If there is any substance to the notion that the Coalition has staged a late fightback, Gary Morgan will emerge from an election with bragging rights for the first time in many a long year. What is most remarkable about yesterday’s Roy Morgan poll is how very different it is from every other Morgan Queensland poll of the past two terms. The Labor primary vote of 45 per cent is 4 per cent lower than their previous worst Morgan result since the 2001 election, while the Coalition’s 39 per cent is 3 per cent higher than their previous best. However, the results are not the only thing that distinguishes this survey from its predecessors. Firstly, the sample of 604 compares with the 1,500 normally polled by Morgan; secondly, the survey was conducted by phone rather than the usual face-to-face. Gary Morgan himself remains a vocal critic of phone polling, but nonetheless displayed characteristic confidence in his figures when speaking with Madonna King on ABC Radio yesterday.
Newspoll on the other hand has produced identical primary vote figures to those published yesterday by Galaxy Research, an agency founded by former Newspoll general manager David Briggs. Both have Labor on 48 per cent and the Coalition on 38 per cent, although Newspoll produced a two-party result of 55-45 compared with Galaxy’s 56.5-43.5. Newspoll provides at least some support for the idea of a Coalition recovery since last week, when it recorded Labor’s primary vote at 52 per cent. The following chart shows the Labor primary vote in the main agencies’ polls over the past two months; note that this only amounts to two polls in Morgan’s case.
One last poll before closing: yesterday’s Gold Coast Bulletin featured a survey by Thomas Direct of 433 voters in Currumbin. This is the paper’s second such poll of the campaign, the other being published two weeks ago. At the time I was unable to get hold of a detailed breakdown of the results, so here are figures from both polls after distribution of the undecided:
| CURRUMBIN | 26/8 | 8/9 |
| Jann Stuckey (Liberal) | 48 | 49 |
| Michael Riordan (Labor) | 44 | 44 |
| Inge Light (Greens) | 8 | 7 |
Firstly… happy birthday to Bob Quinn who turns 59 today. [The random information you pick up from the ABC Election website.]
This Election should be interesting to watch to see how much momentum, if any, the Coalition can pick up in chances of winning for an election to be held in 2009. What should also be interesting for discussion… raised by Mumble… is the question if voters are more concerned with years or with terms. The NSW Labor Govt. has served 8 years when it went to the 2003 Election but had only done 2 terms. The QLD Labor Govt. has done 8 years but with 3 terms. It’s interesting to note the papers were more pushing the fac that Beattie was seeking re-election for another term and not another 3 years. This has lead to much speculation on the forum of the ABC Election website of the rise of ‘Premier’ Bligh.
Interesting to note, that with all the leadership issues being focused on, no-one has questioned how long Beattie will serve in this term. Perhaps he will bow out at the illustrious 10 year mark and let Anna have a year to get comfortable with things.
On anther note, with many predictions that the Liberals will come a senior partner of the Coalition within 15-20years… I don’t think that will happen for quite some time yet. Brucie will be gone and factional infighting will plague them [and the severity of it will be influenced by the election result]. Nationals will remain dominate in 2009 and the following election. However, the election after that should be interesting to see if the Liberals have finally got their act together. And probably by then – they could try going in all seats all out by themselves. Depends on the egos at the time… which could be interesting to watch. 😛
Good luck with the Live Blogging tonight.
Actually, there was a bit of discussion of this at the begining of the campaign:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/08/25/the-transformation-of-anna-bligh/
Beattie came out a bit later on with lines very similar to Howard’s = “at the pleasure of the party” etc. But I expect that you’re right and he’ll go during this term.
If anyone’s interested in another take, Graham Young and I will be at the tally room tonight and will be live blogging the count at Currumbin2Cook:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/09/09/live-blogging-the-queensland-election/
cheers mark for that – I admit I occasionally looked at that site… more into this one and the abc election myself….
Should be an interesting night… fun packed action with all your favourite heros…. Slippery Pete, Bumbling Brucie and Bumpkin Borg…. pity there’s no guest star appearance from Promiscous Pauline. I can’t wait to check out the live blog tonight – Will you always do a good job mate! Never a disappointment. [Pity I will be out transversing the City at the time.]
It’s an interesting question, Politics_Obsessed about when the Libs will get more seats than the Nats. The biggest problem they have is while they’re right about the demographics moving their way, they have to work out how to start actually winning seats!
The Libs won’t win seats until they become the senior Coalition partner, and they won’t become the senior Coalition partner until they win seats. Hence the looming landslide for a government 57 per cent of voters think doesn’t deserve to win.
Yes, it’s been a very weird election. We need to look beyond the demographics to look at the Libs’ problems internally – they’re behaving very much like the state ALP in the 70s and early 80s – fighting over the spoils of defeat, terminally factionalised, without much real community or business support, and without a coherent policy approach.
Update: Our tips on which seats to watch have now been posted.
Can anyone confirm if the ALP is preferencing in Noosa?
I don’t know, but I doubt it. I suspect it’s “just vote one” across the state. The ALP might not be too unhappy if Molloy’s out and a Lib comes in in Noosa.
I have tipped Molloy to win Noosa, similar to Kris Hanna’s win in South Australia in March. But, is Molloy too devisive to attract substantial votes from the Right?
For Molloy to win she would have to keep about half of her ALP vote from last time around and then take a big chunk out of the Liberal vote. Is this possible?