More poll misery for the Coalition today courtesy of the latest Galaxy Research poll for the Courier-Mail. The survey covered 800 voters in four marginal Labor electorates – Clayfield, Hervey Bay, Broadwater and Aspley – and finds a collective two-party vote of 56-44 in Labor’s favour, compared with 53.4-46.6 at the 2004 election. This is not the only indication that I may have been unduly hasty in disputing the accuracy of Tuesday’s Newspoll results. In yesterday’s Courier Mail, Dennis Atkins reported that both Labor and Liberal sources agreed the Newspoll results were "very close" to their "tracking polling of key marginals":
It is now hard to see any Labor losses in Brisbane – although the always difficult seat of Clayfield could be a wildcard if there’s some late movement. And the Liberal by-election gains in Chatsworth and Redcliffe are in serious danger of going to the ALP: partly because the Beattie liberals who switched to Labor in 2001 and stayed in 2004 have resisted the urge to turn on Beattie and are now either angry with the Liberals for denying them an alternative or just appalled at how appalling the Opposition has been … Labor’s primary vote was in the high 40s late last week and it has now climbed above 50 per cent. Liberal tracking puts primary support at "around or just above 50".
Is it just me or are the Nationals running a much more cohesive, disciplined and on-message campaign than their pathetic Coalition partners? I would expect the Nationals to do much better than the Liberals in terms of an improvement in their vote, but that probably won’t help them pick up many seats. Perhaps Keppel, Gympie and Gavan (though the latter being a by-election gain doesn’t really count).
Can anyone tell me what Gary Morgan is on? I want some. He does a telephone poll of 300 people in Victoria after doing a face to face poll and gets two starkly different results. The face to face agrees with the Newspoll taken at about the same time which put Labor 10 percent in front two party preferred. Instead of believing the two poll results he wants to believe the telephone poll which has both Labor and the Opposition on 50 percent two party preferred, a result no other poll has come close to matching in recent times. Living in Victoria I’m not feeling this change in mood. Morgan also suggests the Queensland election is going to be close because he polled some 180 people. 180? Get off the grass Gary.
Hervey Bay would probjably be doing better because of a good local member, Broadwater might be a profile thing. Liddy Clark is probably quite popular in her electorate too – she may have been a gaffe-prone Minister but she is very charming and engaging in person. Aspley would, one imagines, return to the Liberals if they ran a decent campaign.
Good peice in the Oz’s Inquirer section today by Tony Koch on Springborg. In my opinion he paints Springborg accurately as a decent guy who would make a good leader if only he weren’t saddled with the idiots that are the Queensland Liberal Party. Here’s a quote worth considering:
‘So the Liberals effectively cut the ground from under Springborg’s feet, saddled him with a greenhorn coalition partner when he needed a seasoned veteran, and effectively threw up the white flag to Beattie.’
Exactly … the Liberals screwed it up and I don’t think there’d be a lot of tears in the National’s camp if Currumbin, Caloundra, Robina, Chatsworth, Redcliff fell by the wayside. It would mean the end of the Liberals in Queensland and a united Conservative party would be born within weeks. The Nationals would have the right to mould this party in an image of thier choosing and Caltibiano, Santoro et al would have to sit back and take it. This is the factions stuff-up. RIP Liberals.
A little puzzled by Morgan’s phone poll given that not long ago he was saying that you can’t get a good result from phone polls. Plus 300 is far too small for a smaple size and 180 is just a joke.
I and a friend once went to talk to Liddy Clark who had a ‘meet-the-voters’ stall near shops on Junction Road, in her Clayfield electorate.
She certainly seemed to know a lot of people in the area – we were constantly being interrupted by people talking to her – and I would agree that she is certainly engaging in person.
But still, for someone who made two very silly mistakes as Minister, in an already Liberal-heavy area, to even be in with a chance of winning shows how bad the Liberals are in Brisbane.
The trouble with Dave S’ take is that in the long run, it is Liberal – not National – voters who are moving into Qld. Howard has demonstrated that he would never tolerate a Nat takeover of or merger with the Qld Liberals. Don’t forget how much they hate each other.
Eventually the Libs are going to have to become senior partners in Qld, instead of being the Nats’ monkey-boys. That might take 20 more years of war to sort out.
I agree the Nats have looked far more competent and cohesive than the Liberals.
I wonder if this means the election will be similar to the Victorian 99 election, with much larger swings in rural areas than in the suburbs.
You might get a funny result on election night: Labor holds its marginals in Brisbane and wins back Chatsworth and Redcliffe, but loses some seats on the Gold/Sunshine coasts and in regional QLD – a majority of 15-20 seats in the end, I predict.
B.S. Fairman, try telling the West Australian (newspaper) that small sample sizes aren’t good. They dedicated *three pages* to a survey of just over 400 people in this weekend’s edition.
Evan’s conclusion on this seems reasonable. I don’t think the Libs will hold either of the 2005 by-election gains personally.