If an election were held today, Labor would likely expand its majority, the Coalition would lose around six seats, and One Nation could hold the balance of power in the Senate. That is the blunt reality emerging from a month of national and state polling showing a steady Labor lead, a fractured right, and voters in no hurry to change course.
Roy Morgan’s latest survey has Labor on 35 per cent of the primary vote, the Coalition trailing on 27, and One Nation climbing to 12, a seven-point rise in just a few months. On a two-party basis, Labor leads 57 to 43. The pattern is consistent across states and generations: older voters shifting toward Pauline Hanson, younger Australians consolidating behind Labor and the Greens, and the Coalition losing coherence with each passing week.
Barnaby Joyce’s slow-motion split from the Nationals has now become open theatre. He confirmed a Sunday night chat with Pauline Hanson, praising her party’s stance on climate policy as “not barking mad”, a swipe at what he called “others” in his own camp. Hanson said there is “an offer on the table” for Joyce, likely a New South Wales Senate run, and revealed she knew of his Nationals break-up beforehand, though she “expected it a little further down the track”.
The flirtation has turned into a very public separation. No formal papers have been signed, but the direction is clear. One Nation, newly emboldened by the polls, has positioned itself as the natural home for disillusioned conservatives, and Joyce’s name has become shorthand for that migration.
The data backs the trend. In South Australia, Labor’s Peter Malinauskas leads 66 to 34 on a two-party basis, with the Liberals collapsing to 21 per cent of the primary vote. One Nation is now just five points behind the Liberals in the state’s upper house polling. In Victoria, Labor holds a slim statewide lead at 52 to 48, but generational breakdowns from RedBridge show the deeper divide. The Coalition dominates among boomers, barely holds ground with Gen X, and trails badly with millennials and Gen Z.
That generational gulf has become the defining feature of Australian politics. RedBridge director Kos Samaras described the online right’s behaviour as “the classic social media confidence spiral”, where “Melinda gets X likes calling for resignation” somehow translates into “the silent majority has spoken”. He called it “the digital equivalent of standing in your living room, shouting at the TV news, having your cat meow in agreement, and concluding the next election is won”.
Meanwhile, his colleague and former Liberal strategist Tony Barry said the problem is not just style but structure. “Barnaby’s politics and [the Liberals’] attempts to constantly accommodate him, and the politics of those like him, have been a large driver of the collapse in urban voter support,” Barry said.
The collapse is visible in every demographic breakdown. Baby boomers give the Coalition a 59 to 41 edge. Gen X is evenly split. Millennials back Labor 60 to 40, while Gen Z voters have almost abandoned the Coalition entirely, dividing between Labor and the Greens. That realignment has persisted since the August anti-immigration rallies, which amplified nationalist sentiment without shifting the national vote.
Across Australia, polling shows a public increasingly sceptical of immigration levels, but not ready to punish Labor for it. A Dynata survey for the Institute of Public Affairs found 60 per cent of Australians believe immigration is too high, yet housing, cost of living, and health remain the top concerns among voters. The Coalition’s attempt to channel resentment into policy has not translated into support.
In Queensland, RedBridge’s Accent polling shows the LNP trailing 48 to 52 in south-east seats. In Victoria, the Liberals are competitive among older voters but almost invisible among younger ones. The Greens, steady at around 13 per cent nationally, continue to capture disaffected progressives.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s personal ratings have dipped, with approval in the mid-40s and disapproval roughly the same, but the overall story has not changed. Labor’s lead is holding, One Nation is rising, and the right is splitting into pieces.
The Coalition’s problem, say pollsters, is no longer just communication. It is coherence. The party is caught between the populism of Joyce and Hanson, the social conservatism of Hastie and Price, and the centrism of moderates struggling to stay relevant. Every poll suggests the same thing: the harder the party leans into grievance politics, the narrower its reach becomes.
That narrative, of a right in freefall and a government holding steady despite voter frustration, is defining the political moment. The electorate has not swung wildly left, it has simply lost patience with the noise.
For now, Labor remains the calm centre in a storm of conservative self-sabotage. But with preselection battles looming and One Nation courting its newest recruit, the next few weeks could determine whether the right finds a way to regroup or continues tearing itself apart.
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