The latest RedBridge Research survey isn’t just another poll. It’s a reminder of the strange place Australian politics now finds itself in. 

Labor is weakening, the Coalition is still badly damaged, and One Nation is polling at levels that would once have been dismissed as fanciful. 

And yet, the overall result still points to Labor winning comfortably. Which tells us something important.

The electorate is unhappy with Labor, but not convinced by the alternatives. Voters are drifting away from the major parties, but not towards a coherent new political arrangement that threatens the government. 

It's not voter realignment so much as fragmentation - disillusionment looking for somewhere to land.

The headline figures are striking: Labor’s primary vote is down to 31 per cent, having fallen from 34 per cent in January and 38 per cent in November last year. 

The Coalition has recovered slightly, up to 22 per cent after languishing in the high teens. One Nation sits at 27 per cent, down two points from its March polling, but still at a remarkable level for a minor party. The Greens are steady on 13 per cent, with entrenched minority support on the ideological left. Other parties and independents are on seven per cent in total, a figure heavily dominated by teals.

On the surface, Labor should perhaps be a little worried. Its primary vote is drifting downwards from a post-election surge off the back of a comfortable election victory. 

Yet Labor still leads the Coalition 54 to 46 per cent according to the two-party vote. Calculated against One Nation, Labor’s lead slightly extends to 55 to 45.

Labor doesn’t need to be popular to succeed when its opponents are fractured. It can lose primary support and still stay comfortably ahead courtesy of preferential voting.

One Nation is the most interesting feature of this poll. Its surge may have stalled, but only after reaching the high 20s. The RedBridge report notes that One Nation polled 26 per cent in January, 28 in February, 29 in March, and now 27 in April. That suggests it may be struggling to break through the 30 per cent barrier. But this is hardly a comfort for the major parties. A party once treated as a protest vehicle is now polling within range of Labor and ahead of the Coalition, and that support appears to be entrenched despite recent controversies.

The real question is whether One Nation is now close to its ceiling. Its support has consolidated, but its unfavourables remain substantial, which is a barrier to government, including for the Liberals if they ever teamed up with the strengthened minor party.

Pauline Hanson has the highest favourability of any political leader tested, at 40 per cent, but she also has a 41 per cent unfavourable rating. Her net rating is almost even, at minus one. That is a better position than many would have expected, but it still allows her to be painted as a polarising figure with limitations.

The RedBridge poll’s preference data also shows how much the right of politics has changed. In a Labor versus One Nation contest, 69 per cent of Coalition preferences flow to One Nation over Labor. Conversely, in a Labor versus Coalition contest, 75 per cent of One Nation voters flow back to the Coalition. The Coalition can’t rely on One Nation preferences the way Labor can rely on Green preferences. It also appears that a sizeable number of moderate Liberal voters prefer Labor to One Nation when allocating preferences.

The demographic data from the polling is especially brutal for the Coalition. Among Gen Z voters, the Coalition’s primary vote is just 11 per cent. Even One Nation is higher, on 15. The Greens are on 37 per cent amongst Gen Z voters. Among Millennials, the Coalition is also behind One Nation, 20 to 23.

Parties can recover from bad polls, but it is much harder to recover from generational estrangement like that. If younger voters come to see the Coalition as irrelevant, not merely unattractive, the problem becomes structural for the traditional major party on the right.

The urban numbers aren’t much better. The Coalition’s primary vote remains weak in both inner metropolitan and outer metropolitan seats. Labor leads the Coalition in 62 to 38 per cent in inner suburban seats and 55 to 45 per cent in outer suburban seats, on two-party preferred terms. 

That makes a conventional Coalition path back to government very difficult to chart. It can’t simply pile up votes in rural and provincial areas while remaining uncompetitive across too much of metropolitan Australia where the overwhelming majority of voters live.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor’s numbers also underline the problem on the right of politics. His net favourability rating is only minus two, which is not terrible, but 22 per cent of voters say they haven’t even heard of him. Amongst very soft voters (the ones more open to shifting their vote), only six per cent nominate him as preferred PM.

Overall, Albo leads as preferred PM on 33 per cent, Hanson is on 23, and Taylor is on just 14 per cent, unchanged results from the March RedBridge poll, which suggests Taylor isn’t building personal support as he promised in his leadership pitch.

Albo, by contrast, had a better month personally. His net favourability improved eight points, from minus 17 to minus nine. Although it needs to be noted that those results are still worse than both Taylor's and Hanson's, an indication that incumbency can built resentment amongst voters.

The PM’s favourable rating rose to 34 per cent, while his unfavourables fell to 43. These are not strong numbers in absolute terms either, but politics is comparative. Albo looks less damaged than he did a month earlier, and he remains the preferred PM by a clear margin.

The issues data is probably the most politically telling part of the RedBridge poll. Cost of living remains the dominant issue for voters. Forty-three per cent of voters ranked it as their number one concern, and 76 per cent placed it in their top three. Housing affordability and healthcare follow as second and third. These are the bread and butter political issues that often decide elections, and Labor still leads on all three, despite voters' doubts about their competence.

On cost of living, Labor is seen as best to manage the issue by 23 per cent of those polled, ahead of the Coalition on 20 and One Nation on 17 per cent. On housing affordability, Labor leads on 20, with the Coalition on 17 and One Nation on 16. On healthcare, Labor is stronger, leading with 28 per cent to the Coalition’s 18 and One Nation’s 13.

Labor’s lead on issues reflects its two party lead despite a weakening primary vote. Voters may be frustrated with the government, but on the most important issues they have not decisively shifted trust to the opposition or One Nation. The Coalition leads only on economic management, narrowly, by 28 per cent to Labor’s 25. The old Coalition brand advantage on the economy is no longer as commanding as it once was.

One Nation leads on immigration and crime, which is unsurprising. But even on these measures there are signs of movement. Immigration has slipped in salience, down to 26 per cent of voters placing it in their top three, and One Nation’s lead as the best party to manage it has fallen five points simultaneously with its slide in importance. Crime and public safety, meanwhile, has risen to 29 per cent as a top three issue, overtaking immigration. One Nation still leads on crime, but only narrowly: 21 per cent to the Coalition’s 20 and Labor’s 19 respectively.

Voters are anxious, but their anxieties are clearly scattered across issues. The public isn’t rallying behind a single opposition story. It is expressing pressure from multiple directions, which helps explain why the incumbent can be unpopular yet continue to rank as the preferred managers. Better the devil you know.

That is the broader lesson of the RedBridge poll. The old major party system continues to decay, but the alternatives aren’t producing a stable replacement. Labor is governing with a shrinking primary vote, the Coalition is trying to recover from a historically weak position. One Nation has become a vehicle for people’s anger, especially among older, regional and less formally educated voters, but may have hit its ceiling of support. The Greens meanwhile remain strong amongst younger voters but are not broad enough to dominate the national political showdown. Because their preferences overwhelmingly flow to Labor, they help keep Labor in power.

So Labor survives, not because it is loved, nor because the electorate is content. It survives (and even thrives) because the opposition is split, the Coalition is trying to rebuild, and One Nation’s rise frightens as many voters as it attracts, capping its potential.

Australian politics continues to splinter, and for now at least, that’s to Labor’s electoral advantage.