Newspoll: 55-45 to Labor in Queensland

State Newspoll bonanza, episode three. The Australian reports the latest quarterly survey of Queensland state voting intention shows Labor’s lead narrowing from 60-40 to 55-45, their primary vote lead down from 50-32 to 43-38. More to follow.

UPDATE: Queensland like New South Wales has optional preferential voting, so there might be the same issue with the two-party calculation that Antony Green detects in yesterday’s poll (see below) – though likely with less severe consequences. According to my rough calculation, minor party and independent preferences at the 2006 Queensland election went 35 per cent to Labor and 18 per cent to the Coalition with 47 per cent exhausting. Using the Newspoll primary vote figures, this produces 55.5-44.5 if you don’t exclude exhausted votes, but 54.5-45.5 if you do (which you should).

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

24 comments on “Newspoll: 55-45 to Labor in Queensland”

  1. This is the Newspoll which will be referred to when people look back to the takeover of Queensland Liberal Party by the Queensland National Party to start the Pineapple Party. I wonder whether the marriage will last or more likely, when we will we have a Newspoll marking the divorce of the Queensland Pineapple Party members.

  2. What you say about the exclusion of exhausted preferences makes perfect sense, so I’m not going to argue that, except to point out that it’s half a point either way. Might swing a seat at the margins, but unlikely to affect who forms government, I’d say.

    What I would like to say is that I find the results of this poll completely unbelievable. Living in Queensland, I cannot for the life of me fathom a turnaround of this extent. Turnaround from the last poll, that is – the TPP figures are almost identical to those of the last election. There’s been very little movement for the last four Qld polls, which is nearly a year’s worth. Problem here is that Newspoll only puts out Queensland figures every three months, so that’s how long it’ll be before we find out if this is an outlier or not.

  3. Agree with you Peter, its unbelievable. I’m not from Queensland, I’m in Victoria and at the moment I can’t see a reason for the change in the figures

    The only point I can see is that the number of “uncommitteds” has dropped quite a bit in both states.

    QLD/VIC have relatively new premiers and I think some people are just making up thier minds after giving the new leaders a looksee

  4. Peter and Mr Squiggle, this Newspoll confirms the Galaxy poll on Sat showing Labor ahead only 52-48. I’m not sure of the reason, but it’s definitely strong evidence of a movement against Labor since Jan-Mar.

  5. 4 Lord D – I’ll be convinced of that in 3 months time. Of course neither poll (Qld and Vic) shows Labor losing an election if it were held now.

  6. Mike Steketee (The OO)
    ‘However, conservative supporters should not get carried away. Bligh is not on her last legs; rather she has come down from the stratosphere. The 10-point Labor lead after preferences would produce a similar landslide win as the 2006 election.
    Springborg still is preferred as premier by only a quarter of voters. That is a lot of ground to make up in what could be a year or less to the next election.”
    Puts this poll into perspective doesn’t it?

  7. Both polls are up on the Newspoll site. With a fall in the ALP vote there is only a relatively small rise in the Lib/Nat vote and a (proportionally larger) rise in the Greens vote (2% to 10% in Qld, 3% to 14% in Vic).

  8. Lord D

    I would have thought this poll shows a significant variance with the previous Galaxy poll (52/48 vs 55/45) which in turn casts doubt on the very skeptically received Galaxy poll. For a sample of 800, with the two polls so close, the difference is barely within the MOE. Perhaps others can clarify that. Anyway, this is more the result I would have expected.

  9. The difference between the 2PP’s of the Newspoll and the Galaxy poll is in fact not statistically significant. To compare these results you need to calculate the MOE of the difference between 2 independent samples – which is different from using the quoted MOE of a single sample result. So have a think about that Galaxy-skeptics.

  10. 10 Winston = obviously Winston is desperate to believe the Galaxy Poll. I wonder why? Having said that I have not a clue as to what you are getting at.

  11. I wouldn’t jump the gun and say this confirms the Galaxy poll, but it is certainly illustrates a large shift away from Labor in the electorate, however you spin the numbers. Labor should be concerned if we are seeing these kind of results pre-merger and in the absence of the coalition laying any big hits on the government in recent months.

    That said, everywhere I go people are talking Borg, wanting a change, they just need a safe pair of hands. Springborg is no star performer, but Queenslanders don’t need one, they just want to get rid of Bligh.

    The Liberals go to their Constitutional Convention on the 26/27th of next July where they will vote on the merger. I wouln’t put oo much creedence in polls until we see what comes out of that.

  12. There is nothing to be concerned about with this poll. It’s back to the last state election figures and we know what happened there. Anybody who believed Labor would go into the next electionwith a TPP of 60/40 were kidding themselves. A ten year government getting these figures is bloody terrific no matter which way you look at it.

  13. This is probably still a Borg bounce with a dash of a promised Noncoalition United Party to mix. The public have expressed their heartening at a popular alternative leader coming back to the fold but the problem will still remain as it was before he quit last time – his team are a bunch of tools.

  14. The Liberals would still lose in landslides in both VIC and QLD: nothing for you conservatives to get too excited about! And, you’d only win N.S.W right now because the Iemma Govt. is so on the nose!

  15. Ryan @ 12 says

    //everywhere I go people are talking Borg, wanting a change, they just need a safe pair of hands. Springborg is no star performer, but Queenslanders don’t need one, they just want to get rid of Bligh. //

    HA! The smoking room in the Queensland Club, and the electorate office in which you work, are hardly representative of community attitudes.

    I speak to a lot of ‘real’ people and the strong impression I get is that the Libs and Nats are regarded as an absolute joke, incompetent, disorganised, dishonest, hopeless, petty, scheming, hostile to education, hostile to the environment and mired in internecine squabbles.

    Bligh is seen as being extremely competent, with the only regular negative raised being the stacking of the Public Service with party hacks who aren’t appointed on merit (this mainly from public service friends who see themselves as very competent but have lost out on promotions to said party hacks parachuted in).

    In short, it’s only the incessant barrage of Labor bashing from News Ltd (which are the only rags in town in Brisbane and in much of regional Qld.) which has knocked the gloss from Bligh.

    Note that the votes haven’t flowed directly to the Opposition – it seems a lot of people wanted to send a message to Labor in this poll – ‘Pull your finger out on the environment – get stuck in and do what you said you would do on addressing global warming..’ by parking their response with the Greens.

    In an election, it will still be a massacre. 🙂

  16. Well, I was amazed when I got to page 35 of the Dead wood version of the Curious Snail today. Here was a full page ad from the Pineapple party with gifts galore to celebrate Labor’s ten years in Power.

    I thought you beauty, the Borg has finally decided to make himself competitive and has done the hard work of releasing his tree clearing policy, daylight saving policy, Traffic Congestion Policy etc..

    But no it was just the usual carping, negative list of problems as the Pineapples see them with no solutions in sight.

    Then I noticed a symbol down the left hand corner and thought – great- the Pineapple Party have developed a full on Pineapple as their symbol. Progress at last – but,no, they had just stolen or borrowed the Queensland Parliament symbol to try to add some element of authenticity to their lame ad. All in All an expensive waste of money for which no doubt, the Courious Snail will be grateful.

  17. Anna Bligh has a 60% to 24% preferred Premier rating to Lawrence Springborg, a little bit more than Beattie had over Springborg at the 2006 election. Bligh has a 62% approval rating as compared to Beattie’s 46% at the election. TPP is almost idential to the election(55/45 as compared to 54.9/45.1) in which there was a landslide. Coalition primary vote remained the same but Labor has gone down a few percent to minor parties.

    Nothing wrong with this poll. No way was it possible to sustain the 60/40 that it was at or near in the last few polls. This cannot be construed as the Bligh “floundering” as the Aust. tried to make out last night, nor spun in a way to comfort Conservatives. She has an approval rating of 62% mind! And she is preferred Premier 2.5 to 1! (Who says anyone wants to get rid of her?)

    Polls have just come back to normal that is all. The Conservatives are probably gaining a little credibility back from their own people by the effort of trying to merge, and a few of their own people are starting to indicate that they will now vote for them again.

  18. People comfortable with a Labor national government more relaxed about state politics and maybe feel safer in giving the opposition a go. But how can so few garner even 45?

  19. 20 Oh Dear, Geoffrey. That seems to be what happens whenever people try to work out what Springborg is on about, it throws them into utter confusion for some reason. The Brisbane Times is usually more on the ball than that.

    Can’t wait to see how Springborg goes campaigning with McArdle during the next election campaign but I suspect he will be tearing his hair out as well as being unable to make himself understood.

  20. The Qld Greens resolved to campaign for “Just Vote 1 Greens” at their state council meeting last weekend, which is likely to shave another point or two off the Labor 2pp.

    d

  21. Queensland tops the Air Pollution of all Australian States.

    “Premier Anna Bligh has refused to commit to the setting of a state greenhouse gas emissions target, despite news the Smart State is Australia’s worst air polluter.

    The Queensland Conservation Council has been pushing for the State Government to set its own target as part of a review of its fledgling Climate Smart 2050 policy, results of which will be made public next month.

    It follows revelations by a leading conservation group this week that the Smart State produces more greenhouse gas emissions than anywhere else in the country.

    Premier Bligh said the existing Climate Smart 2050 policy did include a goal of cutting greenhouse gas emission targets to 60 per cent below 2000 levels by 2050, however the target was a national one.

    The document makes no reference to a Queensland-specific target, despite the state’s poor record of slowing greenhouse gas emissions.”

    http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/premier-wont-be-drawn-on-emissions-target/2008/06/26/1214073420137.html

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