 election’.
Sportsbet has the odds for a Labor win at $1.29 while a Coalition win is at $3.66. Things are really looking grim for the Coalition.
As the odds begin to stack up against the Coalition, it is becoming clearer that this is the Coalition’s election to lose.
If we look at the Coalition’s record, apart from nuclear, we’ve had $20,000 per year for small businesses to write off entertainment as a tax deduction, cancelling work from home for public servants, reducing the size of the public service, and the reduction in fuel excise.
None of the Coalition’s policy announcements are cutting through. Even the fuel excise cut which is significantly better for household budgets than Albo’s extra coffee a week tax cut in July 2026 is not swaying many voters.
The Greens’ primary vote remains the same on 12 per cent and Labor’s increased its primary vote by only one per cent to 33 per cent.
This means that the Coalition, by being Labor-lite and setting a small target election strategy, is losing its own people. At the same time, conservative voters, by abandoning the Coalition, are helping Labor win. Nobody can afford another three years of Labor, but at present, that’s how it’s shaping up to be on May 3.
Dr Michael de Percy FRSA FCILT MRSN @FlaneurPolitiq is a political scientist and political commentator. He is a member of the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, Chairman of the ACT and Southern NSW Chapter of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, and a member of the Australian Nuclear Association. Michael is a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon and was appointed to the College of Experts at the Australian Research Council in 2022. All opinions in this article are the author’s own.
