File:Pollchart-tpp.svg

Summary
Chart of Australian two party preferred (2PP) polling by Roy Morgan, ACNielsen , Newspoll (as published in The Australian) and Galaxy , since the Australian federal election, 2004.

Two-party preferred polling works by distributing preferences of smaller parties, wiped out in the instant-runoff voting process, to establish ultimately which major party the voter will choose - Labor or Coalition (Liberal or National). A Labor 2PP of 51% would mean a coalition 2PP of 49%, or vice versa. Whichever party polls the higher two-party preferred figure at the election usually holds the majority of seats to form government.

Exceptions to this since 2PP was introduced in 1949 were in 1954, 1961, 1969, 1990, and 1998. The 1998 election saw the largest discrepancy, with the majority party gaining 49.02% of the 2PP vote.

The largest two-party preferred election result for the Liberal Party of Australia was at the 1966 federal election on 56.9 percent, while the largest two-party preferred election result for the Australian Labor Party was at the 1943 federal election on 58.2 percent, estimated by Malcolm Mackerras. Votes have only been fully distributed since the 1983 federal election, previous to this, limited distributions occurred to achieve an estimated two-party preferred result.

Outstanding polling requiring adding

 * see OzPolitics polling - direct link

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