Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ)
A new poll of Victorians shows almost half of respondents who voted Labor in the 2022 state election intend to vote differently this November, with more than 13% moving their vote to One Nation and a further 11% intending to vote for the Coalition.
The survey, conducted by Accent Research as part of an in-depth study of the Victorian state election funded by the University of Melbourne, also found the cost of living was easily the most pressing issue for voters, with more than 68% listing it in their top three concerns.
Worryingly for the Carroll Labor government, just 18.8% of voters thought Labor was the party best able to deal with cost-of-living issues, behind the Coalition (23.9%) and just ahead of One Nation (15.7%).
While much of the campaigning efforts against the Labor government have been directed at issues of corruption, voters say household financial pressures will be the key issue in November.
The key issues
Our poll, made up of a representative sample of 1,002 Victorians, asked voters to nominate their biggest issues this election.
Two thirds of our sample — 68% — nominated cost of living as one of their “top three” issues when presented with a list of a dozen policy areas to choose from. 56% put crime in their top three, and 38% did so for health. Other issues — corruption, public debt, schools, the environment — were lower down in voter priorities.
Cost of living is not a surprise issue: it has rated high across Australia for some time, with inflation a persistent pressure and a series of interest rate rises biting, though perhaps slightly less in Victoria than other states.
Crime has also been a significant political issue in Victoria for several years. Both the media and the state opposition have claimed Victoria is in a “crime crisis”, though the latest statistics suggest crime rates are declining.
The appearance of health in the top three is more surprising. It is of course a perennial issue, but hospitals have not been a major feature of the political debate in Victoria — certainly not in the way they were at the last election. However, recent strikes by healthcare workers might be a sign the issue will grow in salience.
When asked which parties they trusted most to handle those issues, more respondents (24%) said the Coalition was the best party to address cost of living than said Labor (19%) or One Nation (16%).
This is somewhat surprising, in that federally the Labor Party was normally rated as better at addressing cost-of-living pressures in national polls.
The Coalition won on crime, too: a quarter of our sample said Liberals or Nationals were best at dealing with this, though One Nation was close behind, with 22% preferring them. Only 16% of respondents rated Labor as best on crime.
On health, Labor remains the preferred party, as it often is in such polls, at state and federal level. But its lead could be stronger: 26% said Labor was best to deal with health, with 21% opting for the Coalition and 13% nominating One Nation.
Labor ‘defectors’ and ‘remainers’
About 35% of respondents said they voted for Labor in the 2022 state election — the post-COVID “Danslide” that saw Labor take 56 seats in the 88-seat Legislative Assembly.
Labor appears to be losing a big chunk of those voters. Just 57% of people who voted Labor at the last state election say they will stick with them this year. 11% of this group said they intended to vote instead for the Coalition in November, while even more — 13.4% — intended to shift to One Nation. 8.5% were moving to Greens and 6.8% were undecided.
This much tracks to the broad picture in other polls: Labor is recording much less support than four years ago. But what do these Labor “defectors” care about?
Our poll found the top issues for this group were the same as the full sample: cost of living, crime and health. 77% of this group ranked cost of living in their top three issues and nearly half (47%) ranked this as their number one — easily the biggest issue, and something Labor has spent big to try to ease — but perhaps not enough.
Crime was in the top three for about half of Labor defectors. This might suggest Coalition attacks against Labor, accompanied by high-profile campaign promises on recruiting more police and restricting bail, have cut through.
Labor has matched the Coalition on some of these policies, including controversial “adult time for adult crime” laws, but this appears not to be enough to convince voters of its tough-on-crime bonafides.
Health was top three for 43% of Labor defectors — an interesting finding, suggesting Labor’s ownership of the issue is relatively soft, and opinions divided.
Also interesting is what is not in this list. Missing are two big issues the Coalition and media critics are focused on: “corruption”, ranked in the top three of issues for just 15% of Labor defectors; and government debt, which was in the top three for 12%.
Complicating this picture is the fact that Labor “remainers” had the same set of top three issues as “defectors”: cost of living, healthcare and hospitals, and crime and public safety. This is perhaps an indication voters are thinking about the same set of issues — they are not siloed off in echo-chambers, thinking about radically different issues — but are divided over how well Labor is addressing them.
One Nation wins converts
The most unusual aspect of this state election is the rapid rise of One Nation in the polls. Our poll found only 16% of respondents planning to support One Nation this November supported them in the 2025 federal election and the 2022 Victorian election. The vast majority of our sample intending to support the party – 70% – did not vote for them in 2022.
These One Nation “converts” were strongly united in their concern about crime (79% put it in their top three) and cost of living (62%), with government finances and debt (29%) and corruption (28%) trailing further back.
This sky-high concern about crime with One Nation converts is interesting: more rated it in their top three issues than did Coalition converts (only 54% of this cohort put crime in their top three).
And of the respondents saying they were Coalition-to-One-Nation converts — not a large group, only 8% of our sample — a whopping 86% rated crime in their top three.
This complicates our understanding of how crime concern is playing politically. It might be that all the Coalition’s crime campaigning is sending some voters over to One Nation instead of themselves — indeed, even sending away some who were previously in their camp.
Cost of living, crime and health will be a focus in November
This is just one poll, one snapshot in time. The intent is not to try to project the election outcome with any precision. Rather, the goal is to gain insights into which issues voters really care about, and from there, to see how parties go about responding to that, and with what success.
In particular, this poll helps us better understand the degree to which ‘issue salience’ and ‘issue ownership’ moves or is fixed. The academic literature is divided on this.
These early results suggest Labor ownership of health and cost of living has slipped, and Coalition ownership of crime is being contested by One Nation. This could have government-changing implications in November.
This research has been funded by an Early Career Researcher grant from the University of Melbourne.
Emily Foley receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Tenzin Liddy-Corlett receives funding from the Commonwealth through an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.
Phoebe Hayman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/16/exclusive-poll-shows-nearly-half-of-respondents-defecting-from-victorian-labor-what-do-these-voters-care-about/