Pauline Hanson has rocketed past Anthony Albanese as Australians’ first choice to be prime minister, while One Nation has edged out Labor and now leads both major parties on primary vote.
And the Coalition has crashed to a record low primary vote of just 20 per cent in the latest Resolve Political Monitor, conducted for this masthead, while Labor recorded a primary vote of 28 per cent. For the first time, One Nation leads after a whopping 5-percentage-point rise in its primary vote to 29 per cent.
While both major parties saw their primary vote dip, the Coalition’s drop of 3 percentage points from last month is more significant as it is outside the poll’s margin of error. Labor’s score fell by just 1 point.
The Labor primary vote is the lowest the party has recorded since it’s 25 per cent result in February 2025, when the then Peter Dutton-led Coalition was riding high with a primary vote of 39 per cent before suffering a crushing reversal and defeat at the May election.
The latest findings come a month after Labor’s fifth federal budget was marked down by voters for breaking election promises not to touch tax breaks for negative gearing or capital gains tax, and to leave trusts alone.
Support for the changes in these three key budget areas has slumped in the past month and opposition to the changes has grown after a furious backlash from business groups and those able to use the tax breaks, suggesting Labor is struggling to explain the changes. However, more than a third of voters are yet to make up their minds on each of the measures.
The Resolve poll was conducted for this masthead from June 8 to 13 and surveyed 1801 voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 per cent.
For the first time, voters were given a choice of three candidates as preferred prime minister – Albanese, Hanson or Angus Taylor – and Hanson took first spot, with 33 per cent of voters nominating her as preferred prime minister while 29 per cent nominated Albanese and 22 per cent were undecided.
The results were dire for Liberal leader Taylor: 16 per cent of voters overall nominated him as their preferred PM. Even among Coalition voters, 20 per cent preferred Hanson and 47 per cent preferred Taylor.
Underscoring the wave of popularity the One Nation leader is surfing, Hanson edged out Albanese as preferred prime minister among people living in marginal seats, in the suburbs and the regions, while Albanese was more popular with independent, uncommitted and inner-city voters.
In the orthodox head-to-head preferred prime minister contest between Albanese and Taylor, the prime minister recorded a score of 31 per cent, up 1 point, while the opposition leader recorded a score of 32 per cent, down 1 point, and 36 per cent were undecided.
The poll’s findings underscore the extent to which Hanson and One Nation are winning supporters beyond the party’s historically older, whiter and male support base, with 29 per cent of people born in Australia backing One Nation and 28 per cent of Australians born overseas backing it.
Similarly, 31 per cent of Australians with an Anglo-Saxon background support the party and 24 per cent with a non-Anglo background support it, the survey found.
Resolve pollster Jim Reed said the results made clear that support for Hanson was growing and she now had a broad appeal to voters.
“We’ve already put to bed the idea that One Nation represents just a fragmentation of the right and that it attracts only older men; this tells us that they also appeal to non-white and immigrants too,” he said.
“It’s the drawbridge effect, where Australians born overseas are often the more vehemently opposed to increased immigration.”
On the two major party leaders’ performance, 35 per cent of voters said Albanese’s performance was good or very good, while 55 per cent said it was bad or very bad – a slight improvement on last month’s figures. Ten per cent were undecided.
Taylor’s total “good” score was 38 per cent, up 1 point on last month, while his total “bad” score was 32 per cent, up 3 points on last month, with 30 per cent undecided. Respondents were not asked to score Hanson’s performance in this way.
Amid ongoing backlash over the federal budget, the Resolve poll found support for ending the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount from July 2027 was 31 per cent, down 5 points in a month. Opposition to the change rose 10 percentage points to 31 per cent, while 38 per cent of respondents were undecided, down 4 points.
Support for restricting negative gearing to new properties fell 2 percentage points, within the margin of error, from 35 per cent to 33 per cent. Opposition rose 5 points from 21 per cent to 26 per cent, with 41 per cent of people undecided.
The decision to impose a minimum 30 per cent tax rate on trusts was the least popular of the three measures, with 29 per cent supporting the change, down from 34 per cent, 34 per cent opposing the change – up 11 percentage points in a month – and 36 per cent undecided, down 7 per cent.
Reed, the Resolve pollster, said Albanese’s Labor had “stuck its neck out twice, once on the Voice [to parliament] and once on these budget reforms, and in both cases the electorate has told them to pull it back in”.
“Albanese still commands the lower house with a huge majority, but it’s Hanson who is holding court. It seems we like our prime ministers to be men with white hair or women with red.”
Tackling the high cost of living remained Australians’ No.1 policy priority, nominated by 47 per cent – up 3 percentage points on last month. No other single issue entered double figures.
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James Massola is chief political commentator. He was previously national affairs editor and South-East Asia correspondent. He has won Quill and Kennedy awards and been a Walkley finalist. Connect securely on Signal @jamesmassola.01Connect via X or email.
