GhostWhoVotes reports that the latest Galaxy poll continues to show Labor in Queensland on a direct course for the electoral mincer, with the LNP leading 60-40 on two-party preferred from primary votes of 30 per cent for Labor, 47 per cent for the LNP, 9 per cent for the Greens and 8 per cent for Katter’s Australian Party. Anna Bligh’s personal ratings have predictably been hit hard by the desperately negative campaign she has been pursuing, with her approval down seven from the Galaxy poll a month ago to 36 per cent and her disapproval up nine to 61 per cent. Newman’s figures are respectively up two to 49 per cent and up four to 44 per cent, while his preferred premier lead is effectively unchanged at 51-43, compared with 50-43 last time.
The poll brings an end to a surprisingly long drought for general statewide polling, the last of which were Newspoll and Galaxy polls published on the weekend of Febraury 17-18. The rise in Katter’s Australian Party excepted, these showed nearly identical results to the current poll. Newspoll had the major parties’ primary votes exactly where Galaxy does now, but with a different set of minor party figures producing a slightly softer two-party result of 58-42 (that Katter’s Australian Party is now up to 8 per cent raises questions about how accurately its preference split can be estimated, given it has never contested an election before), while Galaxy had both the LNP and the Greens two points higher than in the current poll, with Labor unchanged.
Some further campaign snippets, all of them via the News Limited paper it’s okay to not hate, the Courier-Mail:
• By way of illustrating Ashgrove MP Kate Jones’s remarkable personal popularity among her constituents, Madonna King writes in the Courier-Mail that “research is showing some Labor MPs are really on the nose in their electorates – take Rachel Nolan in Ipswich as a prime example”.
• Steven Wardill writes that “Anna Bligh’s admission she didn’t have the evidence to refer Newman to the corruption watchdog sent Labor’s vote into free fall”, but leaves us to speculate as to whether this is based on intelligence of party tracking polling or journo’s intuition. Pop culture buff Dennis Atkins further relates that Labor has shown its desperation by “cranking its negative ad buy to 11”.
• A report on preference recommendations tells us the Greens have formally announced they will direct preferences to Kate Jones in Ashgrove. Polling suggests the Greens vote in Ashgrove is being squeezed dry by the intensive focus on the two major candidates, but in this contest every little may count. Labor is returning the favour by directing preferences to the Greens in their strongest seat of Mount Coot-tha, where Deputy Premier Andrew Fraser appears to be fighting a losing battle to defend his margin of 5.2 per cent against the LNP. Labor will also direct preferences to the Greens in Ashgrove, Barron River, Brisbane Central and Indooroopilly. The LNP will recommend exhausted votes in every electorate, as will Katter’s Australian Party with the exception of minor party candidates in a small number of seats.
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