Victorian election: four months out
Ben Carroll takes over as One Nation draws level with both major parties, four months from polling day
Victoria goes to the polls in late November, and Labor goes with a new leader. Jacinta Allan has resigned after losing the support of the caucus, and Deputy Premier Ben Carroll is likely to become Victoria’s 50th premier. The brief covers what the change means for the campaign, profiles Carroll, and works through the polls, the seats and the geography of the contest.
With Labor, the Coalition and One Nation roughly tied in the polls, the likeliest result is a parliament of three near-equal blocs, any two of which would make a majority. One Nation polls best in the regions and on Melbourne’s fringes, the corridor that takes in Carroll’s own seat of Niddrie, while the Liberals threaten Labor in seats such as Glen Waverley, Ashwood, Box Hill and Bentleigh.
The campaign can still shift the dial. Labor wants voters to see the Coalition and One Nation as a package; a third Labor premier in three years hands the Coalition a chaos-and-division counterattack. In the upper house, abolishing group voting tickets, if the change of leader doesn’t derail it, would likely leave only Labor, the Coalition, One Nation and the Greens winning seats.
The full report · 8 pages, with every chart.
Get the full reportWhat we found
1. Labor’s new premier comes from where the swing will bite hardest
Ben Carroll, a Right-faction MP for Niddrie in Melbourne’s outer north-west, takes over in exactly the territory where One Nation is surging. New leaders installed mid-term reliably get a poll bump, and Labor’s primary vote in the mid-to-high 20s has room to recover. But the bump Rudd got after rolling Gillard in 2013 evaporated within weeks once the campaign started.
2. One Nation has drawn level with Labor and the Coalition
Most recent polls have Labor, the Coalition and One Nation roughly tied in the mid-to-high 20s, and several have had two or all three within 2% of each other. The two most recent Redbridge polls put One Nation in the lead. All published polling predates the leadership change.
3. Preference flows could decide who wins the most seats
A Redbridge MRP poll commissioned by Victorian Trades Hall, in which Liberal and One Nation voters favoured Labor over each other, gave 38 Coalition, 35 Labor and 12 One Nation seats. The same primary votes with preference flows from recent elections gave One Nation 31 seats, with Labor a close third. Whether the Liberals put One Nation ahead of Labor on their how-to-vote cards, as they did in South Australia, is a major decision still to come.
4. Victoria may elect a parliament of ‘three elevens’
Current polling points to Labor, the Liberals (with what remains of the Nationals) and One Nation roughly equal in size, so that any two would make a majority: right-leaning, but not a Coalition majority. A minority government, by formal agreement or because the others decline to vote no confidence, is more likely than a formal coalition. The brief draws on Tasmania’s 2024–25 parliament and the 1903 federal election, which Alfred Deakin likened to playing cricket with ‘three elevens’.
What’s in the report
- Five things to watch after the change of premier
- A profile of Ben Carroll: background, career, policy positions and faction
- How the polls might turn into seats, and where One Nation is strongest
- Minority government scenarios and the Legislative Council
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