Inside Story

1 week ago | insidestory.org.au | Peter Brent

For once, the superlatives apply. It was a “shock”; it’s “stunning.” No one expected this. At time of writing, across the 111 electorates with (incomplete) two-party-preferred counts, the Australian Electoral Commission has Labor on 54.8 per cent. The 111 swings range from a 15.1 per cent swing to Labor in Braddon (Tasmania) to 11.1 per cent to the Coalition in Bendigo (Victoria).

1 week ago | insidestory.org.au | Peter Brent

We are in the twilight of election campaign 2025 and betting markets, those distillers of expectations, are giving Labor around a 90 per cent chance of retaining government. The final polls are averaging roughly 52.5 per cent for Labor after preferences, which (as it happens) is what the most recent Newspoll says. The Coalition–News Corp tag team is mounting a last-minute scare campaign about a re-elected Labor government holding another Voice referendum.

2 weeks ago | insidestory.org.au | Peter Brent

As we approach the finish line, talk has turned to preferences, and the methods by which pollsters determine their two-party-preferred figures. It’s an increasingly important topic because combined the major-party primary vote continue to decline, with most pollsters suggesting it will be even lower this time than 2022’s postwar record of 68.3 per cent.

3 weeks ago | insidestory.org.au | Peter Brent

Early voting has commenced, and by the end of the second day around 1.1 million Australian had already pre-polled. Others would have already sent in a postal vote. With the electoral roll at a touch over eighteen million and official turnout likely to be around 90 per cent, give or take, we’ll probably end up with sixteen million votes, or maybe a few more. At the 2022 election, for the first time, most people had voted by the time the day arrived; that looks likely to happen again.

4 weeks ago | insidestory.org.au | Noah Smith

The Trump administration often touts tariffs as a way of exchanging short-term pain for long-term gain. Yes, there will be disruption in the short term, they argue, but once manufacturing returns to American shores and trade deficits disappear, prosperity will be supercharged. That was always incredibly unlikely to be true. If it were, we’d probably see stockmarkets up since Trump’s election instead of down, since stockmarkets are forward-looking.