With less than two weeks to go now until the federal election, the polls continue to favour the government being returned.

Newspoll was steady at 52-48 to Labor, but primary vote changes indicated a gain for Labor as both leaders dropped on net approval. A Redbridge marginal seats poll had Labor gaining two points since the previous week for a 54.5-45.5 lead, a 3.5-point swing to Labor in those seats since the 2022 election.

A national Newspoll, conducted April 14-17 from a sample of 1,263, gave Labor a 52-48 lead, unchanged on the April 7-10 Newspoll. Primary votes were 35% Coalition (steady), 34% Labor (up one), 12% Greens (steady), 7% One Nation (down one) and 12% for all Others (steady).

In the last two Newspolls, Labor has been a little lucky to get a 52-48 lead as this would have been given by 2022 election preference flows, and Newspoll is making a pro-Coalition adjustment to One Nation preferences. This time the 2022 election flow method would give Labor about a 53-47 lead.

This Newspoll is the only new national poll since Friday's update. The fieldwork dates were nearly the same as for the Freshwater poll that had Labor ahead by just 50.3-49.7 (April 14-16 for Freshwater). Other polls indicate that Freshwater is likely the outlier. Here's the Labor two-party vote chart.

In-person early voting begins on Tuesday ahead of the May 3 election, so there isn't much time for the Coalition to turn around their deficit, if the polls are accurate.

Anthony Albanese's net approval in Newspoll was down five points to -9, with 52% dissatified and 43% satisfied. Peter Dutton's net approval was down three points to -22, a record low for him. Albanese led Dutton as better PM by 52-36 (49-38 previously). This is Albanese's biggest lead since May 2024.

Here's the graph of Albanese's net approval in Newspoll this term. The plus signs are data points and a smoothed line has been fitted.

Albanese and Labor were preferred to Dutton and the Coalition on helping with the cost of living by 31-28. Labor also led on dealing with uncertainty caused by Donald Trump (39-32), lowering taxes (33-26) and helping Australians buy their first home (29-24). The Coalition led on growing our economy by 34-29.

For so long, it had appeared that the cost of living issue would sink Labor at this election, so this result will please Labor.

A poll of 20 marginal seats by Redbridge and Accent Research for the News Corp tabloids was conducted April 9-15 from a sample of 1,000. It gave Labor a 54.5-45.5 lead, a two-point gain for Labor since the April 4-9 marginal seats poll. Primary votes were 35% Labor (steady), 34% Coalition (down two), 14% Greens (up two) and 17% for all Others (steady).

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.

Albanese's net favourability improved three points since last week to -5, while Dutton's slumped six points to -22. By 36-26, voters thought Albanese and Labor had better election promises for them than Dutton and the Coalition.

By 56-13, voters agreed with Labor's attack line that Dutton's nuclear plan will cost $600 billion, and he will need to make cuts to pay for it. By 42-16, voters agreed with the Coalition's attack line that this is the highest spending government in the past 40 years.

I previously covered the April 9-13 Resolve poll for Nine newspapers that gave Labor a 53.5-46.5 lead. Asked their biggest concerns about voting Labor, 47% said cost of living (down five since February), 36% economic management (down nine), 31% lack of progress in their first term (steady), 27% union ties (up two) and 24% Albanese's personality (down six).

Asked their biggest concerns about voting for the Coalition, 45% said Dutton's personality (up ten), 36% lack of policy detail (up eight), 34% that the Coalition would follow Donald Trump's example (up six), 32% the performance of the Scott Morrison government (up four) and 31% their nuclear power plan (up five).

The February Resolve poll was the 55-45 to Coalition outlier, so responses in the prior survey were probably too Coalition-friendly.

The Poll Bludger reported Saturday that a seat poll of Wentworth, which teal Allegra Spender holds by a 55.9-44.1 margin over the Liberals after a redistribution, gave the Liberals a 47-28 primary vote lead over Spender with 15% for Labor and 10% for the Greens. This poll was taken by the right-wing pollster Compass.

I covered the April 28 Canadian election for The Poll Bludger on Saturday. The centre-left governing Liberals are down slightly since my previous Poll Bludger Canadian article on April 10, but are still likely to win a parliamentary majority. Debates between four party leaders occurred Wednesday (in French) and Thursday (in English), and we're still waiting for post-debate polls.

United Kingdom local elections and a parliamentary byelection will occur on May 1. Current national polls imply that the far-right Reform will gain massively, with the Conservatives and Labour both slumping. Two seat polls give Reform a narrow lead over Labour for the parliamentary byelection in a safe Labour seat.