Galaxy: 53-47 to Labor in Queensland

The Brisbane Sunday Mail today carries a Galaxy poll of 800 respondents, which disappointingly for the conservatives shows no improvement following last weekend’s merger. Indeed, Labor has slightly increased its two-party lead to 53-47 from 52-48 in the outfit’s last such survey in June. Labor’s primary vote is up one point to 44 per cent while the LNP is on 40 per cent, down two points from the combined Nationals and Liberal vote last time.

The unreliability and/or Coalition bias of Galaxy is apparently taken for granted by most commenters on this site, so perhaps an overview of its track record is in order. The following list shows its primary vote findings in the final poll before each election it has covered, followed by the actual result in brackets (with Labor shown first each time).

Federal 2007: 42.5-42.5 (43-42)
NSW 2007: 40-38 (39-37)
Victoria 2006: 42-39 (43-40)
Queensland 2006: 48-38 (47-38)
Federal 2004: 39-46 (38-47)

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.

179 comments on “Galaxy: 53-47 to Labor in Queensland”

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  1. “William Bowe Says:
    August 4th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
    I see Moose is actually our old friend Snoopy, returning almost a year to the day after I banned him for calling me the c-word. Happy times.”

    capricious? clumsy ? combative?

    a centaur? a cherub? a chiseller? a catastrophe? a cleptomaniac? a coward?

    a conservative? a coalitionist?

  2. Possum,

    I think there would have been more discussion and debate about ON in a merged party, rather than the Nats panicking and making a spot decision to jump in with the hard right. It certainly would have prevented the 4- and 5-cornered contests we saw in 1998/2001 which cost the Coalition seats by splitting the vote (Burdekin, Burnett, Charters Towers, etc). As for turning more urban voters off, didn’t the Libs end up with ONE seat in Brisbane after 2001? Hard to do much worse than that!

  3. How is Fiona Simpson feeling? From deputy leader to ? She has more talent and political nous in her little finger than McArdle has in his whole body plus someone elses.

    I think the LNP will lose Caloundra, Kawana and Noosa at the election, and pick up Buderim maybe, Dickson has lost his One Nation christian backers, will the Liberal “Buderim on Top” folks back him?

    The Sunshine Coast will reject the Borg, Fiona will be an LNP island in ALP territory.

  4. MDM,

    I wasnt thinking so much of the seats (lucky – with a number like that there aint really much to think about!) but with the long term consequences of the vote, in that a certain chunk of the vote that left the Coalition over One Nation never came back. If a larger chunk left the Libs in urban areas, would an even larger chunk have never come back?

    Which would have not only led to the Lib wipeout, but would have come close to an organisational wipeout as well.

  5. Possum,

    No, I think in urban areas the One Nation vote was taken just as much from Labor as from the Liberals. ON outpolled the Libs in quite a number of mega-safe ALP seats in Brisbane. The real damage to the Libs was the loss to Labor in the swinging middle-class marginals. A harder line against ON- which a merged party might have offered- would have damaged the party more in rural areas, but would have kept the middle class of Brisbane and the Coasts onside. And since some/most- if not all- of the rural ON voters came crawling back to the Nats in 2004, the longer-term implications would probably have been more favourable. As it is, by cosying up to ON, the Nats lost ground in the bush anyway, and the Liberals are still paying the price in Brisbane a decade later.

  6. [I see Moose is actually our old friend Snoopy, returning almost a year to the day after I banned him for calling me the c-word. Happy times.”

    capricious? clumsy ? combative?

    a centaur? a cherub? a chiseller? a catastrophe? a cleptomaniac? a coward? a conservative? a coalitionist?]

    I think the vulger term for a female’s Genitalia 🙂

  7. Just been catching up with the thread. Apart from the interesting stuff from various folk, the contributions from the Moose character are particularly entertaining. Too much U.S. TV watched in formative years, IMO. Shorts out the synapse.
    Aristotle, much as I appreciate your thoughts on just about anything, the pedant speller in me suggests kleptomaniac is the correct spelling, however, this may escape Moose.
    Frank C., Aristotle’s just joking.

  8. I can just imagine the glee of conservative independents in both city and the bush lining up their campaign managers and bank managers right now to give the Liberal National Party the rough end of the Pineapple. It would be unsurprising to see a dozen or so of these win at the Pineapple party’s expense.

    The best move for the Pineapple Party could be to take Shadow Minister Hobb’s policy for councils and deamalgamate.

  9. Moose , my point too close to reality , you could not answer ?

    ron 72 Says:
    August 4th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
    Moose 63 Says:
    August 4th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
    “How do I know the LNP Will win?
    Believe me I am a member of the LNP and the energy is amazing, I am sure it was the SAME feeling the ALP had when Krudd was elected leader”

    “SAME feeling ” ? No , not at all , we ALP were leading in th Rodent in Polls , so we knew we were going to win Whereas yous ar sitting at 40% , big losing teritory I’d say so you’re relying on fluff & hopelessness

    Moose 139 Says:
    August 4th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
    “Come on William Bowe. I am a reformed person. You lefties believe in rehabilitation.”
    “Rehabilitation” ? we believe in it as an equity measure for those ‘saveable’ , but pineapple’s don’t fall into that definition , but fleetingly you were in our minds there

  10. Yeah, as a leftie I would go for ‘Rehabilitation’ for Mr/Ms Moose, how about a re-education camp in the Simpson Desert for starters? And electric shock therapy every time he types ‘Go the ….’

  11. Newspoll has done a bit of polling on the latest Pineapple Party’s attempt to sort out the fight over the spoils of defeat but there is still no sign of a Shadow cabinet being named. It must be a difficult job to fill the major Liberal National Party’s portfolios of Shadow Minister for tree clearing and Shadow Minister for daylightsaving.

    [QUEENSLAND’S new Liberal National Party has re-energised conservative voters, but may have given Labor supporters another reason to stay loyal to the Bligh Government.

    A week after the state Nationals and Liberals decided to form a new party, known as the LNP, Newspoll has discovered mixed reactions to the merger.

    Phone interviews conducted exclusively for The Australian at the weekend found 20per cent of Queenslanders were more likely to vote for the LNP than the previous Coalition, but 67per cent felt it made no difference and 8per cent saw it as a negative.

    The 13per cent net increase in support appears to come largely from former Liberal Party and Nationals supporters, who were 34per cent more likely to vote LNP, with only a hardcore 2per cent turned off by the merger.

    But among Labor supporters and city residents – two groups the LNP desperately needs to win over if it is to unseat the decade-old Labor Government – support for the history-making re-alignment of non-Labor politics is somewhat muted]

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24129821-5006786,00.html

  12. “4 cornered contests where theres an ALP, an LNP, a rural conservative and a small L Liberal.”

    Poss

    Perhaps the LNP needs to differentiate itself according to the area it is running in, like labor does in rural areas by calling itself country labor.

    For example in rural seats they could call themselves the Country Liberal National Party or maybe put the national first to emphasis the bush bit, ie the National Country Liberal Party or even just the National Liberal party.

    And in those 4 cornered contests you talk about then it should be the Conservative National liberal Party, this of course overcomes the problems you mentioned.

    For city seats where they are wary of the nats they should do similar, eg LIBERAL national Party, or even Liberal N Party.

    They need to get smart and sneaky like they did in Paulines time when they had election placards saying “Vote One National Party”, a real sneaky subliminal message. Maybe they can do that again “Vote ONE liberal NATIONal Party”.

  13. Couple of interesting points from those links steve.

    “Only 22per cent of voters believed Mr Brough would make a better leader than LNP state leader Lawrence Springborg (42per cent), although 36per cent were uncommitted, perhaps because of Mr Brough not having declared an interest in the job. His most recent stated intention was to leave politics for good.”

    Perhaps they should also have polled on whether they ageed with Broughs intention to leave politics, though the last poll on this was done eight months ago.

    And

    “Some Liberal moderates were angry the LNP was now considering opposing a Labor ban on tree-clearing”

    It is a clever move by the LNP to oppose the ban, if they clear all the trees then there won’t be any left for the greens to hug and they will leave for another state that still has trees thus increasing the LNP share of the vote.

  14. Re: Possum Comitatus, Moose and QLD/US elections…

    I would simply like to say that Possum is more right on this one than Moose is. While Reagan built his “Reagan Coalition” during the 1980s, it seems to be on its last legs right about now. It may get John McCain into the White House, but that’ll be all she wrote for that.

    Regarding QLD, Poss is again correct: the Nats are strongest in areas which won’t countenance any slippage to the centre, whilst the Libs do best in areas which will whack any shift to the Right by feeding votes to Labor.

    No matter what they do, the LNP is caught between pillar and post at the next election.

  15. “Harry “Snapper” Organs Says:
    August 4th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
    Aristotle, much as I appreciate your thoughts on just about anything, the pedant speller in me suggests kleptomaniac is the correct spelling.”

    Guilty as charged, Harry.

  16. The Moose is back, Go the Moose!!!!! The Moose is a GOOSE!!!
    Hey Moose go blog at dickheadsrus.com ….BBWWWWAAAGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

  17. Rod Says:
    August 5th, 2008 at 6:57 am

    Springborg doesn’t oppsose a bam Rod:
    http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/LNP-urged-to-clarify-tree-clearing-stand-H74WQ?OpenDocument

    “Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg late last week indicated the ban would stay in place.

    “That issue’s gone, the laws are in place, and the laws are staying there in place, there is no issue,” Mr Springborg told reporters.

    “It’s a furphy that some people have been dragging around based on previous statements of certain people. What’s done is done.”

    But, he said, property owners had not been properly compensated under the deal and the LNP would address how the government could better respect property rights.:

  18. It is obvious that many of you are too critical of the LNP and have failed to recognise that the new party, with new thinking, a new united team, and new united leadership, have a bright future.

    Here, from http://www.springborg.com/lawrence-views.php?id=1 is a sample of the new thinking, which shows clearly just how clever they are, so clever in fact, that I doubt that many of you lot will even be capable of recognising the sheer genius of it all.

    “Our capacity to generate renewable power isn’t to be measured as a quantity – as our vast reserves of coal and minerals, prime agricultural land, or fishing grounds have been measured in the past.”

    So there you have it, brand new thinking, and no more of that old hat quantity rubbish.

  19. “In a major new move, a Springborg Government will establish and fund regional partnerships between local researchers and authorities to expedite these alternative, renewable resources.”

    Regional Rorts MkII the Nat just love regional partnerships. 😛

  20. Fun with Anagrams – Pineapple Party edition.

    Anal Peppery Pit
    Papa Inept Reply
    Plainer Pap Type
    Playpen Pea Trip
    Aplenty Pap Ripe
    Pale Nappy Tripe
    Pale Panty Piper
    Pearly Pant Pipe
    Nipple Party Pea
    Paper Plain Type
    Nat Era Peppy Lip

  21. 174 We are not really interested in Pork barreling regional partnerships at present just a lull in the war long enough to name the Shadow Cabinet, is that too much to ask. By the stunned mullet silence that has greeted the Borg’s promise to name a Shadow Cabinet we can only assume that the war against the former Liberals goes on unabated.

  22. BP aka Steve

    “Liberal National Party (LNP) president Bruce McIver told The Australian newspaper the 2006 ban on broadscale tree-clearing could be scrapped if the party won the state election, due late next year. ”

    They need to get their act together, with the LNP president indicating the ban will be scrapped.

    Think of all the koalas that will be left homeless, oh the humanity.

  23. It looks as though confusion is the main trait of the National Liberal Party. Apparently you’re a member if the Pineapple Party website says you are:

    [CONFUSION reigned in City Hall at yesterday’s council meeting as conservative councillors tried to determine which party they represented.

    Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman denied the councillors were members of the new Liberal National Party, saying they were to be referred to as “Administration” or “Liberal” councillors.

    However, his views were disputed by Speaker Margaret de Wit who said she thought they were LNP councillors as of July 26.

    “I’m not quite sure why he (Cr Newman) said that,” she said.

    Further attempts by The Courier-Mail to clarify the situation were made, with Neighbourhood Planning chairwoman Amanda Cooper adamant the new Coalition party was still to be ratified.

    It was a sentiment shared by Public Transport chairwoman Jane Prentice.

    But Cr Prentice admitted she wasn’t sure because she had been “out of the country” on a trade mission.]

    http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24136277-3102,00.html

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