Galaxy: 57-43 to federal Coalition in Queensland; Seat of the week: Lingiari

GhostWhoVotes tweets that a Galaxy poll on federal voting intention in Queensland gives the Coalition a two-party lead of 57-43 – a seven-point turn-around in Labor’s favour since the last such poll three months ago, suggesting a swing to the Coalition/LNP of only 2% since the 2010 election. Leaving aside the Labor-skewed Morgan face-to-face series, the last time a published poll of federal voting intention showed a swing that low was the Newspoll of May 27-29, 2011, which had the Coalition leading 52-48 nationally. The only Queensland seat Labor would lose on a uniform swing of that size would be Moreton, held by Graham Perrett on a margin of 1.1% (the present numbers in Queensland are 21 seats for the LNP, eight for Labor and one for Bob Katter). The primary votes are 30% for Labor (up seven on the previous poll) and 49% for the Coalition (down seven). The poll also finds 52% detecting little or no impact of the carbon tax on their household budget, against 15% for “major impact” and 27% for “minor impact”. New asylum seeker laws are rated “strong” by 26% of respondents, “inhumane” by 18% and “too little too late” by 51%. The poll was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday from a sample of 800, and has a margin of error of about 3.5%.

UPDATE: The Sunday Mail today has further results from the poll which show “two out of three people believe the Premier is going too far with his proposal to cut 20,000 public sector jobs”, together with figures showing widespared feelings of job insecurity, particularly among government employees.

Further evidence of the Queensland elastic snapping back was provided earlier this week by ReachTEL, which conducted automated phone polls of three seats out of the many which the LNP won from Labor at the state election. These showed Labor leading in two of the seats and lineball in the third. My own calculation of two-party preferred results based on preferences from the previous election had Labor leading 60-40 in Sandgate, a swing to the of 13%, and 51-49 in Brisbane Central, a swing to them of 6%. I had the LNP 51-49 ahead in Towsville, but Possum has it at 51-49 in Labor’s favour – no doubt having used a formula that took better account of the decline of the Katter’s Australian Party vote. The poll also found Campbell Newman’s personal ratings in Sandgate and Townsville in Tony Abbott if not Julia Gillard territory, though he scored better in Brisbane Central. There was similarly a strong view he had not kept his promises in Sandgate and Townville, but an even divide of opinion in Brisbane Central. The samples on each poll were around 400, for margins of error approaching 5%.

And not forgetting …

Seat of the week: Lingiari

I’ve previously been limited my Seat of the Week choices to seats where both parties have preselected candidates, but am making an exception today in a spirit of keeping things topical. The federal seat of Lingiari covers the entirety of the Northern Territory outside of Darwin, which for the most part will play second fiddle during tomorrow night’s election count: whereas Darwin’s suburbs teem with marginal seats, the remainder is largely divided between Country Liberal Party strongholds in Alice Springs and Labor strongholds elsewhere. However, the tea-leaves of the regional and remote results will be read carefully for federal implications given Labor member Warren Snowdon’s narrow margin in Lingiari, and recent rumours of Labor internal polling showing him headed for defeat.

The Northern Territory was first granted its own seat in the federal parliament in 1922, but its member did not attain full voting rights until 1968. Perhaps not coincidentally, the seat had recently fallen to Sam Calder of the Country Party after a long period of Labor control. The Country Liberal Party was established in 1978 as a local alliance between coalition parties to contest elections in the the newly established Northern Territory parliament, and Grant Tambling succeeded Calder as its members upon the latter’s retirement at the 1980 election. Tambling was unseated by Labor’s John Reeves in 1983, and returned as a Senator four years later. The seat thereafter changed hands with some regularity: future Chief Minister Paul Everingham recovered it for the CLP in 1984, Warren Snowdon won it back for Labor in 1987, Nick Dondas held it for the CLP for one term from 1996, and Snowdon recovered it in 1998.

The population of the Northern Territory is such that it consistently hovers between an entitlement of one or two seats according to the formula used to allocate seats to the states and territories. It first rose above the line prior to the 2001 election, resulting in the territory’s division between Solomon, covering Darwin, and Lingiari, which in accommodating the entire remainder of the territory is the second largest electorate in geographical terms after Durack in Western Australia. However, when the Australian Electoral Commission next conducted its mid-term determination of seat entitlements the Northern Territory had fallen 295 residents short of the number required to its second seat. With Labor and the Coalition both convinced they could win both seats at the 2004 election, the parliament proved amenable to arguments that the determination left the territory under-represented, and passed legislation to reinstate the second seat. Solomon and Lingiari accordingly have the lowest enrolments of any seats in Australia at around 62,000, compared with a national average of about 95,000 (which together with the extensive use of mobile booths explains the scarcity of numbers on the 2010 results map at the bottom of the post).

Lingiari is notable for having by far the highest proportion of indigenous persons of any seat in the country, at 41.8% against 15.7% for second-placed Durack. Relatedly, and depressingly, it also has the lowest median age of any electorate. The support of Aboriginal voters has given Labor enough of a base to have kept the seat in their hands, despite CLP strength in pastoral areas and the urban centres of Alice Springs, Katherine and Tennant Creek. Labor’s margins have progressed over four elections from 5.3% to 7.7% to 11.2% to 3.7%. The diversity of the electorate’s components can make for enormously complicated election results, as demonstrated by local swings over the last three elections. In the wake of the Howard government’s intervention into Aboriginal communities before the 2007 election, mobile polling booths swung 8.4% to Warren Snowdon off an already very high base of 78.7%. However, it was a very different story in 2010, when these booths swung to the CLP by no less than 28.1% – a result variously put down to the troubled Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program, the actions of newly merged regional councils, and the ongoing suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act by the new Labor government. Remarkably, the swings in Alice Springs were in the opposite direction, with Snowdon down 2.6% in 2007 and up 8.4% in 2010. In Tennant Creek the Labor vote fell from 58.7% to 34.2% while the Greens rocketed from 4.6% to 33.7%, a result credited to the Muckaty Station nuclear waste dump proposal.

Snowdon is a figure in Labor’s Left faction, and has held junior ministry positions since the Rudd government came to power in 2007. He had earlier been a parliamentary secretary during his first stint as a member from 1990 to 1996, again reaching the position in opposition after the 2001 election. After the 2007 election win he received a substantial promotion to the junior defence science and personnel ministry, which Glenn Milne in The Australian credited to his close association with Julia Gillard. Snowdon was demoted to indigenous health, rural and regional services after Joel Fitzgibbon resigned as Defence Minister in June 2009, which Philip Dorling of the Canberra Times put down to incoming Defence Minister John Faulkner’s “longstanding lack of enthusiasm” for him, “and perhaps more specific concerns about the contribution Mr Snowdon’s office may have made in the past week to Fitzgibbon’s downfall”. He recovered defence science after the 2010 election and further gained veterans affairs, while dropping rural and regional services.

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.

1,858 comments on “Galaxy: 57-43 to federal Coalition in Queensland; Seat of the week: Lingiari”

Comments Page 14 of 38
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  1. [So who in the party is conspiring with Bolt to bring the PM down?]

    My first is in ratbag but isn’t in fool
    My second’s in fuckwit but isn’t in tool
    My third is in dickhead but isn’t in nob
    My fourth is in desperate and wants Julia’s job.

  2. So who in the party is conspiring with Bolt to bring the PM down?

    My first is in ratbag but isn’t in fool
    My second’s in f!ckwit but isn’t in tool
    My third is in d!ckhead but isn’t in nob
    My fourth is in desperate and wants Julia’s job.

  4. [Ben Cubby @bencubby 2h
    The oz is now running pieces by Jo Nova saying #climate science is a cult. Bottom of the barrel now thoroughly scraped]

  7. Psephos – a very novel and intriguing way of putting it!! Thanks

    victoria – blood pressure raising time in your house and mine. Hope it’s a good game 🙂

  9. confessions@647,

    What is significant about Sept 11 in relation to the Labor leadership?

    That was the date Mark Riley confidently predicted Julia Gillard would be deposed by.

  10. The Kindly Ones by Jonathon Littell.

    Historical novel ,set in WW11.

    The main character could be ” Uncle Otto” ,Abetz certainly gets a mention.

  11. Psephos,
    Tell me something I don’t know. 😀
    Like who in the Victorian Left is supplying Bolt with the old material they have kept in a shoebox for 17 years?

    If you can’t, fair enough. 🙂

  12. I think the PM has ruefully come the conclusion that no matter what she says/does now the cranks will still keep on cranking. in relation to what happened all those years ago.

    The conservative press have been huffy to the point that while admitting she had nothing to answer, they still kind of had the right to ask any questions any time. I think she has shrugged her shoulders on this one.

    Secondly, she has said, and I think she means it, that she is not going to go back over the stuff again.

    The beauty about mud is that it sticks whether wet or dry to both the target and the thrower.

    But, it does not go away of its own volition.

    As some have pointed out here, there are those wingnuts out there convinced the PM is the devil incarnate, or at least a witch.

    What is she supposed to do? Try to refute every evil thought and deed?

    I think she has decided to let the worst do their worst. She has better things to do.

    I was a not all that enthusiastic about her attack last week – not that she did not do it brilliantly, but I wonder if the trouble-makers actually thought they had roped her in after all and thereby achieved their purpose.

    What they didn’t count on was how good she would be.

    Damn, if only she would cry like a woman.

  14. http://mrtiedt.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/a-bill-for-change.html

    [Wednesday, August 22, 2012
    A Bill for Change
    Maybe that cheque isn’t quite as blank as Labor would have you believe.

    In the lead-up to the election last year, Labor conceded defeat and started campaigning with the line “Don’t give Barry O’Farrell a Blank Cheque”.

    The theory was, I expect, that people would be scared about what the Coalition would get up to if they won too convincingly.

    As things eventuated (and as most people expected) the Coalition did of course win the election, and convincingly so – but did not win enough Upper House seats to have an outright majority there.

    This of course means that to get legislation through the Upper House they need to bring either Labor or a minor party with them.

    The presence of the Shooters and Fishers means that the task is a little easier than perhaps some might like – but nonetheless something is better than nothing.]
    Interesting post on the Graffiti bill the Shooters party amended (with others), and how the upper house in NSW in working

  15. Stories about Campbell Newman getting pissed in Parliament House are starting to emerge. Surely his team are not looking to dump him already?

    The Queensland Premier’s performances of late have fallen well short of the standard he set for himself. Maybe it was the supposed late-night session on the scotch in Parliament’s Lucinda Bar on Wednesday that some were talking about.

    The next time Newman holds one of his regular dinners with backbenchers he might want to consider skipping the scotch.

    Instead, a three-course meal of dignity, grace and humility needs to be on the Parliament menu.

    Steven Wardill is The Courier-Mail’s state political editor.

  16. [Maybe it was the supposed late-night session on the scotch in Parliament’s Lucinda Bar on Wednesday ]

    And who can tell us what the Lucinda Bar is named in honour of?

  17. I believe the Prime Minister needs to get the AFP involved in inquiries into these latest assumptions and find out about this cheque Bolt is salivating over as this seems to me to be running very close to defamation and that the accusers are too gutless to accuse on the basis they may be sued and I think a solicitor on Julias behalf needs to say to them put up or shut up or else it goes to court.

  23. [I would also like to know where Bolt got that facsimile of the cheque.
    Note that it is unsigned, which means the signature is probably significant in more ways than one.]

    That it is unsigned is what is significant.Anyone can make up a facsimile of a cheque, it is the signiture that is the hard part.

    the latest anders of the baltic shit equates with the Thom(p)son credit card slip and the Grech email

  25. canasta76,

    The original cheque gets presented to the bank and for a document 17 years old one would think it would have been not just archived but destroyed on the bank side.

    The only other person would be the cheque book holder and maybe the remittance advice for the receiver both of whom I would have thought would have trashed destroyed the documents by now.

  29. [Surely his team are not looking to dump him already?]

    I’d imagine that many of the new LNP MP’s are quite alarmed that Newman has burned up so much goodwill so quickly. As time goes on and if things don’t improve, I think they’ll look for options other than going down with Newman in the next election in a big rebound swing away from the LNP.

  31. A collateral benefit of the polls improving for Labor is that it makes the result of any by-elections which might happen between now and the next general election a bit less certain. A few months ago you would have thought it was virtually certain Labor would lose just about any by-election that was held but now it might well be a contest.

    This will:
    – reduce the likelihood that any individual Labor member might go the nuclear option and resign from parliament
    – reduce the threat to the government if a member gets very sick or dies
    – further frustrate the opposition

    If the figures improve a bit more, it may even become a viable option for the government to call an early election if any of these eventualities come about.

  32. [Ashleigh Gillon ‏@ash_gillon

    At tally room in Darwin…NT election exit poll results coming up on @SkyNewsAust in around half an hour #ntdecides #NTelection ]

  34. Wasn’t the Commonwealth logo changed so the two mm’s were squished together in 2001 when they adopted the Yellow Square logo.

    If so how can bolt have a cheque from 1993 with the new logo?

  36. Not surprising to see the treasonous internal element, the far right nutjobs and misogynists continuing on with their disgusting smear campaign.

  37. [ I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill her with a terrible resolve.
    Isoroku Yamamoto ]

    Given the PM has always been two/three steps ahead of the media I think the above is a certainty.

    Bolt, Hartcher and all the rest are just a bit to cocky. I think they’re trying to goad JG into an ill considered action. Sorry boys….not gonna happen. Just remember where your jaws were when the ” Press Conference ” started and where they were when it finished.

    My best guess is that you’ll witness, not only the exercising of Prime Ministerial authority, but that of civil law and the legislature….and Rupert will not be happy.

    On your heads be it. The rest of us are going to enjoy the show.

  39. If someone has the “cheque” then it hasn’t been cashed, so it is not “the cheque” as the cashed one would be in the bank, probably destroyed. AFAIK, only a person cashed the cheque or the person who wrote it could ask the bank for a copy of the original, if it exists.

    I think they have not only gone through the bottom of the barrel, they have scraped through to the sewer line.

  42. Where is the Not Negotiable lines?

    Where are the bank stamps, you know those date things they always put on stuff when you give them stuff over the counter?

  46. [Stories about Campbell Newman getting pissed in Parliament House are starting to emerge. Surely his team are not looking to dump him already?]
    rua
    Little Big Man is a real class act!

  47. The Bolt ‘cheque scan’ –

    That some people from Australian law firms from the early 90s would have kept some of this stuff is, I guess, in retrospect not so surprising.

    It was a turbulent time.

    – Commonwealth legal work was about to be offered to private practices;

    – Up until then there had been some presence by o/s law firms in Australia but mostly they gave advice to Australian companies wanting to do business in foreign countries;

    – Huge numbers of Australian trained lawyers were working in the UK and smaller numbers in the US. Employed lawyers at all large Australian law firms were targets of London firms like Clifford Chance, Norton Rose, Slaughter & May among many others. So many of these had the expertise and local knowledge to do Australian domestic law and these o/s forms saw Australia as a market open to them; and

    – US style class action cases had had just started to gain some real traction here.
    There were many partnerships that had serious fall-outs and splits or mergers at the time.

    It is without doubt that there was much blood spilled between equity partners in many firms about how to deal with these changes with the result that some seriously lost out financially and even, more importantly for lawyers, in the ‘ego stakes’.

    And they’re good haters.

  50. Bolt says:
    [This cheque, drawn on accounts attached to the Australian Workers Union Workplace Reform Association which Julia Gillard helped to register, was sent to Slater & Gordon for the purchase of a private house for Ralph Blewett, bag man for Gillard’s then boyfriend, Bruce Wilson.]

    Hang on. This cheque has been drawn on the Slater and Gordon Trust account, which means that the money came in earlier and was available for settlement. That’s enough for the conveyancing solicitor.

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