Get Shortened

You'll get politics from me here. Includes number crunching and spillage if anyone loses their (intellectual) way

[Kos Samaras @KosSamaras]

Australian politics is no longer a contest between two parties, and our polls can no longer be read as though it is. The addiction to interpreting polls via a two party system lens has created or should I say, triggered, a new generation of anti intellectuals, otherwise known as poll deniers.

It has now been widely reported across numerous polls, including our own RedBridge Accent poll published in the Australian Financial Review that One Nation leads on the primary vote. That does not mean Pauline Hanson can become PM.

Our country is transitioning into a multi party system and hence, the conventional ways of reading polls can be miss-leading and at times, lacking nuance. And nuance is the key word here because it matters a lot more in 2026.

In a multi party landscape, a national primary vote and a two party preferred figure tells you almost nothing about where seats fall. This is precisely what our recent MRP was designed to illuminate…..what the electorate actually looks like once you stop forcing it into a two horse race, with only two riders.

This is how to read polls.

Firstly, polls measure electoral sentiment now, today, this week. They are not a crystal ball, revealing an electoral result in 2028.

One Nation is dominating the regions. Its support concentrates among older, trades-qualified communities, people who built their working lives around skilled manual labour and critically among those now experiencing financial stress. It also polls strongly across a band of peri-urban suburbs, such as Camden, Melton, Ipswich, where that financial pressure is equally acute: mortgage-belt households, long commutes, the sense that the cost of simply breaking even at the end of the week, does require the shopping trolley to be at times, half full.

Labor, by contrast, holds up well in most urban settings, particularly in electorates with larger numbers of younger voters and more diverse communities. The picture here is almost a demographic mirror image: where One Nation draws support from older, financially squeezed, less diverse communities, Labor’s electoral coalition runs through the younger, the more educated, and the more multicultural parts of the country. None of this rules out some of those voters backing One Nation, but the numbers there are far smaller, and the broader trend matters here.

The real big insight this week is the huge existential problem facing the Coalition. Post Budget, they continue to lose support, across all published polls. Having already surrendered significant ground in a number of high-wealth electorates to the Teals, the kind of blue-ribbon seats that were once safe, it has suffered even steeper attrition across its regional base, where One Nation is now eating directly into its vote. It is being pulled apart from every direction at once: bled at the top by voters who have drifted to the centre, and hollowed out at the bottom by voters defecting to its right. And it is compounding the damage itself, pushing diverse communities further away with an anti-immigration narrative, closing the door firmly shut from diverse Australia. The Coalition cannot survive by alienating urban Australia while simultaneously losing vast stretches of regional Australia.

[Dr Monique Ryan MP @Mon4Kooyong]

Unlike other AUKUS signatories, Australia hasn’t undergone a transparent review of its obligations under AUKUS. We are cutting essential services in other sectors whilst paying more and more to extend the life of outdated hardware, all while awaiting submarines that might never arrive.
At what point will the government recognise that an independent review is necessary?
https://t.co/RFHtTBoXhf

[BBC News (UK) @BBCNews]

Plans for Australia's first Trump Tower scrapped due to 'toxic' brand, developer says https://t.co/OOB6CLMELs

[BladeoftheSun @BladeoftheS]

There is no 'severe form' of the Andes Hantavirus.

It has a 30-40% fatality rate, and like Ebola which its symptoms are almost identical to it leaves almost everyone who 'survive' it severely disabled and most will die within 5 years.

It is ALWAYS extremely severe.

[Outbreak Updates @outbreakupdates]

Italy now has exposed contacts under precautionary 45-day quarantine spread across Calabria, Campania, Tuscany, and Veneto.

This outbreak has turned into a continent-wide surveillance operation.

[Dr Monique Ryan MP @Mon4Kooyong]

I recently surveyed the Kooyong community regarding property tax incentives; the results were conclusive. 73% of the over 900 respondents backed changes to the capital gains tax discount; even more (85%) endorsed changes to negative gearing.

Support for limiting the capital gains tax discount was three times stronger than keeping it as it is.

The strongest concerns within our community were intergenerational inequity, housing affordability, and housing supply.

These are the challenges the government must address in tomorrow's Budget.
https://t.co/p7N1Z0FN5F

[Kos Samaras @KosSamaras]

My Fin Review Op-ed tonight on the Budget.

Tonight Labor chose a side…well, a generation to be honest.

Three reforms serious economists called politically impossible for twenty years, negative gearing, capital gains, family trusts, landed in one night.

They landed for a reason. They landed for the seven thousand additional Millennial (migrant enrolments) and Gen Z voters who’ll be on the electoral roll by the next election, only one in five of whom consider themselves Coalition voters on a good day, with the sun shining….I am being very kind. Half the electoral roll will be made of these generations in 2028 and Labor’s current polling 2PP is close to 65% across both.

This is Labor’s praetorian guard. They don’t believe in five-dollar tax cuts dressed up as relief. They don’t believe in energy rebates. They don’t believe in announcements that end with “more help on the way.” They’ve sat through a decade of that and read it, correctly, as window dressing serious and complex problems.

What they want is structural reform on the issues that have shaped their adult lives. Housing, first. Tax, second. They are not waiting for a miracle. They are waiting for evidence that the work has actually begun and that someone is in their corner. Someone willing to rebuild the architecture in their favour - it will take time.

Tonight, for the first time in three decades, it touched the architecture.

The pre-budget ads on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube Shorts told you who this budget was for before Chalmers said a word. No national-interest dressing. He went directly to the bloc.

Link below.

[Outbreak Updates @outbreakupdates]

Staff at a Dutch hospital that treated a patient infected with hantavirus have been placed in quarantine after several procedural errors. (AFP)

[CAMERONWILSON @cameronwilson]

I've started as the ABC’s national AI tech reporter, after 5 unreal years at Crikey.

AI is one of the biggest stories of our time. It's ripe for critical, nuanced reporting about what it means for us in Australia.

Got a story about Aussies and AI? [email protected]

[Kos Samaras @KosSamaras]

Farrer By-election.

In 2025, urban Australians showed the Liberal Party the door. Tonight, regional Australians are doing the same. The campaign they ran in this seat was one of the worst I have ever seen, negative, hopeless, and entirely about what Canberra thinks. No hope. It reinforced everything voters have come to despise about this party.

One Nation is clearly now the preferred party of small town Australia. Labor the preferred party of big city Australia. Bread crumbs left for what is left of Menzies’ party and yes, the Nationals.

[Antony Green - elections @AntonyGreenElec]

#farrer 81 of 95 counting centres reported
PartyCode, First pref %, (matched PP change in %)
ONP 42.0 (+34.7)
IND 25.9 (+7.3)
LIB 11.5 (-32.4)
OTH 11.0 (-19.3)
NAT 9.6 (+9.6)
Full results at https://t.co/gyuAhVfY0R #auspol

[AusPoll @AusPoll6]

🚨 NEW: Federal voting intention

🟥 ALP: 30% (+3)
🟧 ONP: 24% (-3)
🟦 L/NP: 21% (+1)
🟩 GRN: 14% (-)
⬜️ IND: 5% (-)
⬛️ OTH: 6% (-1)

Two-party-preferred
🟥 ALP: 54% (+1)
🟦 L/NP: 46% (-1)

ALP vs ONP
🟥 ALP: 57% (+5)
🟧 ONP: 43% (-5)

YouGov | 28 Apr-5 May | n=1500 | +/- 14-21 Apr

[Anthony Klan @Anthony_Klan]

Very interesting: Guardian Australia has more online readers than SMH.
The New York Times, the BBC — and the AFL’s news website — all have more readers than any News Corp paper. Its most read, The Australian, is now swamped - in Australia - by the BBC website, by a massive 53%.

[Reuters @Reuters]

Australia and Japan signed contracts launching a $7 billion deal to supply Australia with warships, Tokyo's most consequential military sale since ending a military export ban in 2014 https://t.co/Sv7BiYJXJ6

[Adrian Esterman | Epidemiology @profesterman]

Only 13% of Australians aged 75+ are up to date with their COVID booster. This is outrageous. Why aren't Commonwealth and State health authorities taking action?

[New Direction AFRICA @Its_ereko]

🚨🇧🇷🇪🇸 THE WORLD IS MOVING ON — WITH OR WITHOUT THE US.

Brazil and Spain just hugged it out. Literally.

Lula arrives in Barcelona. Sánchez greets him personally. No lecture. No sanctions. No "you're with us or against us."

This isn't just a visit. It's the first Brazil-Spain bilateral summit. Followed by a Global Progressive Mobilisation.

Translation: Major powers are building new tables. And Washington isn't sitting at them.

🌍 The new rules:

· No dollar shaming
· No regime change demands
· No "our way or the highway"

People are tired. Tired of coups disguised as freedom. Tired of sanctions that starve children. Tired of empires posing as democracies.

The Global South + Europe (the non-puppet parts) are rebranding international relations.

The future won't be led by one cop. It'll be built by many partners.

[Scott Phillips @TMFScottP]

A reminder of the scale and benefit of Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund, which Australia should copy.

"...the government [draws down] only its expected real return..."

"...making up a quarter of Norway's budget..."

"...steady stream of income for when oil and gas run out..."

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Sweden is committing more than €100 million to a sweeping classroom overhaul: replacing tablets and screens with traditional printed textbooks to help reverse falling student performance and sharpen focus.

After more than a decade of embracing digital-first education, Swedish authorities are now pivoting back to paper-based learning. Official data and recent studies cited by the Ministry of Education show that prolonged screen use in class has been linked to shorter attention spans, weaker reading comprehension, and reduced critical-thinking abilities.

Research consistently finds that reading on illuminated screens requires greater mental effort and invites more distractions compared to the calm, linear experience of physical books—factors believed to have contributed to declining academic outcomes in recent years.

Under the new plan, every student will receive printed textbooks for all core subjects, restoring books as the central learning tool. Digital devices and online resources will remain available as supportive tools, but they will no longer dominate daily instruction.

This bold €100+ million investment signals Sweden’s leadership in rethinking the role of technology in education. It underscores a broader, growing recognition worldwide: while screens provide speed and access, the hands-on, distraction-free engagement of physical books supports deeper concentration, stronger memory retention, and more effective long-term learning.

By choosing paper over pixels, Sweden is charting a path toward a more balanced, evidence-informed classroom future—one that puts proven pedagogical principles ahead of unchecked digital trends.

[Denis - The COVID info guy - @BigBadDenis]

I developed Long COVID while practicing medicine. The system had no place for me

"6 years later, COVID-19 continues spreading, killing, and disabling people, but many of my colleagues ignore it. Last December, a colleague said, “We can’t keep doing this. COVID is basically over”

[UNICEF @UNICEF]

UNICEF is outraged by the killing of two drivers of trucks contracted by UNICEF to provide clean water to families in the Gaza Strip.

The victims were killed by Israeli fire in an incident that took place early this morning at the Mansoura water filling point in northern Gaza. UNICEF extends our condolences to the families of the men killed.

Full statement: https://t.co/gFQLWpCcaP