Ben was joined by Shaun Ratcliff from Accent Research to discuss the state of play as the federal election year kicks off. They discuss the state of polling, including the MRP polls conducted by Shaun in conjunction with Redbridge throughout 2024.
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A good discussion Ben.
One point I would like to note is that Shaun is another expert analyst, who when stating that some people “voted strategically in 2022 because they believed their preferred party could not win”, didn’t bother to point out the extremely low likelihood of this being required under our system. Not doing so presents a false impression that the Australian Federal electoral system is like the UK and Canada, where strategic voting is a real thing you need to do if you want to keep your least preferred party out of winning.
I was also interested in your point that compared with 100 years ago (or for the first 40 years of Federation) our elections were Labor vs Anti labor and now its moving to Liberal (Conservative) vs Anti Liberal (Conservative). However rather than one anti Liberal (Conservative) party being the natural and regular choice in any given area, there will be a contest as to who come 2nd, as was inferred for the Brisbane Green held seats where it could easily flip to Labor coming 2nd. There are also area where the IND and Labor primaries are close, and if people vote according to their actual preferred order and not complicate the order by assuming “some parties can’t win”, a more accurate position will be evident.
Regarding strategic voting:
– Even if voting strategically is unnecessary, that doesn’t mean that voters won’t change their votes on an incorrect assumption that it is necessary.
– I don’t think you can dismiss the value of voting strategically. We know that teal candidates are more competitive in these seats than Labor candidates are, by looking at the 2CP-2PP gap. So if enough people vote Labor sincerely, it’s possible they could knock out a teal and the Liberal could win. It’s tricky to know for sure but you can’t entirely dismiss it.
@raue I think that incorrect assumption is what won the greens Ryan and Brisbane
Monique holds most of the same values as Labor so it’s quite likely many Labor voters actually really liked her and wanted her to win, and weren’t just voting strategically.
@adam yes but they were strategically voting for her because if she didn’t get enough primary vote she would not make the 2cp and Labor would be matched up against the Libs in which the Libs would win.