Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Maine, Senior Lecturer in Law, City St George’s, University of London

The Supreme Court’s decision in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers will mean changes in how trans people in the UK access services and single-sex spaces.

In the highly anticipated judgment announced April 17, the court ruled that the definition of “sex”, “man” and “woman” in the Equality Act refers to “biological sex”. It found that this does not include those who hold a gender recognition certificate (trans people who have had their chosen gender legally recognised). In simple terms, “women” does not include transgender women.

It is important to note that the court’s remit was focused on interpretation of existing laws, not creating policy. The court affirmed that trans people should not be discriminated against, nor did they intend to provide a definition of sex or gender outside of the application of the Equality Act.

The prime minister has said he welcomes the “real clarity” brought by the ruling. But while it may bring some legal clarity, questions remain about the practical implementation. The judgment also raises new questions about the operation of the Gender Recognition Act, and what it now means to hold a gender recognition certificate.

What was the court case?

The gender-critical feminist group For Women Scotland challenged the Scottish government’s guidance on the operation of the Equality Act in relation to a Scottish law that sets targets for increasing the proportion of women on public boards.

The definition of a “woman” for the purposes of that law included trans women who had undergone, or were proposing to undergo, gender reassignment.

The issue that the court had to address was whether a person with a full gender recognition certificate (GRC) which recognises that their gender is female, is a “woman” for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010. The act gives protection to people who are at risk of unlawful discrimination.

The court’s decision was that the meaning of “sex” was biological and so references in the act to “women” and “men” did not, therefore, apply to trans women or trans men who hold GRCs.

What has changed with this ruling?

Prior to the ruling, there were contested views as to whether trans people could access certain single-sex spaces – some of the most contentious being prisons, bathrooms and domestic abuse shelters.

The ruling does not require services to exclude trans people from all single-sex spaces. It does, however, clarify that if a service operates a single-sex space, for example a gym changing room, then exclusion is based on biological sex and not legal sex. Neither the court nor the government has said how “biological sex” would be defined or proven.

A service provider may operate a single-sex space on the basis of privacy or safety of users. To base this on biological sex must be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim – for example, the safety of women in a group for abuse survivors. This means that service providers may still operate trans-inclusive policies, but they may open themselves to legal challenge.

Read more:
What does the UK Supreme Court’s gender ruling mean for trans men?

What does this mean for the Gender Recognition Act?

The Gender Recognition Act 2004 introduced gender recognition certificates (GRCs), which certify that a person’s legal gender is different from their assigned gender at birth. A trans person can apply for a GRC in order to change their gender on their birth certificate. For legal purposes, they are then recognised as their acquired gender.

The ruling does not strike down or affect the operation of the Gender Recognition Act. But it does give the impression that the GRA – and holding a GRC – is now less effective.

The ruling clarifies that a trans woman who has a GRC and is recognised legally in her acquired gender can be excluded from single-sex spaces on the ground of biological sex, as would a trans woman without a GRC. Before the ruling, a trans person with a GRC would have been able to access many single-sex spaces and services that match the gender on their GRC.

In order to be granted a GRC, a person must show that they have lived in their acquired gender for at least two years and that they intend to live in that gender until death. Their application must be approved by two doctors, but – in what was a world-first at the time it was introduced – does not require any medical transition.

The Supreme Court states that trans people (with or without a GRC) will still be protected from discrimination. Sex and gender reassignment are both protected characteristics under the Equality Act. This means that trans people may still rely on the law to protect them from direct or indirect discrimination levelled at them on the basis of being trans, or because of their perceived sex.

The court uses the example that a trans woman applying for a job being denied that job on the basis of being trans would still be entitled to sue for discrimination.

How will single-sex services operate?

The key question now, both for service providers and trans people, is what spaces trans people will be able to use. It is not the Supreme Court’s job to issue guidance on this – and the judgment is notably silent on the practical implementation of the ruling.

Service providers may choose to offer unisex spaces, for example gender neutral bathrooms. British Transport Police have already confirmed that strip searches of those arrested on the network would be conducted based on biological sex, and other services will likely follow.

It is up to service providers, employers and healthcare providers to interpret the ruling and decide how to apply it. The government has said that further guidance will be issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. But how the ruling is implemented in practice, and what it means for other laws like the Gender Recognition Act, will likely be debated for some time.

Alexander Maine 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.

– ref. What will the UK Supreme Court gender ruling mean in practice? A legal expert explains – https://theconversation.com/what-will-the-uk-supreme-court-gender-ruling-mean-in-practice-a-legal-expert-explains-255043

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paulomi (Polly) Burey, Professor in Food Science, University of Southern Queensland

We’ve all been there – trying to peel a boiled egg, but mangling it beyond all recognition as the hard shell stubbornly sticks to the egg white. Worse, the egg ends up covered in chewy bits of adhesive membrane in the end.

The internet is littered with various “hacks” that claim to prevent this problem. But there are several reasons why eggs can be hard to peel. Luckily, that means there are also science-based strategies we can use to avoid the problem.

Egg ‘peelability’ factors

Eggs consist of a hard, porous shell, an inner and outer membrane, the egg white (albumen), and a membrane-encased yolk at the centre. There is also an air cell between the inner and outer membrane next to the shell.

A lot of research was done in the late 1960s and 1970s on factors that affect the peelability of eggs after they’ve been boiled.

One of these factors is the pH of the egg white. An early study from the 1960s indicated that the pH of the egg white needs to be in the range of 8.7–8.9, quite alkaline, in order for the egg to be easier to peel.

Storage temperature has a role to play, too. A study from 1963 showed that storing eggs at about 22 degrees Celsius (or 72 degrees Fahrenheit) gives a better peelability result than storage at lower temperatures of 13°C, or even fridge temperatures at 3–5°C.

Of course, there is a risk of spoilage if eggs are stored at higher ambient temperatures.

In the studies, an increase in storage time before boiling – using less fresh eggs – also increased the ease of peelability.

Step one: avoid fresh eggs

The fact that fresh eggs are harder to peel is relatively well known. Based on the factors above, there are a couple of reasons for this.

For one, in a fresh egg the air cell is still quite small. As the egg ages, it (very) slowly loses moisture through the porous shell, increasing the size of the air cell while the rest of the egg contents shrink. A bigger air cell makes it easier to start the peeling action.

Additionally, egg whites, although they already start out relatively alkaline, increase in pH as the eggs age, also making them easier to peel.

Step two: water temperature

Some keen egg boiling pundits believe that starting off with boiling water and lowering it to a simmer before gently placing the eggs into it provides a better result. However, you want to do this with room temperature eggs to avoid them cracking due to a sudden temperature change.

The reasoning behind this approach is that exposure to higher temperatures from the start of cooking also makes it easier for the membrane to come away from the shell and egg white.

Furthermore, the quick hot start makes it easier for the egg white proteins to denature (change structure as they cook) and bond to each other, rather than to the membrane.

After boiling eggs for the desired amount of time (typically 3–5 minutes for runny yolks, 6–7 minutes for jammy yolks, and 12–15 minutes for hard boiled), you can quench them in ice water. This should help the egg white to slightly shrink away from the shell, improving peelability.

Step three (optional): adding things to the water

Some other suggestions to improve peelability include adding salt to the boiling water, but this has mixed results. In one study, this approach did actually improve peelability, but this effect was lost after eggs had been stored for longer periods.

Acids and alkali have also been shown to aid eggshell peelability or removal. The patent that describes this used rather harsh substances with the goal to dissolve away the shell.

But based on this idea, you could try adding baking soda or vinegar to the water. With vinegar, the theory is that it attacks the calcium carbonate in the eggshell to then aid its removal. As for baking soda, because it’s alkaline, it could help detach the membrane from the shell.

Bonus: alternative cooking methods

There are other methods for hard-cooking eggs, such as pressure steaming, air-frying and even microwaving.

In steaming eggs, some proponents theorise that water vapour permeates the eggshell, loosening the membrane from the egg white, and thereby making the egg much easier to peel.

While studies have recently been done on the air-frying of other foods, there is still scope to further understand how this style of cooking might affect eggshells and peelability.

Lastly, once you have successfully separated the eggshells, don’t just throw them in the bin. There are lots of different uses for them, including compost, slug and snail deterrent in your garden, using them as little biodegradable pots for seedlings, or even something as advanced as scaffolds for cancer research.

Paulomi (Polly) Burey receives funding from the Australian Government Department of Education which has funded the eggshell research mentioned at the end of this article.

– ref. Is there a best way to peel a boiled egg? A food scientist explains – https://theconversation.com/is-there-a-best-way-to-peel-a-boiled-egg-a-food-scientist-explains-235895

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Dehm, Senior Lecturer, International Migration and Refugee Law, University of Technology Sydney

The year is 1972. The Whitlam Labor government has just been swept into power and major changes to Australia’s immigration system are underway. Many people remember this time for the formal end of the racist White Australia Policy.

A lesser-known legacy of this period was the introduction of Australia’s first immigration amnesty. This amnesty, implemented later in 1974 with bilateral support, provided humane pathways to permanency or citizenship for undocumented people in Australia.

In other words, people living without lawful immigration status could “legalise” their status without risk of punishment or deportation.

More immigration amnesties were promised during later election campaigns and then implemented in 1976 and 1980.

These amnesties occurred under successive Labor and Liberal federal governments, and each enjoyed enthusiastic bipartisan support.

So, how did these amnesties work – and could they happen again?

Started by Whitlam

Australia’s first amnesty was announced in January 1974, as part of the Whitlam government’s official policy of multiculturalism.

Its purpose was to grant permanency to people who had been living in Australia “illegally” and at risk of labour exploitation.

The amnesty was open for five months, from late January until the end of June 1974.

The main eligibility criteria was that the person:

• had to have been living in Australia for three years or more and
• be of “good character”.

This program had only a modest uptake. However, it set the path for more successful initiatives in the future.

Continued by Fraser

During the 1975 election campaign, then caretaker Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser promised another amnesty if his government won the election.

He committed to “do everything we can” to allow undocumented people

to stay here and make Australia their permanent home.

After the election, Fraser’s Liberal government implemented a broad amnesty for “overstayed visitors” in January 1976.

Departmental figures show 8,614 people sought legal status in the amnesty period.

The vast majority (63%) lived in New South Wales. The main nationalities of these applicants were:

• Greek (1,283 applicants)
• UK (911 applicants)
• Indonesian (748 applicants)
• Chinese (643 applicants).

Australia’s third broad immigration amnesty came in 1980, again as a result of a bipartisan election promise.

Immigration Minister Ian Macphee announced a six-month Regularisation of Status Program. It aimed, he said, to deal “humanely with the problem of illegal immigration” while also seeking to curb such unauthorised migration in the future.

Not a trick

Many migrants worried these amnesties were a government “trick” to facilitate deportations.

In an attempt to reassure the public, Prime Minister Fraser insisted in 1980 that the program was

not a trap to lure people into the open so that they can be seized, jailed and deported.

By the end of the amnesty period in December 1980, it was reported that more than 11,000 applications had been received. This covered more than 14,000 people.

What made the past amnesties successful?

Our research looked at what motivated the amnesties and how they worked.

We found several key factors that drove success, including the need for:

• simple and inclusive criteria for eligibility
• a clear application process
• a careful campaign for promotion, to build trust with migrant communities, and
• durable outcomes that offer of clear pathways to citizenship.

The 1980 amnesty program involved an effective campaign to publicise successful cases.

A 21-year-old Greek waitress working in her aunt’s Goulburn restaurant was widely publicised as the first person to be granted immigration amnesty status in July 1980. A Uruguayan refugee was profiled as the 1,000th.

The Department of Immigration also translated amnesty information into 48 languages, publicised in non-English language press and radio.

Of the three amnesties, the 1974 one was the least successful, due to:

• stringent eligibility criteria
• limited media publicity, and
• no official outreach strategy to build trust with migrant communities.

Precarious lives

Recent calls for an immigration amnesty has focused on two groups in Australia:

• undocumented people, including migrant workers and international students, and
• refugee applicants whose status has lapsed, or who cannot access permanent residency.

The Department of Home Affairs estimates more than 70,000 people live in Australia today without immigration status.

Undocumented workers are highly vulnerable to exploitation and deportation.

Yet, these workers often fulfil crucial labour market shortages. Many have been living in Australia for years or even decades.

Asylum seekers and refugees on temporary or no visas cannot return “home” for fear of persecution. They risk lapsing into irregular status with no rights or entitlements.

Lessons from past amnesties

Amnesties are a humane and cost-effective response to unauthorised migration.

Australia currently spends millions, if not billions of dollars, on the detention and deportation of people without visas.

In the lead up to both the 1976 and 1980 amnesties, successive governments acknowledged such a “detection and deportation” approach would be unnecessarily costly. It would require “increased resources in manpower”.

An amnesty, instead, was in the words of then Immigration Minister Macphee a chance to:

clean the slate, to acknowledge that no matter how people got here they are part of the community.

These historical precedents show Australia’s migration system and politicians could, if they wanted, accommodate initiatives and reforms that fundamentally value migrants and prioritise migrant access to permanency.

Our research also shows Australian election campaigns can be opportunities for advancing policies that embrace the reality of immigration and offer hope, not fear.

Sara Dehm receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a co-convenor of the interdisciplinary academic network, Academics for Refugees.

Anthea Vogl receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Commonwealth Departure of Health and Aged Care. She is a Board Member of the Forcibly Displaced People Network and co-convenor of the interdisciplinary academic network, Academics for Refugees.

– ref. Australia once had ‘immigration amnesties’ to grant legal status to undocumented people. Could we again? – https://theconversation.com/australia-once-had-immigration-amnesties-to-grant-legal-status-to-undocumented-people-could-we-again-252294

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Visitor, School of History, Australian National University

Major parties used to easily dismiss the rare politician who stood alone in parliament. These MPs could be written off as isolated idealists, and the press could condescend to them as noble, naïve and unlikely to succeed.

In November 1930, when independent country MP Harold Glowrey chose to sit on the crossbench of the Victorian parliament while his few peers joined the new United Country Party, the local newspapers emphasised that he could not “become a cabinet minister” or “have a say” in making policy from the sidelines. (As if he wasn’t aware.) Australia was a place where, according to the scribes at The Ouyen Mail, “very few constituencies were prepared to elect independent men”.

Things are rather different now. Lifelong loyalty to a single party has become a rarer thing among voters, with the Australian Election Study showing fewer than four in ten voters give their first preference vote to the same party at each election. It was more than seven in ten back in 1967.

Voters have gravitated towards alternatives to the two major parties. A new interactive data tool from the ABC shows just how much more competitive federal elections have become. Australians are now world leaders in sending independents to represent them in state and federal parliaments.

And who could call the independents of the recent past naïve? Independent MPs held the balance of power in New South Wales in the early 1990s, and in Victoria later that decade. Both parliaments saw substantive reforms and improved parliamentary processes.

A strong track record

At the federal level, a lineage of independents such as Ted Mack, Peter Andren, Zali Steggall, Cathy McGowan and her successor in Indi Helen Haines have all found new ways to give voice to their community in parliament. Voters, especially in rural electorates and formerly “safe” seats, have been attracted to candidates who promise to “do politics differently”, as McGowan so often puts it.

There are dozens of candidates making that promise at this election. At least 129 candidates are listed on House of Representatives ballot papers as independent or unaffiliated candidates in 88 seats. That’s almost twice as many independent candidates than in the 2013 election for the lower house. Around 35 of these are community independent candidates. A further 28 people are running as independents or ungrouped candidates in Senate races.

So who are the independent candidates, and what role might they play after May 3?

Who are the independent candidates?

For a start, around a third of all independent candidates for House of Representatives seats are women. Among the “community independent” candidates (commonly referred to as “teals”), it’s closer to four out of five.

This is entirely in keeping with the role daring women have played as the strongest custodians of non-party politics in Australia over the past 120-odd years.

Most of the women on ballot papers this year are professionals and public figures. Nicolette Boele, candidate for Bradfield, NSW, is a former consultant and clean energy financier who came close to unseating cabinet minister Paul Fletcher in 2022. In the seat of Calare, also in NSW, candidate Kate Hook describes herself as “a professional working mum” and “small farmer” with an interest in regional development and renewable energy. Caz Heise, candidate for Cowper (NSW) is a healthcare expert who carved a sizeable chunk out of the National Party vote in 2022. Independent candidate for Groom (Queensland) Suzie Holt is a social worker by training who finished second at the last election. Berowra’s Tina Brown is a local magazine publisher with deep roots in Sydney’s Hills District.

Who are the dozens on men putting themselves forward? Many are former mayors and councillors running for parliament while the opportunity presents itself. There are a small but noteworthy coterie of men running on a specifically Muslim platform, some of whom are running with the support of the Muslim Votes Matter organisation.

Of the few “teal” men, the most competitive by far is Alex Dyson, a third-time candidate in the western Victorian seat of Wannon, currently held by Dan Tehan, shadow minister for immigration and citizenship.

A former Triple-J presenter and comedian with a “side-hustle” as an Uber driver, Dyson will hope to benefit from his positioning at the top of the ballot paper for Wannon.

Crossbench contenders

Most of the women who swept into parliament in 2022 are campaigning to retain their seats. Dai Le in Fowler, Sophie Scamps in Mackellar, Allegra Spender in Wentworth, Zoe Daniel in Goldstein, Monique Ryan in Kooyong and Kate Chaney in Curtin all fit that category. Kylea Tink, who won the division of North Sydney in 2022, was inadvertently knocked out of the race by the Australian Electoral Commission, which abolished her seat last year.

Andrew Gee, Russell Broadbent and Ian Goodenough are all incumbent MPs running as independents in seats where they were previously elected as Coalition candidates. Tasmania’s Andrew Wilkie, a long-serving independent with first-hand experience of a federal hung parliament, is seeking his sixth successive victory.

Bob Katter and the Centre Alliance’s Rebekah Sharkie also seeking re-election to the lower house, while in the Senate, crossbenchers such as David Pocock and Jacqui Lambie are all looking to retain their places. So is Coalition defector Gerard Rennick, who quit the Liberal National Party in Queensland over a preselection loss.

Rennick’s is perhaps the tallest order of that bunch, but none of them can take anything for granted. Even Katter, with his half-century of parliamentary experience and huge local popularity, is almost 80 and is facing a large field of younger challengers, all of whom will appear above him on the ballot paper.

Campaign blues?

Plenty of people have been watching national opinion polls during this campaign. But the polls are not terribly insightful for seat-by-seat contests involving large numbers of independent contenders. Even experienced pollsters are saying it has “never been harder to get pre-election polling right”.

Months out from the election, polls conducted on behalf of Climate 200 were showing possible wins for Heise in Cowper and Boele in Bradfield. Both could win. Heise has reportedly amassed a formidable team of 3,500 volunteers in support of her grassroots campaign.

But the pressure and scrutiny of an election campaign can quickly put frontrunners under pressure. This is certainly true of Boele, whose campaign momentum stalled with a surprising scandal involving an inappropriate comment in a hair salon, as well as distancing herself from allegedly antisemitic posts on her social media posts in 2022, saying a former volunteer was responsible for them.

Multi-cornered contests between defector MPs, the major parties and community independents will also make for interesting viewing on election night. Broadbent and Goodenough both seemed quietly confident about their prospects when asked by the Australian Financial Review last week. The same cannot be said for Calare’s Andrew Gee, who began the election with a “Facebook fail” and has since endured a stressful few weeks of bitter campaigning.

When it comes to winning back the seats that independents won last time, Liberal feelings range from bullishness to bluster. Daniel faces a well-resourced campaign from her predecessor Tim Wilson in Goldstein and nothing is being spared in the contest against Chaney in Curtin.

In Kooyong, Ryan’s campaign has been hampered by the occasional error, such as her husband’s removal of an opponent’s corflutes and an awkward exchange with Sky News reporter Laura Jayes. In an election dominated by the housing affordability crisis, voters are less likely to remember these moments than the revelations that Ryan’s Liberal opponent, Amelia Hamer, a self-identified renter, happens to own two investment properties.

The biggest drama has been in the affluent Sydney seat of Wentworth, where Spender has weathered attacks about her political donations disclosures and approach to tackling antisemitism.

An anonymous person circulated 47,000 leaflets through the electorate criticising Spender’s “weakness” on antisemitism, flagrantly breaching electoral laws that require campaign material to be authorised. The Australian Electoral Commission has identified the culprit (said to have “acted alone”), but has been less forthcoming about whether it intends to litigate the issue after the election.

Making minority work

It seems premature to start talking, as some pollsters have, about a Labor majority after May 3. It remains entirely possible crossbenchers may hold the balance of power, and in doing so, exert significant influence on the next government.

In the third leaders’ debate, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, normally pragmatic, refused to countenance sharing power with other parties or MPs. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton made the surprising admission he would willingly make agreements with independent MPs in order to win.

He certainly wasn’t thinking of the “teals”, whom he so often berates as “Greens in disguise”. But there are others with whom he could easily work. Katter, Spender and Le are among Dutton’s preferred negotiating partners. Sharkie has already declared that in a hung parliament scenario, she would call Dutton first.

There is no rulebook for making a hung parliament work. In the past, new political configurations and coalitions have been born from hung parliaments, including the forerunners of the Liberal-National coalition.

Agreements can be limited to assurances of support on budget bills and confidence motions, or more expansive undertakings including policy commitments and institutional reform. In the event of a parliamentary impasse, crossbenchers can withdraw their support and allow a new minority government to be formed. The Australia Institute’s Frank Yuan recently pointed out seven changes of government have been triggered by the withdrawal of crossbench support. Indeed, during the second world war, two independent MPs effectively changed the government mid-term.

Much depends on the relationships forged at the start of a hung parliament. In his memoir, former New England MP Tony Windsor recounts the seventeen days of negotiations that followed the 2010 election. One of the factors that led him, along with follow independent Rob Oakeshott, to support the Labor Party was the “professionalism” and “respect” its leaders showed them. Former Coalition leader Tony Abbott, by way of contrast, gave Windsor the impression he was unlikely to endure minority government long enough to honour any of his commitments.

An especially aspirational crossbencher may even take on the role of Speaker. Wilkie and Sharkie have been recently touted as contenders for the role in a hung parliament scenario.

Reform hangs in the balance

Independents MPs would be likely to bring particular policy priorities to any minority government negotiation. Given the heated contests in independent electorates, truth in political advertising laws would probably be high on the agenda. Steggall has previously promoted reforms to Stop the Lies, but when the Albanese government chose not to progress its own version of this reform, independents signalled it would be high on their priority list in a hung parliament.

Crossbenchers – in both houses – might also treat recent changes to Australia’s electoral laws as a bargaining chip. Those changes, agreed between Labor and the Coalition in secret, promised to get big money out of politics by imposing donation and spending caps on everyone but with special caveats for major parties. Haines has declared these are “in her sights” if a hung parliament arises.

The menu of reform options gets wider from there. Spender has called for labour market and tax reforms that may not be palatable to all of her peers.

In the Senate (where “every day is minority government”), Pocock has outlined his firm demands for greater royalties from resources rents and reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions. Energy and climate policy, as well as support for rural Australia, would likely figure in a larger negotiation.

The crossbenchers would be hard-pressed to agree on everything, but there is strength and wisdom in numbers. Albanese and Dutton are both very experienced parliamentarians. Crossbenchers would likely need to put their heads together to exert maximum leverage.

If there is a hung parliament after May 3, history shows us it can be put to good use. The 43rd parliament, in which the Gillard government was in minority, was one of the most productive in recent history. It passed 561 bills including landmark measures such as the Clean Energy Future package and its centrepiece, a carbon price. It also passed needs-based funding for Australian schools, the National Disability Insurance Scheme and plenty more.

That seems a decent enough model for the next parliament to emulate. After all, as Harold Glowrey seemed to appreciate nearly a century ago, not everyone needs to be a cabinet minister to play their part in shaping the future.

Joshua Black is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The Australia Institute.

– ref. Independents may build on Australia’s history of hung parliaments, if they can survive the campaign blues – https://theconversation.com/independents-may-build-on-australias-history-of-hung-parliaments-if-they-can-survive-the-campaign-blues-255313

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

In searching for the “real” Peter Dutton, it is possible to end up frustrated because you have looked too hard.

Politically, Dutton is not complicated. There is a consistent line in his beliefs through his career. Perhaps the shortest cut to understanding the Liberal leader is to go back to his maiden speech, delivered in February 2002.

The former Queensland policeman canvassed “unacceptable crime rates”, the “silent majority”, the “aspirational voters”, how the “politically correct” had a “disproportionate say in political debate”, the “grossly inadequate sentences” dispensed by the courts, and the centrality of national security. The way the last was handled was “perhaps the most significant challenge our society faces today,” the novice MP told the House of Representatives.

“National security” would be a foundational pillar of Dutton’s career, as well as his political security blanket.

Dutton had been a member of the Liberal Party since about age 18 and hoped “to use my experience both in small business and in law enforcement to provide perhaps a more practical view on some of the issues and problems” of the day.

The 32-year-old Dutton, who’d recently been in the building business with his father, following his nine years in the police force, arrived in parliament on a high, as something of a dragon-slayer in his Brisbane seat of Dickson. He had defeated Labor’s Cheryl Kernot, former leader of the Australian Democrats who had jumped ship in a spectacular defection in October 1997.

Dutton came from Brisbane’s outer suburbia, just as the Liberals were reorienting their focus towards this constituency, the so-called “Howard battlers”.

The eager newcomer was soon noted by the prime minister who, after the 2004 election, appointed him to the junior ministry. One Liberal insider from the time says that when campaigning in Dickson, John Howard saw Dutton “was very good at establishing himself in a marginal seat”. (Years later, when a redistribution turned Dickson into a notional Labor seat for the 2010 election, Dutton tried to do a runner to the safe seat of McPherson. But he failed to win preselection; in the event he held Dickson with a hefty swing. This election Dickson is on 1.7%.)

Dutton brought to his first ministry, workforce participation, the view he had expressed in his maiden speech: “We are seeing an alarming number of households where up to three generations – in many cases by choice – have never worked in their lives, and a society where in many cases rights are demanded but no responsibility is taken.”

By 2006 he had been promoted by Howard to assistant treasurer, a job that gave the ambitious Dutton a chance to work closely with Treasurer Peter Costello. Nick Minchin was finance minister then. He paints a picture of Dutton as a sort of guard dog protecting the revenue. In the cabinet expenditure review committee, “Peter was particularly helpful and supportive of Costello and my fending off the demands of spending ministers”.

The one-time police officer was “strong and resolute in questioning ministers”. Minchin was impressed; the junior minister was “obviously going places”.

From defensive to offensive

After the Liberals went into opposition, Dutton “shadowed” health, becoming health minister in Tony Abbott’s government after the 2013 election.

His legacy from the health portfolio dogs him in this campaign. He presided over the government’s failed attempt in the 2014 budget to put a co-payment on bulk-billed services. A poll conducted by Australian Doctor magazine voted him the worst health minister in memory.

A former senior public servant who observed him at the time presents a more positive picture, saying it was a very difficult time and Dutton was well across the complexity of the portfolio. On the notorious co-payment, Abbott says it was not Dutton’s idea: “It was absolutely 150% my idea”.

When in December 2014 Abbott moved him to immigration and border protection, Dutton was both in his comfort zone and on the escalator. Looking back, Abbott says Dutton was “a better match” for that portfolio. “In health the Coalition tends to play a defensive game. In border protection it plays an offensive game.”

Partnered by empire-building bureaucrat Mike Pezzullo, Dutton agitated for the creation of a mega security department (a push that earlier originated with Scott Morrison when he was in immigration). Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull felt the need to accommodate Dutton – then one of his conservative backers – with the creation of the home affairs super department, which was controversial and divided ministers. Someone who observed him closely in that portfolio says Dutton was always clear what he wanted, but didn’t get too deeply involved in the processes of policy.

Dutton, however, had another goal, and the turmoil surrounding Turnbull’s leadership seemed to offer the opportunity to shoot for the top. It was a false hope. Tactically outsmarted by Turnbull, Dutton lost the first face-off between the two in August 2018. The second bout, later the same week, provided not victory but a pathway to the prime ministership for Scott Morrison.

It wasn’t all downside for Dutton: during the Morrison government he became defence minister. The post suited a China hawk when the bilateral relationship was in a deep trough.

Early on, he met with one-time Labor defence minister (and later Labor leader) Kim Beazley. Beazley recalls: “He wanted to talk to me about what being defence minister was like”. They spoke about submarines: Beazley suggested Australia should cancel its then-existing contract for French conventional submarines and get a new contract for their nuclear subs (this was before AUKUS).

“He knew a fair bit,” Beazley says. “So he was looking to think a way through the huge problems we confronted.” Dutton was “aware we were slipping into an era of constant danger. He had all the attitude you would want of a contemporary defence minister” (although, Beazley adds, the Morrison government had “a propensity for unfunded defence annoucements”).

Leadership and control

By the time the Liberals went into opposition, Dutton was the only leadership candidate standing. His long-term rival Josh Frydenberg had lost his seat – a bonus for Dutton, who hasn’t had to look over his shoulder in the past three years, but a big loss for a party deprived of choice. The Liberals’ moderate wing had been decimated with the rise of the “teals”.

Many immediately declared Dutton unelectable, a view that would soften over time, then return again, to an extent, close to the election.

As opposition leader, Dutton’s laser-like focus was on keeping the party together, avoiding the backbiting and schisms that often follow a serious loss. Colleagues found him approachable and willing to listen. A backbencher says: “He was always very respectful of people in the party room. He will make himself available if people want to talk.”

Yet how much was he willing to hear? The same backbencher says, “I don’t think there was a lot of consultation in the development of policy – it was a bit of a black box. The emphasis has been on unity and discipline.”

Russell Broadbent, a moderate Liberal who defected to the crossbench in 2023 when he lost preselection for his seat of Monash (which he is recontesting an an independent) says, “I’ve never had a cup of tea or a meal with [Dutton]. I wasn’t in his group – I was on the wrong side of the party somewhere.” He says their only conversation was when Dutton told him his preselection was under threat. Broadbent said he knew his opponents had the numbers: Dutton asked whether he’d go to the crossbench. “I said, ‘probably’”.

Anthony Albanese gave his opponent a big political break, when the Voice, opposed by the Coalition, crashed spectacularly in October 2023. The prime minister had invested heavily in a doomed and faulty campaign that misread the mood of Australians, just when many people were being dragged down by the cost of living.

It took Albanese well over a year to recover his stride. Indeed, he did not do so fully until early 2025, when a pre-campaign burst of announcements put the government in a strong position. Dutton’s miscalculation was to believe that when he had Albanese down, his opponent would be out for the count.

Dutton gambled by holding back key policies until the campaign and making the opposition a relatively small target. The big exception was the nuclear pitch, released fairly early and driven in part by the need to keep the Nationals, a number of whom were restive about the Coalition commitment to the 2050 net zero emissions target, in the tent. Saturday’s result will be the ultimate test of the “hold back” tactic.

As the election neared, there was increasing criticism in Coalition ranks of the handling of the campaign, which has been shambolic at times. One example was the delay in producing modelling for a signature policy – the proposal for a gas reservation scheme. That pales beside the fiasco of the (aborted) plan to force Canberra public servants back into the office.

The bold defence policy, to take spending to 3% of GDP within a decade, was not only released after pre-polling had started, but came without detail.

On strategy and tactics, Dutton is controlling, wanting to keep things tight, in his own hands or those of a small group. Perhaps it is the policeman’s mindset. Certainly it has worked to the disadvantage of his campaign, which has appeared under-cooked on large and small things. Among the latter, Dutton’s office insisted on doing his transcripts, rather than having them done by the campaign HQ. Predictably, they were overwhelmed and the transcripts ran late.

Dutton seemed to be working on the assumption he was in a similar situation to Abbott in 2013, when Labor was gone for all money. But this election people needed to be convinced the alternative was robust and, late in the day, many swinging voters remained sceptical about that. Dutton is a strong negative campaigner, who hasn’t put much work into strengthening his weaker skill set to be a “positive” voice as well.

Going into the campaign’s final days, Labor held the edge in the polls. But the Liberals maintained that in key marginals, the story was rather different.

There is a degree of mismatch between the private Dutton and the public figure. Often those who meet or know him remark that one-to-one or in small groups he is personable. Yet his public demeanour is frequently awkward and somewhat aloof. This leaves him open to caricature, and raises the question of why he has been so unsuccessful in projecting more of his private self into his public image.

The latest Newspoll, published Sunday night, had Dutton’s approval rating at minus 24, compared to Anthony Albanese’s minus 9. A just-released Morgan poll on trust in leaders found Dutton had the highest net distrust score (when people were asked in an open-ended question to nominate whom they trusted and distrusted). It’s a long-term thing: he was third in the 2022 list.

The gender problem that dogs the Liberals

One of Dutton’s problems has been the women’s vote. The Poll Bludger’s William Bowe says looking at the polls, “Dutton wasn’t doing too badly [with women] in the first half of the term, but a gap opened up in 2024 and substantially widened in 2025”. Sunday’s Newspoll found 66% of female voters had “little or no confidence” the Coalition was ready to govern, compared to 58% of male voters.

Retiring Liberal senator Linda Reynolds, who preceded Dutton in the defence portfolio, has worked on gender issues in the Liberal Party for 15 years. She believes this is “a party problem, not specifically a Peter Dutton problem”. She says the Liberals’ failure to embrace and deal with gender issues “leaves the leader of the day vulnerable”.

Kos Samaras, from Redbrige political consultancy, agrees. “It’s a brand issue, rather than him personally. He’s just the leader of [the brand].” Scott Morrison made the brand problem a lot worse. “It’s gone back to a normal [Liberal] problem, be it still bad.”

There are differences between constituencies, but there is a “very significant problem with professional women”, Samaras says, which highlights the Liberals’ challenge with the “teal” seats.
Dutton is classic right-wing on law and order, defence policy, nationalism, anti-wokeness, and much more. But he can be pragmatic when the politics demands.

He was personally opposed to marriage equality, but was behind the postal survey that enabled the Turnbull government to achieve it, so removing the issue from the agenda. And the China hawk has recently softened his line on that country, in part to facilitate a pitch for the votes of Chinese-Australians, alienated by the Morrison government.

In this campaign, Dutton has been painted by his opponents as “Trump-lite”. Confronted with this in the third leaders’ debate, he was unable to provide an answer. Initially expecting the election of Trump would be potentially helpful for the opposition, he failed to appreciate the dangers for him, which only increased as the new president became more arbitrary and unpredictable.

The opposition leader’s anti-public service attitude might be a milder version of Trump’s stand but it is also a Queenslander’s view of Canberra, as well as typical of what the Liberals roll out before elections. But his appointment of Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price as shadow minister for government efficiency was blatantly and foolishly Trumpian.

Dutton is not nimble or nuanced. He is also prone to going off half-cocked, which can lead to missteps (as when he wrongly said the Indonesian president had announced a Russian request to base planes in Papua). Earlier examples are easy to find. In his autobiography A Bigger Picture, Turnbull wrote of him that he would do interviews with right-wing shock jock in which he would “echo their extreme views […] He always apologised for going too far, and I generally gave him the benefit of the doubt”.

Dutton talks little about Liberal Party history, or political philosophy. Is he ideological? Abbott says he is ideological in the way Howard was. “He has strong instincts, he has convictions but they are more instinctual than ideological.”

Dutton at every opportunity points to Howard as his lodestar. Howard also came from a small business family, didn’t have much time for the public service, and had the quality of political doggedness. Regardless of some similarities, however, it is a very long stretch to see Dutton walking in Howard’s shoes.

Michelle Grattan 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.

– ref. Peter Dutton: a Liberal leader seeking to surf on the wave of outer suburbia – https://theconversation.com/peter-dutton-a-liberal-leader-seeking-to-surf-on-the-wave-of-outer-suburbia-254590

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Strangio, Emeritus Professor of Politics, Monash University

Barring a rogue result, this Saturday Anthony Albanese will achieve what no major party leader has done since John Howard’s prime-ministerial era – win consecutive elections. Admittedly, in those two decades he is only the second of the six prime ministers (the other is Scott Morrison), who has been permitted by his party to contest successive elections. The other four – Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull – were cut off at the knees by their colleagues before having the chance to seek re-election.

For a prime minister who has spent much of the past three years derided as a plodder, uninspiring and weak, this is no small feat. If longevity in office is the principal measure of the success of prime ministers, then Albanese will soon have claim to be the best of the post-Howard group. Before election day, he will leapfrog Turnbull’s tenure and if, as the polls suggest, he is returned to government on May 3, he will shortly thereafter exceed Gillard’s incumbency with a whole three years ahead to build on his reign.

Of course, duration of office is not the only benchmark of prime-ministerial achievement – more important is how power is exercised, the legacy that is left behind. Arguably, the productive Gillard still outranks Albanese in this respect, highlighted by her government’s establishment of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. This is widely regarded as the most transformative social reform since the advent of universal health care. On the other hand, if he is granted a second term by voters, Albanese will be in a position to build on his policy edifice and produce his own signature reform, something he still lacks.

A leader for the times?

When sitting down to write this essay about Albanese, I looked back at two of the questions I raised about him shortly before and after his May 2022 election. The first was whether he was capable of switching “to a more dynamic galvanising mode of leadership or will the circumspection that has defined him in opposition shackle him in government?”

The second question was whether voters would stick by the dogged and gentler type of leadership Albanese promised. Or if, in an environment of pent-up dissatisfaction with the order of things, they would lose patience with him and instead hanker for a “strong” leader: one who conquered and divided, and offered black and white solutions to the complex challenges of the early 21st century.

As recently as early March, the answer to both of these questions seemed a definite no. For some 18 months, the opinion polls had signalled the electorate was profoundly underwhelmed by Albanese and his Labor government.

Despite a busy legislative program, the incremental methods of his prime ministership had proved incompatible with the public’s disenchantment with business-as-usual practices. Precious little Labor had done had registered with voters.

By way of contrast, the Liberal opposition leader, Peter Dutton, gave the impression of being in tune with the disgruntled milieu. Not that the public had warmed to him: a common focus group reaction was he was “nasty”.

Yet Dutton had the hallmarks of a quintessential “strong” leader. He was a political hard man, a trader in fear and division. He projected decisiveness. Where Albanese was prone to looking wishy-washy, Dutton was a man to get things done.

As Niccolò Machiavelli recognised in his notorious, and mostly misunderstood, treatise on statecraft, The Prince, the fate of political leaders is significantly determined by “fortuna”. These are the forces largely beyond a prince’s control.

Fortuna has undoubtedly intervened in Albanese’s favour over the past couple of months. This began with Cyclone Alfred giving him a steal on Dutton. Manning the deck during the cyclone’s painstakingly slow landfall on the east coast of the Australia, Albanese had the advantage of a prime ministerial bearing. His government’s response to Alfred also enabled him to exercise two of his emotional calling cards: empathy and compassion.

Additionally, the cyclone was a timely demonstration of the increased frequency of extreme weather events in a climate change affected environment. This is a phenomenon the prime minister could credibly speak to. Whereas the opposition leader, at the head of a Coalition in which climate change denialism still runs deep, has dissembled about a connection by protesting he is not a scientist.

Alfred also compelled the delay of the election to a time more propitious for Labor. The April campaign has been heavily shadowed by the spectre of US President Donald Trump’s wilful and reckless disturbance of geopolitics and the international economy. Unquestionably, Albanese would have been better placed to capitalise on Washington’s caprice and the undiscriminating damage it is visiting on purported allies like Australia had his government opted for a less orthodox America-dependent defence and security posture.

Yet Trump’s second presidency is principally a liability for Dutton. This is not because he is a Trump ventriloquist. Dutton’s right-wing populist stance on issues such as immigration and climate change and his hostility to identity politics are indigenous to Australia rather than imported from America. He is exploiting themes unleashed in the Liberal Party by Howard, which have been rendered more aggressive by Howard’s successors, first Abbott and now Dutton.

My hunch has always been the opposition leader was misreading the national psyche. Australians are more optimistic, forward-looking and generous-hearted than he was banking on. They are less scared and less paranoid. Women and young voters especially loomed as a formidable barrier to his prime-ministerial ambitions. But the parallels between his locally originated brand of reactionary populism and Trumpism are sufficient to have made his tilt for power still more difficult.

Bloodless, perhaps, but methodical and scandal-free

Albanese’s political renaissance since March, however, is not solely a product of happenstance. Nor is it only due to Dutton’s unravelling: his quest for office has also been damaged by the Coalition’s flimsy policy development and his stumbles on the hustings.

The opinion polls currently indicate Labor’s primary and two-party preferred votes are hovering around the same level as at the 2022 election. If this translates into Saturday’s result, it would represent the first time a novice government has not shed support in modern Australian political history on its initial return to the polls. Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Howard and so on all went backwards.

It is true Albanese is starting from a low base because of his slender victory in 2022. Still, should Labor hold its ground, this will surely owe something to an acceptance by the electorate, even if grudging, that Albanese deserves a second term. In other words, this could not merely be considered a victory by default, but also a degree of positive endorsement of his prime ministership.

On the cusp of his 2013 election win, Abbott pledged a return to “grown-up” government. After three years of destructive leadership conflict between Rudd and Gillard, he assured voters the “adults” would be back in charge. Over the course of the next nine years of Coalition rule, Abbott’s promise went woefully unfulfilled. It was a period blighted by further leadership civil war and policy indolence. By way of contrast, Albanese’s government has been united, orderly, industrious and scandal-free.

With the exceptions of the Gillard and Turnbull administrations, the other post-Howard governments have been notable for departing from conventional cabinet practices, an unhealthy level of leadership centralisation, a domineering Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and a tendency to run roughshod over the bureaucracy. The evidence from Albanese’s first term is he has learned from, and chiefly avoided, these follies.

An admirer of the governance practices of Hawke and Howard, the latter whom he closely observed over the despatch box between 1996 and 2007, Albanese does not “sweat the small stuff”. He avoids micromanaging his government, as Rudd was notoriously guilty of.

Detractors attribute this to a dearth of policy curiosity and a want of drive. But, whatever its explanation, the effect has been to give a competent ministerial team, many of them battle-scarred veterans of the tumultuous Rudd-Gillard years, leeway in their portfolios rather than choking their autonomy. The prime minister reaches down only when things “go awry” and, in those circumstances, he intervenes “forcefully” to “assume control”.

His PMO, headed since 2022 by Tim Gartrell, has been largely stable and has resisted the excessive command and control methods of many of its predecessors. After a decade of cutbacks under the Coalition and the degrading of its policy function through widespread outsourcing to giant consulting firms, the public service has been replenished and its policy input encouraged and respected.

Albanese has maintained a tight group of ministerial confidants around him, including the talented economics portfolio duo of Jim Chalmers and Katy Gallagher, as well as Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and Mark Butler, Penny Wong and Tony Burke.

The continuity in membership of this “kitchen cabinet” suggests a prime minister gifted in collaboration and relationship management.

The downside to the ‘lone wolf’

The story is not all blue skies. As originally identified by the political correspondent, Katharine Murphy, now a media director in Albanese’s office, his early life as the only child of a single mother and invalid pensioner planted in him a powerful streak of self-sufficiency. This “lone wolf” element can see him lapse into relying too much and too stubbornly on his own judgement.

After a lifetime in the game, he is convinced he possesses uncommon political instincts. Yet his radar is sometimes astray. Examples include little things such as attending the wedding of shock jock Kyle Sandilands, as well as bigger miscalculations, such as purchasing an expensive beachfront property during a housing affordability crisis.

Few, if any, prime ministers avoid the urge for captain’s calls. Indeed, on occasions, going out on a solitary limb is essential for leaders. But Albanese has left ministers high and dry with some of his unilateral interventions, including blindsiding and humiliating environment minister and one-time leadership rival, Tanya Plibersek, by vetoing legislation to establish a national environment protection authority.

Albanese routinely cites a laundry list of achievements from the past three years. Against a backdrop of significant international turbulence, Labor’s handling of the economy has been mostly deft: inflation has been reduced, employment has grown, interest rates are finally on a downward trajectory and real wages have increased.

Analysis indicates it is households from low socioeconomic areas that have benefited most from the government’s tax and welfare changes. In short, redistributive action we expect from a Labor government.

The government has thrown its weight behind pay increases for poorly renumerated and predominantly female workforces in aged care and childcare. Childcare support has been extended and cheaper medicines delivered.

Labor has also introduced free TAFE and trimmed the debts of university students. In addition, the government has presided over amendments to industrial relations laws to improve protections for vulnerable workers in the gig economy.

Notwithstanding criticisms of its approval of new fossil fuel projects, Labor has pursued a concerted strategy to curb carbon emissions, encouraging a major increase in renewable energy supply and implementing complementary measures such as the vehicle efficiency standards scheme.

On the other hand, there have been glaring gaps in the Albanese government’s record. These include:

• the stalling on banning gambling advertising, despite this being widely desired by the Australian public

• the failure to lift many of the most disadvantaged members of the community out of poverty through a meaningful increase in JobSeeker and related income support payments, despite this being repeatedly recommended by the Labor appointed Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee

• the inadequate due diligence applied to the Morrison government’s AUKUS agreement, an oversight all the more imprudent given the inconstancy of Trump’s America

• the doleful silence on the Uluru Statement of the Heart agenda since the defeat of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum. This leaves Albanese at risk of joining several of his predecessors, including Malcolm Fraser and Hawke, who later identified the lack of progress on First Nations affairs as the greatest regret of their prime ministerships.

The government’s reputation for stolidity has been exacerbated by Albanese’s deficiencies. In retrospect, he booby-trapped his own prime-ministership by crouching too low at the 2022 election. The Australian people wanted desperately to be rid of Morrison, affording Labor scope for a more expansive manifesto. The absence of audacity in the party’s program undoubtedly contributed to the public’s tepid embrace of the incoming government. Labor’s primary vote was at a century low.

In turn, because Albanese was intent on not exceeding his narrow mandate, he was hamstrung in office. He had to be needled by colleagues to finally walk away at the beginning of 2024 from the campaign promise not to amend Morrison’s stage three tax cuts despite their regressive nature – a change of stance the public welcomed.

His pedestrian communication skills, while congruent with his everyman persona, have had a dulling effect on his government. As Gillard did to her cost, he seems to operate on the premise his government will be known by its deeds rather than words or gestures of emotional freight. He is devoid of memorable or moving phrasing. Where Keating had the Redfern address, Rudd the Stolen Generation apology and Gillard, after repetitive provocation, the misogyny speech, it is hard to imagine Albanese delivering anything commensurately stirring or enduring.

The lament that governments lack an overarching narrative is commonplace in contemporary politics. But Albanese has showed little proclivity for weaving a compelling tale for his government, to joining the dots between its actions, or projecting what lies ahead on the horizon.

In that absence, each measure has been at risk of disappearing into the ether through the warp-speed media cycle. And he has been conspicuously tongue-tied on interpreting Australia’s national identity, a theme fruitfully mined by his most accomplished predecessors. At a moment when the distinctiveness of Australia’s democracy has come into sharp relief, this is a missed opportunity.

Some Labor insiders are confident that, in a second term, Albanese will pursue a more adventurous program. Change to an outmoded tax regime, which is particularly fuelling generational inequality, is widely considered the holy grail of reform.

One reason why the centre is holding better in Australia relative to other comparable democracies can be traced back to the modernising reforms executed in the final decades of the 20th century by the governments of Hawke and Keating, and the early Howard government. Crucially, under the former intrepid Labor duo, major social stabilisers were also introduced, such as Medicare and compulsory superannuation.

Though not without their own destabilising effects, these policy innovations helped insulate Australia from the deadly combination of drastic austerity, severe erosion of living standards and gross inequalities experienced in a number of other countries. These are the conditions on which aggressive right-wing populism has dined. The rub is, however, that the reforms of late last century are running out of puff, and patching the policy edifice built in those years is also exhausting its utility. We are on borrowed time.

If he is returned to the prime ministership on Saturday, there is an imperative for Albanese to spread his wings, to go beyond doggedly nudging the country along. Yet the danger is he will interpret election success as proof of his self-narrative that he has always been underestimated. As confirmation of his rare power of political intuition. As evidence he need not deviate from his first term formula of what he characterises as “considered, measured government”.

Albanese is a well-intentioned prime minister of evidently decent values. An individual of good character at the helm of nations matters, as anyone who studies leadership comes to recognise. What we can confidently say of him is that as prime minister, he has fulfilled the injunction of the Greek physician and philosopher, Hippocrates: “first, do no harm”.

In an era in which the potential of mad and bad rulers to wreak havoc is painfully on display, doing no harm is actually quite a mighty thing. To have a prime minister, who believes, as Albanese said during one of the campaign leader debates, that “kindness isn’t weakness” is, indeed, comforting as we witness shrivel-hearted strong men menance the globe.

Albanese has been a proficient as well as a lucky general. But we are right to yearn for more. A second term will test whether he can make the transition from a solid to a weather-making prime minister. We will also discover, should that step be beyond him, if he has the self-knowledge and grace of spirit, to pass the office on.

In the past, Paul Strangio received funding from the Australian Research Council

– ref. Albanese has been a ‘proficient and lucky general’. But if he wins a second term, we are right to demand more – https://theconversation.com/albanese-has-been-a-proficient-and-lucky-general-but-if-he-wins-a-second-term-we-are-right-to-demand-more-235197

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

While last week’s Morgan and YouGov polls had Labor continuing its surge, Newspoll is steady for the fourth successive week at 52–48 to Labor. A Redbridge poll of the marginal seats was again very strong for Labor, while YouGov and KJC seat polls were respectively good and bad for Labor.

A national Newspoll, conducted April 21–24 from a sample of 1,254, gave Labor a 52–48 lead, unchanged from the April 14–17 Newspoll.

Primary votes were 35% Coalition (steady), 34% Labor (steady), 11% Greens (down one), 8% One Nation (up one) and 12% for all Others (steady). The drop for the Greens and gain for One Nation mean this poll was probably better for the Coalition before rounding than the previous Newspoll.

Here is the graph of Labor’s two-party preferred vote in national polls. The fieldwork midpoint date of Newspoll was April 23, three days ahead of the next most recent poll (YouGov). Perhaps Labor has peaked too early.

Analyst Peter Brent wrote for Inside Story that he thought Anthony Albanese performed poorly in the April 22 debate with Peter Dutton. This may explain some shift to the Coalition. But with just five full days left until the May 3 election and early voting in progress, Labor remains the heavy favourite to win.

Albanese’s net approval was steady at -9, while Dutton’s net approval was down two points to -24, a new record low. Albanese led Dutton by 51–35 as better PM (52–36 previously). Here is the graph of Albanese’s net approval in Newspoll, with the plus signs marking data points and a smoothed line fitted.

In this poll, 48% thought it was time to give someone else a go (down five since February), while 39% (up five) thought the government deserved to be re-elected. Meanwhile, 62% (up seven) said the Dutton-led Coalition was not ready to govern.

Labor retains 54.5–45.5 lead in Redbridge marginal seats poll

A poll of 20 marginal seats by Redbridge and Accent Research for the News Corp tabloids was conducted April 15–22 from a sample of 1,000. It gave Labor a 54.5–45.5 lead, unchanged since the April 9–15 marginal seats poll. Primary votes were 35% Labor (steady), 34% Coalition (steady), 14% Greens (up one) and 17% for all Others (down one).

The overall 2022 vote in these 20 seats was 51–49 to Labor, so this poll implies a 3.5-point swing to Labor from the 2022 election. If applied to the national 2022 result of 52.1–47.9 to Labor, Labor would lead by about 55.5–44.5. Since the first wave of this marginal seats tracker in early February, Labor has gained 6.5 points. If this poll is accurate, Labor is likely to win a thumping majority.

Over the five waves of this marginal seats tracker, the Liberals have gone from +1 net favourable to -8, while Labor has moved from -9 to -3. Albanese has gone from -16 to -4 (up one since last week), while Dutton has gone from -11 to -20 (up two since last week).

By 22–14, voters preferred Labor’s housing policy to the Coalition’s, with 38% for neither and 12% for both the same.

YouGov and KJC seat polls

The Canberra Times had YouGov polls of ten regional seats, conducted April 17–24 from an overall sample of 3,000 (so 300 per seat). The primary votes suggest the Coalition would lose the Tasmanian seat of Braddon to Labor, and the NSW and Victorian seats of Calare and Wannon to independents, leaving them with only Dutton’s Dickson out of the ten surveyed.

Labor would be likely to hold all its regional seats, although in the NSW seat of Hunter One Nation would be their final opponent instead of the Coalition. Seat polls are unreliable.

The Poll Bludger reported Saturday that KJC Research had taken seat polls on April 24 from a sample of 600 per seat for an industry group. These polls went against the trend, with the Liberals ahead of Labor by 49–45 including undecided in the Western Australian Labor-held seat of Tangney and 46–41 in the Queensland Labor-held seat of Blair.

In the New South Wales Labor-held seat of Richmond, the Greens led Labor by 39–34. In the NSW Labor-hels seat of Hunter, Labor led the Liberals by 45–41.

Gap narrows, but Liberals still likely to win majority at Canadian election

The Canadian election is on Monday, with the large majority of polls closing at 11:30am AEST Tuesday. The CBC Poll Tracker has the centre-left governing Liberals leading the Conservatives by 42.5–38.7 in national vote share and by 189–125 in seat point estimates (172 needed for a majority). I covered Canada and other upcoming and past international elections for The Poll Bludger on Saturday.

Adrian Beaumont 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.

– ref. Newspoll shows Labor’s lead steady at 52–48 – https://theconversation.com/newspoll-shows-labors-lead-steady-at-52-48-255381

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will launch another push on health on Sunday, announcing a re-elected Labor government would set up a free around-the-clock 1800MEDICARE advice line and afterhours GP telehealth service.

The service would be launched from January 1 and cost A$204.5 million over the forward estimates.

Albanese will tell a Sydney rally that people would be able to call at any time to get advice from a nurse. If the problem couldn’t wait for their regular GP, they would be connected to a free GP telehealth consultation.

“Life isn’t 9 to 5. Neither is health care,” Albanese will say in his speech, an extract of which was released ahead of delivery.

People with a sick child late at night or an unwell elderly parent would know there was trained expert advice at the end of the phone.

“This will take pressure off people – and off public hospitals.

“And in conjunction with our plan to open 50 more Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, it will ensure that free urgent care is within a 20 minute drive away for four out of every five Australians and just a phone call away for every Australian.”

The present telehealth service is patchy depending on which part of Australia people live and doesn’t provide a weekend GP service.

With a number of Victorian seats in strong contention, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has a rally in Melbourne on Sunday. Federal Labor’s vote in Victoria has been volatile, first collapsing under the unpopularity of the state Allan government but recently reviving.

Read more:
50 new urgent care clinics are on the cards. But are the existing ones working? Here’s what we know so far

Several men land in northern Australia

A small group of men from a boat that arrived illegally in remote northern Australia has been apprehended by Border Force. The men were first discovered by a commercial helicopter pilot.

They had written “SOS” in the sand and put up a flag. It is not known where they came from, or their circumstances.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said in a statement on Saturday, “We do not confirm , or comment on, operational matters.

“There has never been a successful people smuggling venture under our government, and that remains true.

“When someone arrives without visa they are detained and then deported.”

In 2022 the Liberals tried to exploit a boat interception on election day, by publicising it and sending text messages to voters.

Michelle Grattan 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.

– ref. Election Diary: Albanese promises around-the-clock health line, with leaders to hold rallies – https://theconversation.com/election-diary-albanese-promises-around-the-clock-health-line-with-leaders-to-hold-rallies-254991

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

In this election, voters are more distrustful than ever of politicians, and the political heroes of 2022 have fallen from grace, swept from favour by independent players.

A Roy Morgan survey has found, for the first time, that Australians are driven more by who they distrust than who they trust.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is the most distrusted figure, outranking even US President Donald Trump. He’s three times more distrusted than Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Nor are any federal ministers or opposition frontbenchers in the top five trusted figures.

In March 2022, before the election of May that year, federal Labor figures, then in opposition, were riding a wave. Federal Labor frontbenchers occupied the top three “net trust” spots. Now, they have dropped out entirely from the top five.

The five political leaders with the highest net trust in 2022 were, in order: Penny Wong, Albanese, Tanya Plibersek, then Western Australian Labor premier Mark McGowan, and Jacqui Lambie, an outspoken crossbench senator from Tasmania.

in 2025, all but Lambie have disappeared from the top five. (McGowan has retired from politics.)

The new list is headed by ACT independent Senator David Pocock, who has been a key figure in negotiations with the government on a number of issues. Lambie has risen to second place. She’s followed by three premiers: Queensland’s David Crisafulli (LNP), Chris Minns (Labor, NSW) and Roger Cook (Labor, WA).

Both Pocock and Lambie recorded almost no distrust.

Pocock was seen by respondents as genuine and principled, and someone who listened to constituents. He was praised for championing the vulnerable and the environment and approaching politics with humility, according to the survey.

Lambie won points for being a straight talker. One respondent described her as “crude but honest”.

The Morgan survey asks people open-ended questions: to nominate the political leaders they trust and distrust and say why.

Dutton heads the 2025 list of those with the highest net distrust scores. Clive Palmer is second and Trump next. Albanese and Energy Minister Chris Bowen follow.

The list is rounded out by Victorian Labor Premier Jacinta Allan, Greens Leader Adam Bandt, One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson, Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor, Nationals Barnaby Joyce and Shadow Attorney-General Michaelia Cash.

In 2022 there were no Labor politicians in the most distrusted list; now there are three, two from the federal government and one premier.

In 2022 the distrust list, in order, was: Palmer, Scott Morrison, Dutton, Joyce, Hanson, Vladimir Putin, Craig Kelly, Dominic Perrottet, Taylor, Cash and Josh Frydenberg.

Condemnation of neo-Nazi disruption unites leaders on campaign truce day

Anzac Day brought a truce in campaigning, as political players prepare for a final frantic week before the poll.

But ugliness broke out at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance, when a small group of neo-Nazis heckled during the Welcome to Country by Bunurong and Gunditjmara elder Uncle Mark Brown.

The Age reported that convicted neo-Nazi Jacob Hersant led the men. Hersant last year was found guilty of performing an illegal Nazi salute.

Police escorted Hersant from the service.

Later Victoria Police said a 26-year-old man had been intervidewed over offensive behaviour and police would proceed via summons.

At the service, Victorian Governor Margaret Gardner was also booed when acknowledging the traditional owners of the land.

In Perth at the dawn service, a heckler shouted obscenities during the Welcome to Country.

Albanese responded, saying: “The disruption of Anzac Day is a disgraceful act and the people responsible must face the full force of the law. This was an act of low cowardice on a day when we honour courage.”

Dutton said neo-Nazis were “a stain on our national fabric”. He said the Welcome to Country was “an important part of official ceremonies and it should be respected”.

Michelle Grattan 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.

– ref. Election Diary: Dutton tops list of most distrusted, amid deepening voter cynicism about political leaders – https://theconversation.com/election-diary-dutton-tops-list-of-most-distrusted-amid-deepening-voter-cynicism-about-political-leaders-254995

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Whatever the result on May 3, even people within the Liberals think they have run a very poor national campaign. Not just poor, but odd.

Nothing makes the point more strongly than this week’s release of the opposition’s defence policy.

As events played out, its Wednesday launch in Perth was overshadowed by the death of Pope Francis on Monday. But regardless of that unforeseeable event, the timing was extraordinarily late. Early birds had started voting at pre-poll places on Tuesday. The popularity of pre-polling means that, for many voters, the tail end of the formal campaign is irrelevant.

The Coalition regards defence and national security as its natural territory. It is pledging to boost defence spending to 2.5% of GDP within five years – $21 billion extra – and to 3% within a decade. The policy set up a contrast with Labor.

So why leave its release until the campaign’s penultimate week? The opposition’s line is that it wanted to see what money was available. Dutton said, “It would have been imprudent for us to announce early on, without knowing the bottom line”. The explanation doesn’t wash. If defence is such a priority, it should have been towards the front of the queue for funds.

That wasn’t the whole of the problem. The announcement consisted literally of only these two figures, wrapped in rhetoric. It didn’t come with any meat, any policy document setting out how a Coalition government would rethink or redo defence.

Shadow minister Andrew Hastie was at the launch, but he has been hardly seen nationally in recent months. He says he’s been working behind the scenes, and also he has a highly marginal Western Australian seat (Canning) to defend.

But Hastie, 42, has been underused. From the party’s conservative wing, he is regarded as one of the (few) bright young things in the Liberal parliamentary party. He has been touted as a possible future leader. Given the general weakness of the Coalition frontbench, wasting Hastie has been strange.

A captain in the Special Air Service Regiment who served in Afghanistan, Hastie has seen his share of combat. In 2018, he expressed the view that women shouldn’t serve in combat roles, saying “my personal view is the fighting DNA of close combat units is best preserved when it’s exclusively male”.

This week he was peppered with questions about his opinion (questioning triggered by a similar view being expressed by a disqualified Liberal candidate). But the issue is a red herring.

Hastie, a former assistant minister for defence, says he accepts the Coalition’s position that all defence roles are and should be open to qualified women. In the Westminster system, the obligation is for ministers to adhere to the agreed policy – that doesn’t mean someone might not have a different personal view.

Putting together an election campaign requires judgements at many levels, ranging from how big or small a target to be, and the balance between negative and positive campaigning, to candidate selection and which seats the leader visits.

The length of the formal campaign is in the prime minister’s hands. Anthony Albanese has sensibly kept this one to the typical five weeks, but a couple of past PMs made bad decisions, by running very long campaigns: Bob Hawke in 1984 and Malcolm Turnbull in 2016. Both lost seats, while retaining power.

While keeping the formal campaign short, Albanese was canny in hitting the road as the year started with a series of announcements. That gave him
momentum and some clear air. This also became more important when Easter and the Anzac holiday weekend intruded on the formal campaign. The Coalition looked dozy in January.

In the event of a Coalition loss, the nuclear policy will be seen as a drag. In campaigning terms, it has been a bold throw of the dice, although admittedly not nearly as bold as the Coalition’s sweeping Fightback blueprint for economic reform in the early 1990s. That looked for a while as if it might fly, but was eventually demolished by Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating.

Elections are not conducted in vacuums. Context can be important, and it has been particularly so in this campaign.

As has repeatedly been said, Donald Trump hovers over these weeks, and it’s the Coalition that is disadvantaged. This is not just because Dutton struggles to deal with the government’s barbs that he is Trump-like – more generally, some voters who might have been willing to change their vote appear to be thinking now is not the time.

If the Coalition defies the current apparent trend to Labor and scores a win in minority government, critics of its campaign will be eating humble pie. Seasoned election watchers remember the salutary lessons of 1993 and 2019, when the polls were wrong. In those elections, the government was returned.

Dutton and Nationals leader David Littleproud have both suggested the Coalition’s internal polling, which concentrates on marginal seats, is better for it than the media’s national polls.

If Labor loses this election, it will be left wondering how an apparently textbook campaign failed to nail the votes.

If the Liberals lose, their post-mortem reviewers will home in on various faults. One will be the policy lateness (not just the defence policy), meaning voters didn’t have time to absorb the offerings. Another will be the fact some policies were not fully thought through, or road tested. The consequences of the foray on working-from-home should have been anticipated. “Shadows” have often put policy preparedness behind going for a political hit on the day.

Read more:
Election Diary: Dutton backs down on working-from-home crackdown after outcry threatens to cost votes

Even now, the opposition is struggling when quizzed about its plan to cut 41,000 from the public service. Dutton says the numbers will only go (by attrition or voluntary redundancy) from those working in Canberra. The Coalition also says frontline services and national security areas will be protected.

A source familiar with the public service points out, “If you sacked 41,000 in Canberra, you would decimate the national security bureaucracy and if you exempted national security you would barely have 41,000 public servants to sack”.

If the Coalition has a disastrous loss, with few or no net gains, the criticism of its campaign will be scarifying. If it loses by only a little, the critics will say that a better planned and organised campaign, preceded by a lot more policy work, might have pushed it across the line.

To be successful, an opposition needs a great deal of elbow grease, and so far the Coalition doesn’t look as though it has used enough of that.

Michelle Grattan 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.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Coalition’s campaign lacks good planning and enough elbow grease – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-coalitions-campaign-lacks-good-planning-and-enough-elbow-grease-254992

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carole Cusack, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Sydney

➡️ View the full interactive version of this article here.

Carole Cusack 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.

– ref. Inside the elaborate farewell to Pope Francis – https://theconversation.com/inside-the-elaborate-farewell-to-pope-francis-255020

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Ghezelbash, Professor and Director, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney

People who apply for asylum in Australia face significant delays in having their claims processed. These delays undermine the integrity of the asylum system, erode public confidence and cause significant distress to people seeking asylum.

There are, at the time of writing, 28,691 applications for a protection visa awaiting a decision at the Department of Home Affairs. At least 43,308 applications await review at the Administrative Review Tribunal.

For people seeking asylum who have their initial applications refused and seek review in the Administrative Review Tribunal and in the Federal Circuit and Family Court, the process can often take more than ten years.

Whoever wins the upcoming election inherits the daunting task of addressing this issue.

Our research evaluated data on Australia’s previous attempts to increase efficiency of asylum processing. We also examined international best practice for designing fair and fast procedures, including lessons from recent successful asylum reforms in Switzerland.

Here are five ways to make Australia’s asylum process more efficient.

1. Recognise fairness enhances efficiency

In most countries with asylum systems, processing is neither fair nor fast.

When trying to increase efficiency, many governments have limited the ability of a person seeking asylum to fairly put forward their case.

Australia, the United States, and many countries across Europe have introduced accelerated or fast-track procedures that drop essential safeguards including:

• the right to an interview
• access to legal assistance, and
• the opportunity to respond to information that undermines their claim for asylum.

But these efforts don’t just undermine fairness. They also contribute to slower processing.

Such measures tend to lead to more appeals, and more cases being overturned by courts and tribunals. This contributes to longer delays.

Our research into Australia’s now-abolished fast-track procedures demonstrates this. This policy was introduced by the Coalition government in 2014, with the aim of speeding up processing and reducing the backlog of asylum applications.

It included the creation of a new streamlined review process before the Immigration Assessment Authority. Applicants were generally not interviewed or allowed to put forward new information.

The resulting system was not only unfair; it was also excruciatingly slow.

Four in five cases were appealed to the court. About 37% of these were overturned. The delays created by increased litigation clearly counteracted any time saved.

One of the best ways to improve the efficiency of asylum processing is to ensure applicants can present their cases effectively from the outset.

2. Fund legal representation for those who can’t afford a lawyer

Research shows legal assistance increases efficiency.

Lawyers can help assist people to prepare and present their case properly, and ensure that they get a fair hearing (reducing the chance of a lengthy appeal).

Promisingly, in 2023 the federal government announced A$48 million in funding for legal services for people seeking asylum.

It’s crucial this funding is maintained, and is sufficient to meet demand.

3. Invest in decision-makers

Once a person lodges their claim for asylum, it’s first assessed by the Department of Home Affairs. If the application is denied, the applicant can seek review at the Administrative Review Tribunal, which reassesses the merits of the application.

If the tribunal rejects the claim, the court can conduct a limited review focusing only on whether the decision was lawfully made.

A fast process is only possible if we have enough of all these decision-makers across the system.

This requires investment in training and hiring suitably qualified decision-makers who are equipped to handle the volume and complexity of asylum claims.

This is underway. The federal government has invested $58 million in October 2023 towards hiring additional Administrative Review Tribunal members and Federal Circuit and Family Court judges for asylum cases. It’s also hiring more staff at the Department of Home Affairs.

Australia’s next government should consider taking a data-driven approach to calculate the decision-making capacity required for existing and future caseload.

4. Prioritise simple cases for faster processing

Not all asylum cases are equally complex; some can be resolved relatively quickly.

Australia needs a robust and transparent triaging system to identify and prioritise simpler cases for faster processing.

This would significantly improve overall efficiency and allow decision-makers to focus on more complex cases.

The Department of Home Affairs’ current approach to triaging is a “last in, first out” system that prioritises new asylum applications for rapid processing.

However, this leads to substantial unfairness for applicants who lodged their claims earlier, who may face long processing delays.

The department needs an approach to streaming based on case complexity, to ensure all cases are finalised as quickly as possible.

5. Better coordination across decision-making bodies

The various bodies involved in asylum processing – including the Administrative Review Tribunal, the Federal Circuit and Family Court and the Department of Home Affairs – need to coordinate to improve efficiency and cut delays.

Any government reforms aimed at increasing the efficiency of asylum procedures must be system-wide.

By taking a holistic view, we can ensure that increased efficiency at one stage does not inadvertently create bottlenecks or inefficiencies in another.

A fundamental shift

Overall, Australia needs a fundamental shift that recognises fairness contributes to, rather than detracts from efficiency.

That shift is essential for developing a fair and fast asylum process that will serve the best interests of applicants, the government and the Australian public.

Daniel Ghezelbash receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Robert Bosch Foundation. He is a board member of Refugee Advice and Casework Services, Wallumatta Legal, and the Access to Justice and Technology Network. He is also a Special Counsel at the National Justice Project.

Keyvan Dorostkar receives an Australian government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship.

Mia Bridle receives an Australian government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship.

– ref. 5 ways to tackle Australia’s backlog of asylum cases – https://theconversation.com/5-ways-to-tackle-australias-backlog-of-asylum-cases-254071

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

Every election cycle the media becomes infatuated, even if temporarily, with preference deals between parties. The 2025 election is no exception, with many media reports about preference “deals” being made.

However, it is important to remember that voters are not required to follow the how to vote cards of the parties they vote for, and only major party voters have a significant percentage who follow the cards.

Other than the Greens and One Nation, minor parties lack resources to put people at every polling place who will give voters how to vote cards. As a result, how to vote follow rates for most minor parties are low.

At the 2022 Victorian state election, for example, seven seats had preferences for all voters data entered into a computer system. The Poll Bludger said Sunday that in these seven seats, about 30% of Labor voters exactly followed their party’s how to vote card.

In seats where the Liberals were making an effort by staffing polling places, over 50% of their voters followed the card. But in Preston, a Labor vs Greens contest, only 29% of Liberals followed the card.

The major parties will usually be the final two candidates in a seat, so their preferences are not distributed.

Despite all this, there may be political consequences of preference recommendations.

At this election, Labor is recommending preferences to the Greens ahead of the Coalition in all seats except in the Victorian Labor-held seat of Macnamara (an “open” ticket without a recommendation between the Greens and Liberals owing to concerns about the Jewish vote in that seat).

The Coalition is recommending preferences to One Nation ahead of anyone else in 139 of the 147 seats One Nation is contesting.

Recommending preferences to the Greens may make Labor seem too left-wing to some voters, and recommending preferences to One Nation may make the Coalition seem too right-wing and pro-Trump. One Nation will recommend preferences to the Coalition ahead of Labor in all seats it contests, the same recommendation they used in 2022.

The Poll Bludger said the Greens will be recommending preferences to Labor in all seats at this election. Occasionally, the Greens issue open tickets. The difference is worth about 5% of the Greens vote, so if the Greens had 10% in a seat, Labor’s two-party vote would be 0.5 points higher with a Greens recommendation to preference Labor than otherwise.

Trumpet of Patriots will put the incumbent party last in seats they contest. The Poll Bludger said Clive Palmer’s previous United Australia Party did this in 2022. But in 2022, Labor had a higher share of UAP preferences in seats it held than in Coalition-held seats, the opposite of what would be expected if these recommendations had made a difference.

Trumpet of Patriots is only getting 1% or 2% in current national polls, so their how to vote preference recommendations are not worth worrying about.

In 2022, Greens preferences (that is, voters who put the Greens as 1 on their House of Representatives ballot) went to Labor over the Coalition by 86–14. One Nation preferences went to the Coalition over Labor by 64–36. These figures are national, and use the Labor vs Coalition two-party count in seats where one major party missed the final two.

Both the Greens and One Nation are using the same preference recommendations between Labor and the Coalition as in 2022, so their voters’ preferences won’t change because of recommendations.

Seat-specific recommendations

The Liberals are recommending preferences to teal independent Kate Hullett in the Western Australian Labor-held seat of Fremantle, after they put her behind Labor in the WA state seat of Fremantle at the March 8 state election. This will increase Hullett’s chance of defeating Labor.

If the final two in Macnamara are the Greens and the Liberals, The Poll Bludger said Labor’s decision to issue an open ticket will give the Liberals about 2% of the 10% swing they would need to gain Macnamara.

The Liberals will recommend preferences to Labor in the Tasmanian Labor-held seat of Franklin ahead of an anti-salmon farming independent. They will also recommend preferences to Labor ahead of Muslim Vote-backed independents in the NSW Labor-held seats of Watson and Blaxland. These recommendations will make it difficult for any of these three independents.

Adrian Beaumont 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.

– ref. Preference deals can decide the outcome of a seat in an election – but not always – https://theconversation.com/preference-deals-can-decide-the-outcome-of-a-seat-in-an-election-but-not-always-255005

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Hortle, Deputy Director, Tasmanian Policy Exchange, University of Tasmania

For each Australian federal election, there are two different ways you get to vote.

Whether you vote early, by post or on polling day on May 3, each eligible voter will be given two ballot papers: one for the House of Representatives (the “lower house”) and one for the Senate (the “upper house”). Each of these two ballots uses a slightly different system, so it’s worth understanding how your numbered boxes translate into real results.

Knowing how preferences work is key to making your vote count, before you get to enjoy your hard-earned democracy sausage.

The House of Representatives (lower house)

Australia is divided into 150 electorates, each of which is represented by one member in the House of Representatives. To elect them, we use a system called full preferential voting.

On your green lower house ballot paper, all the candidates will be listed in a random order. You write a “1” in the box beside the candidate who is your first choice. This is called your first preference. You then write a “2” beside your second-choice candidate (your “second preference”), and so on until every candidate has a number.

To make sure your vote counts, you need to number every box. If you skip a number, use the same number twice, or leave a box blank, your vote becomes informal and won’t count. So, it’s important to double-check. If you do make a mistake, don’t worry – you can just ask for a new ballot paper from a polling official.

Once voting closes, the counting part is where things get interesting.

First, officials from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) – an independent and impartial body – sort the ballot papers into piles according to each ballot paper’s first preference, then count them. If any candidate receives more than 50% of the votes, they win and are declared elected.

If no one gets over 50%, the candidate with the lowest number of first preferences is knocked out (the technical term is “excluded”). Their ballot papers are then “redistributed” to the second preference candidate marked. This continues – eliminating the lowest-polling candidates and redistributing their preferences – until someone crosses the 50% threshold. This preference distribution process helps ensure the winner has majority support.

But what does this look like? You can find out by numbering your preferences in the great farm animal election.

As you’ll see, your first pick may be knocked out during vote counting, but maybe your second or third preference will get across the line.

The Senate (Upper House)

There are 76 members of the Senate: 12 from each state and two from each territory. Voting for senators is a bit different from the lower house in that it is partial preferential, and you can vote either “above the line” or “below the line”.

Your white senate ballot paper will have several columns listing parties and groups. Party names appear above the thick black line, and individual candidates appear below it.

If you vote above the line, you must number at least six boxes. When it comes to counting the votes, your preferences will then be distributed to candidates in the party in the order that their party has listed them. Parties decide this order beforehand.

So, say you put a 1 next to the Liberal Party, which has three candidates, a 2 next to Labor, which also has three candidates, then number four more boxes. Your first three preferences would be for the three Liberal candidates, then your fourth to sixth preferences would be for the Labor candidates because you put them second. This then continues for each of the six boxes you numbered.

You can try voting above or below the line with this sample senate ballot. It will tell you to keep numbering boxes to ensure your vote is valid.

If you vote below the line, for individual candidates, you must number at least 12 boxes. But you can number all of them if you want – it can be satisfying to put someone last!

Just like in the House of Representatives, you put 1 beside your first choice, 2 beside your second, and so on. You don’t have to stay within the same column – you could have a Greens candidate as your first choice, a Liberal as your second, then another Greens candidate as your third, for example.

Because the upper house elects multiple candidates per state, using a combination of voting methods and a quota system, the Senate count is more complex.

One thing to be mindful of is the “exhausted” vote. If you only number the minimum (six above the line or 12 below) and all your preferred candidates are excluded, your vote can no longer be redistributed. But any of your preferences used to elect a candidate before that point still count.

Make your vote count

Australia’s voting system is designed to make sure your vote has an impact, even if your first-choice candidate doesn’t win. That’s why understanding how preferences flow is so important.

For those of us who have grown up here, it’s easy to think of voting as a chore rather than a privilege. But we’re so lucky to be able to go to a polling place without fearing violence or intimidation.

To be able to cast a vote in a system that – despite some flaws – is free and fair is a global rarity. So make sure you double-check your numbers, and think carefully about where your preferences are going – then enjoy that democracy sausage knowing you’ve made your vote count.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What is preferential voting and how does it work? Your guide to making your vote count – https://theconversation.com/what-is-preferential-voting-and-how-does-it-work-your-guide-to-making-your-vote-count-254286

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Mortimore, Lecturer, Griffith Business School, Griffith University

If elected, the Coalition has pledged to end Labor’s substantial tax break for new zero- or low-emissions vehicles.

This, combined with an earlier promise to roll back new fuel efficiency standards, would successfully slow the transition to hybrid and battery electric vehicles (EVs).

The Albanese government pitched these tax breaks as a way to make EVs cheaper to buy and more competitive with internal combustion engine cars. Since the tax break came in, EV popularity has surged. Almost 100,000 people have taken out a novated lease on an EV between mid-2022, when the scheme began, and February 2025.

The Coalition has been consistently critical of the tax breaks on cost grounds. The scheme has been far more popular than government forecasts envisaged, leading to concerns about a cost blowout. Rather than the A$55 million forecast for 2024-25, the scheme has cost ten times that – $560 million. EV buyers are much more likely to be wealthy, meaning the tax break has been snapped up by people who need it less. The policy is, however, encouraging car suppliers to import more affordable EVs.

These concerns don’t mean Labor’s policy is bad. Far from it – this tax break is currently the only policy working to drive down transport emissions, now the second-largest source of emissions in Australia. The Coalition has given no indication it would replace the EV tax break with other ways to cut transport emissions.

What is this tax break – and did it work?

In mid-2022, the Albanese government introduced a tax break to encourage uptake of electric vehicles. The measure initially covered hydrogen fuel-cell, battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, but plug-in hybrids are no longer eligible as of April 1.

The tax break works by giving EV buyers who are current employees a fringe benefits tax exemption for low- or zero-emissions vehicles both held and used for private use. The fringe benefits tax is a flat tax of 47% levied on the car benefit provided by the employer. For the exemption to apply, the retail price of the car has to be under the threshold for the luxury car tax of $91,387.

People in high incomes brackets often like to negotiate with their employer to have a car included as part of their salary package so they can reduce their taxable income. The fringe benefits tax is levied on these types of benefits.

The scheme works by exempting purchasers of new EVs from fringe benefits tax. A battery electric Hyundai Kona retailed for around $60,000 last year – 32% more in price than its internal combustion engine equivalent. The fringe benefits tax of around $11,700 annually ends up being larger because of the EV’s high sale price. Without this exemption, the tax acts as a major disincentive for the uptake of EVs.
By and large, electric vehicles cost significantly more than their traditional counterparts. This price gap is dropping as new manufacturers enter the market, but it’s still there. While EVs have lower fuel costs, the higher upfront cost has put off many prospective buyers. This is the issue Labor’s tax exemption was intended to fix.

Has the scheme worked? Overall, yes. In 2022, EVs accounted for just 3.3% of all new cars sold in Australia. By 2023, almost two-thirds of battery electric, vehicles were sold to private buyers, a 145% increase. And in 2024, the figure had almost tripled to 9.6%. Without this tax incentive, Australia’s uptake of EVs would most likely be much lower.

If a future Coalition government ended the tax break, Australia would return to the pre-2022 era, where fringe benefits tax acted as a significant disincentive for EVs.

The tax break isn’t perfect – but it’s better than nothing

Australia’s main power grid now runs on an average of 40% clean energy. As a result, emissions have been tracking downward in these sectors. But transport emissions are still rising. Transport is now Australia’s second-largest source of emissions – almost 100 million tonnes (Mt) out of our total emissions of 434 Mt. By 2030, transport is projected to be the largest source of domestic emissions.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations agreed at least 20% of light vehicles on their roads would be low- or zero-emissions by 2030. But Australia is lagging well behind the pack on the shift to cleaner transport.

At present, just 1% of Australia’s car fleet is electric. Even EVs make up close to 10% of new sales, changing the makeup of the entire fleet (16.8 million) will take years.

By contrast, almost 90% of new cars sold in Norway are electric, according to a 2024 report from the International Energy Agency. In China it’s just under 60%, Sweden it’s 60%, Netherlands 30%, the UK 25% and the United States 10%.

These countries have used a combination of tax incentives and fuel efficiency regulations to drive rapid uptake. While Labor has moved to introduce both of these, progress hasn’t been as fast.

Back to the fuel guzzlers?

Australians rely heavily on cars. But the long lack of fuel efficiency standards mean many models sold here emit much more than in other OECD countries – 150 grams per kilometre versus 107 across 29 European Union nations as of 2023. Put another way, a new car in Australia uses 40% more fuel than its equivalent in the EU. Many drivers prefer big cars, such as the top-selling Ford Ranger.

If the Coalition ends the tax break and pulls the teeth of new emissions standards, it would bring recent modest progress to a halt.

The Coalition has rightly pointed out the inequity of the tax break as it stands. My research has shown this could be fixed. Throwing the scheme out without proposing another way to cut transport emissions is disheartening.

Anna Mortimore receives funding from Reliable Affordable Clean Energy Cooperative Research Centre for 2030 (RACE for 2030).

– ref. Back to the fuel guzzlers? Coalition plans to end EV tax breaks would hobble the clean transport transition – https://theconversation.com/back-to-the-fuel-guzzlers-coalition-plans-to-end-ev-tax-breaks-would-hobble-the-clean-transport-transition-255211

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pi-Shen Seet, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Edith Cowan University

Once again, housing affordability is at the forefront of an Australian federal election.

Both major parties have put housing policies at the centre of their respective campaigns. But there are still concerns too little is being done to address supply.

One of the biggest hurdles is an ongoing shortage of skilled tradespeople, and difficulties attracting new workers. The construction industry accounts for 9% of Australia’s workforce. Yet an estimated 35% of workers lack formal qualifications.

On Wednesday, Labor announced an election promise to fast-track formal trade qualifications for about 6,000 experienced but unqualified tradies.

The Advanced Entry Trades Training program would start in 2026 and cost A$78 million.

This program should help address some of the skills shortages in the sector. But it will be a long time before these benefits begin flowing through the system. And Australia is still likely to fall short of the government’s ambitious new home targets.

Recognising skills we already have

The Advanced Entry Trades Training program is intended to partly bridge the gap in construction skills shortages through a process called “recognition of prior learning” – and by offering free training to fill any skill gaps.

In principle, recognition of prior learning allows individuals with substantial and relevant industry experience to attain formal qualifications without lengthy training programs.

A similar approach was adopted in the healthcare sector as an emergency response to the pandemic, to boost the number of qualified workers.

For the construction industry, it will encompass workers currently in the industry who have not completed an apprenticeship, as well as skilled migrants in Australia whose abilities remain unverified.

This process can improve pay and conditions for participants. But it can also potentially fast-track their entry into the qualified workforce, addressing immediate skills shortages.

Read more:
A grab bag of campaign housing policies. But will they fix the affordability crisis beyond the election?

Will it work?

Labor’s new initiative mirrors an existing program at the state level, the New South Wales government’s Trade Pathways for Experienced Workers Program.

According to Labor, this program saw 1,200 students earn their qualifications in an average time of seven months (as opposed to several years).

It’s important to note this includes trades from all sectors of the NSW economy. But it is much faster than the traditional process of skill recognition. The Parkinson Review of Australia’s migration system found this process can take up to 18 months for a skilled migrant and cost over $9,000.

Read more:
Australia has a new National Skills Agreement. What does this mean for vocational education?

Increased housing supply? Not soon

Combined with other initiatives such as incentive payments for construction apprentices, the new Advanced Entry Trades Training program should help address some skills shortages in the sector.

Australia’s peak construction industry body, Master Builders Australia, praised the proposal, citing its own analysis suggesting for every new qualified tradie, an extra 2.4 homes can be built.

Even with these initiatives, the sector will likely fall short of the 83,000 additional skilled tradespeople needed to meet the Albanese government’s target to build 1.2 million new homes over five years.

And it may mainly solve a categorisation issue. Currently, only about 80% of employers in the construction sector in Australia require all job applicants to hold a formal qualification.

Crucially, it doesn’t address the core problem of attracting higher numbers of suitable people to a very traditional industry and helping them finish their qualifications. Almost half of construction sector apprentices do not complete their training.

Other challenges

There are other challenges for recognition of prior learning schemes more broadly.

Research into recognition of prior learning for construction sector apprentices suggests some Australian employers and training providers may be averse to fast-tracking training. About 64% of assessed apprentices had prior experience and skills, but only 30% had their training shortened.

These issues are even more complex when considering accelerated pathways for skilled migrants from a range of countries. There are some significant, well-documented challenges in transferring or recognising vocational qualifications across international boundaries.

More to be done

The Advanced Entry Trades Training program may go some way to alleviating a skills shortage in construction. But it will only partially address the broader issues of supply.

Australia’s vocational education and training systems are complex, making it difficult to predict the outcomes.

The proposed program does not address the problem of rising construction material costs and shortages. This problem is worsened by the declining productivity of the housing construction sector, which has halved over the last 30 years.

Declining productivity isn’t just down to skilled labour shortages. It has also been attributed to other factors such as complex planning approvals, limited innovation, and a predominance of small firms.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Many experienced tradies don’t have formal qualifications. Could fast-tracked recognition ease the housing crisis? – https://theconversation.com/many-experienced-tradies-dont-have-formal-qualifications-could-fast-tracked-recognition-ease-the-housing-crisis-255108

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Meade, Adjunct Associate Professor, Centre for Applied Energy Economics and Policy Research, Griffith University

With ongoing cost of living pressures, the Australian and New Zealand supermarket sectors are attracting renewed political attention on both sides of the Tasman.

Allegations of price gouging have become a political issue in the Australian federal election. At the same time, the New Zealand government has announced that “all options” are on the table to address a lack of competition in the sector – including possible breakup of the existing players.

But it is not clear breaking up the supermarkets or other government interventions will improve the sector for shoppers and suppliers.

In 2022, I co-authored a government-commissioned analysis looking at whether New Zealand’s two main supermarket groups should be forced to sell some of their stores to create a third competing chain.

We found it was possible under some scenarios that breakup could benefit consumers. But key uncertainties and implementation risks meant consumers could lose overall.

A lot hinges on whether breakup causes supermarkets’ input costs to rise or product variety to fall. Even in more positive scenarios at least some consumers could be left worse off.

Watchdog concerns

Competition authorities – the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and New Zealand’s Commerce Commission – have conducted supermarket sector studies. They each expressed concern at significant barriers to entry and expansion in the sector and supermarkets’ resulting high levels of profitability.

This year, the ACCC concluded margins earned by Australia’s main supermarkets are among the highest of supermarket businesses in comparable countries. Similarly, in 2022 the Commerce Commission found New Zealand’s supermarkets were earning excess profits of around NZ$430m a year.

While high profits might mean that market power is being abused, it could also mean managers are doing a good job. Or have had a great run of luck. Alternative explanations for high profits would need to be ruled out before putting fingers on regulatory triggers.

Barriers to entry

The starting point is to acknowledge that high profits and prices go hand in hand with barriers to entry and challenges in achieving economies of scale.

In other words, some sectors are less competitive than others simply because a lack of demand or high costs make it unprofitable for additional competitors to either enter or remain in the market.

Countries like Australia and New Zealand, with low population densities and large service areas, face high costs of nationwide supply. They also face significant shipping distances from other countries. This limits the ability of overseas entrants using their existing buying and supply infrastructures.

That said, some barriers to entry might be artificial or caused by existing firms stifling new competitors.

Existing supermarkets in both countries have gained controlling stakes in the land needed to set up new supermarkets – something regulatory settings can prevent.

Another challenge for new chains is the process of getting planning and land use consents – something policymakers can address.

This points to key elements of a test for whether supermarkets are charging too much. One is a recognition that there can be natural reasons for limited competition, and unless technologies or consumer preferences change that will remain the case.

Another is a focus on the things that can be changed – whether at the firm or policy level – in a way that benefits consumers and suppliers. Finally, policymakers need to consider whether the benefits of implementing them outweigh the costs.

Testing the market

Building on work developed by Nobel economist Oliver Williamson, a “three-limb test” was used in the 2017 government-commissioned assessment of fuel pricing in New Zealand that I co-authored. The same could be used to assess the supermarket sector.

That three-limb test asks

• are there features of the existing industry structure and conduct giving cause for concern
• can those causes for concern be remedied
• would the benefits of remedying those concerns outweigh the costs of doing so?

If the answer to all three limbs is yes, that suggests suppliers are charging too much (or delivering too little) since there are practical ways to improve on the status quo.

A virtue of such a test is that is can be applied in any sector where there are high firm concentration, barriers to entry and high profit margins.

Importantly, the test looks beyond just what firms are (or are not) doing and asks whether policy and regulatory settings are ripe for improvements too.

The test is also pragmatic – it shouldn’t trigger changes unless they are clearly expected to do more good than harm. This is important if interventions are risky, costly or irreversible, especially in sectors that are important to all of us.

Politicians on both sides of the Tasman are floating the possibility of supermarket breakup, among other possible interventions. The three-limb test helps to identify whether any proposed interventions are a good idea and whether supermarket prices are higher than they need to be.

Richard Meade co-authored a 2022 study funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment examining the costs and benefits of breaking up New Zealand’s major supermarkets. The views expressed in this article are his own, and do not purport to represent those of any other party or organisation.

– ref. This may be as good as it gets: NZ and Australia face a complicated puzzle when it comes to supermarket prices – https://theconversation.com/this-may-be-as-good-as-it-gets-nz-and-australia-face-a-complicated-puzzle-when-it-comes-to-supermarket-prices-254987