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”

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  1. [@latikambourke: Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos says #BHP’s Olympic Dam expansion would go ahead under a coalition Govt. #onetobookmark]

    They will probably go ahead under labor, although olympic dam has some problems that need to be solved, it is a time / business (costs and income) decision not a Govt decision

  2. How funny. Dr Turf just said that Neil Mitchell, Derryn Hinch And John Michael Howson Of 3aw are a disgrace, and what a dump that station is!!!

    I love Dr Turf

  3. [I also remember them insisting that Cando will not switch any voters back to Labor. He will have a long honeymoon. Baseball bats were ready for Labor. Etc.
    Some of us knew better. 😉

    Mind you I did not expect the honeymoon to be so short though!!]

    Agreed, Victoria!

    Those old enough to remember Borbidge’s mayhem – corrupt deals with the Police Union; PS massacre; new draconic workplace laws Howard would soon copy; colluding with the AFF over training a new Waterfront workforce in Dubai, and so much more – and that the backlash was slow enough to ensure that, next election, Beattie needed Independent Peter Wellington’s backing to form government, are stunned by how soon the backlash against newman set in.

    Usually people don’t admit to themselves – much less publicly – that they made a dreadful mistake voting the way they did until half a term or so has passed. newman’s “election honeymoon” lasted less than 5 months. Even in the very conservative Tmba Regional Council area, where PS & funding cuts are hurting, remorse is vocal and widespread. I can only imagine how much stronger it is in Greater Brisbane & SEQ, where Q elections are decided.

    BTW, conservative Independent Liz Cunningham (Gladstone), whose backing gave Borbidge the Premiership in 1996, has now backed the current Labor Opposition in at least one Parliamentary vote on newman’s workers-rights-stripping “reforms” – a true measure of just how draconian and unnecessary they are.

  4. Morning all – happier findings from Galaxy for Qld pollies. Hope Graham Perrett can keep his seat, I like his attitude to his job.

    A collection of stories from the week on S&G in case you missed any of them

    [In a scene reminiscent of a scifi movie, the entire Canberra Press Gallery shook themselves awake this week and “realised” that Tony Abbott has been playing fast and loose with the facts.Today’s papers are full of it. Meanwhile the Rudd camp continued its campaign using compliant journalists to blow on the embers of the 17 year-old Slatergate story.]
    http://nocrapapp.com/2012/08/25/no-crap-app-wb-20-aug-2012/

  5. Another gem from the business pages:

    [AT 33, Brian McNamee was chosen to run the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories: a small government enterprise manufacturing plasma, antibiotics, flu vaccines and other medicaments for Australia and its neighbours.

    This week CSL announced its first $US1 billion global profit for 2011-12. It is now Australia’s most successful manufacturing business, and by a long way.]

    [its global structure, with manufacturing plants in four countries, its high productivity and premium products have allowed it to withstand those headwinds, and remain highly profitable. ]

    Thank heavens other countries don’t mind foreign investment…

    [It has been an amazing journey that few would have expected when, in late 1989, then industry minister John Button headhunted the young McNamee to become director of CSL, with the ultimate aim of privatising it to be a flagship for the fledgling Australian pharmaceutical industry.]

    Oh, John Button. Wasn’t he a Minister for some government which supported businesses? Must have been a Liberal, surely.

    [it is led by an Australian-dominated board, chaired by molecular biologist Professor John Shine, carries out half of its vast research and development activity in Melbourne – with 400 to 500 researchers – and credits Australian research for much of its global revenue.]

    Oh, so it relies on well trained, educated Australian experts.

    [For a top 20 company, it sounds remarkably collegial.

    ”People think we’re scientists bubbling away with test tubes,” he says with self-deprecation. ”But we think we’re also pretty good at business. We’ve been financially conservative, but operationally very bold and aggressive.”]

    But you’re scientists. We all know you brainy types are just not practical and will never cut it in the business world.

    [Mergers were only part of McNamee’s game plan. At the outset, he moved to lift productivity sharply by slashing CSL’s staff. He made exports a prime goal. He cut out low-margin products, and – with some exceptions for Australia – narrowed CSL’s product range to those where it could be globally competitive. And he was lucky that the Hawke government was already building a global-scale plasma plant at Broadmeadows.]

    Well, that last one – the government investing in business – must have really sunk the enterprise.

    [With Australian local manufacturing under so much pressure from the high dollar, those remain his core strategies. ”You have to set your focus on world markets,” he says. ”We need to focus on being good at a smaller number of activities. We have to be in the premium products end.

    ”Switzerland and Germany have worked out how to deal with the problems of an overvalued currency, and that’s primarily the problem we face. If the high dollar is here to stay, we need innovative industries and clusters]

    Repeat after me: we in Australia cannot compete with low cost economies overseas. Everyone knows that. What is this man smoking?

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/a-lifeblood-lesson-for-australian-industry-20120824-24rzl.html#ixzz24VguqiMm

    So an innovative, science driven company, which grew out of a government enterprise, thriving despite a high dollar….

    Why do I think that neither Tony Abbott, or his Shadow Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science (which box doesn’t CSL tick?) will be visiting it anytime soon?

  6. [Space Kidette ‏@SpaceKidette

    Nested lies: The JG lied carbon tax lie, the narrative lie he chose for Sales interview, the kloppers lie, the I did/didn’t read it lies. ]

  7. There’ll be quite a few libs watching the NT election closely I suspect. On a pure ‘it’s time’ basis the CLP should win, and obviously is Gillard being ‘on the nose’ has any impact it should help them over the line. If Labor hangs on, well questions will be asked, and Gillard will get another little boost.

  8. [@latikambourke: Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos says #BHP’s Olympic Dam expansion would go ahead under a coalition Govt. #onetobookmark]

    Was this statement challenged at all?

  9. [victoria
    Posted Saturday, August 25, 2012 at 9:11 am | Permalink
    Darn

    i believe Abbott will only be interviewed by his usual shockjockland friends. No more ABC appearances for him. Also now that Lisa Wilkinson on the morning program held him to task, who knows what he can do about that. Perhaps he will demand that only Karl interviews him from now on. Cant take a chance with the womanfolk!!]

    Vic

    As Aguirre and one or two others have pointed out, the political climate has changed now. The issues that have allowed Abbott to get away with stunts and slogans over the last couple of years are no longer there. If he doesn’t come up with something new there will be a vacuum and the government will fill it by ridiculing him and talking up the BISONS. So he has no choice but to get out there and present his case as to why the Australian people should make him PM – and it has to be more than just saying he will scrap the carbon tax and stop the boats.

  10. WA is similar to the federal situation. There is much ground to be made up but some signs it can be done.

    Barnett’s team has no depth and has delivered very little in the City. Now a decision to scrap transporting grain by rail has been made which will see many more big trucks on the roads and which will upset both the farmers and the city dwellers.

    Mark McGowan appears to head a focused and disciplined team and we may yet see major clashed between the Libs and Nats who are not in actual coalition here.

    I think a big sleeper issue could be Labor raising the prospect that a vote for Barnett wil actually be a vote for the reviled Troy Buswell – a man whose antics with women make Tony Abbott look like a feminist.

  11. Abbott is announcing a new LP task force to go around Tasmania to talk to Tasmanians about their ideas for the state. It will be led by Eric Abbetz.

    Lucky Tassie.

    Now he is still blaming Olympic Dan on “at least in part” on the ALP government and their MRRT and CT.

    Sheesh.

  12. But Oakes today…

    We were discussing the ‘pack’ behaviour of the media yesterday and I opined that all was needed for the full take-down would be one senior journo to take a big bite out of Abbott. Fans of Lord of the Rings will remember the scene in The Two Towers where the leader of the Uruk Hai taking Merry and Pippin to Saruman lops the head off an orc trying to turn the Hobbits into dinner and his great line “it looks like meat is back on the menu boys!”

    That was Laurie today.

  13. Tony continues to win friends and influence people.

    [Latika Bourke ‏@latikambourke

    Opposition Leader Tony Abbott – it’s tough when you’re fighting against a ‘feral Government’ and ‘tough public culture.’ ]

    [AshGhebranious ‏@AshGhebranious

    Abbott calls the govt feral. Oh dear Tony. The words you elect to use are yours and yours alone. #auspol #abcnews24 ]

  14. Abbotts 10 point plan,
    1 no carbon tax – cos we haz gone to hell oops we will go to hell cozof booooooo carbon tax

    I got to go out so I guess I will miss the other nine.

  15. Wow! This NY shooting thing is something:

    [One of those injured by police told the Guardian that officers appeared to fire “randomly” as they confronted Jeffrey Johnson, 58, minutes after a workplace dispute escalated into a chaotic shootout in one of the busiest parts of Manhattan.

    Reports suggest that while Johnson drew his gun, he did not fire; all those injured appear to have been shot by police.]

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/24/empire-state-building-shooting-nypd-response

  16. [I think a big sleeper issue could be Labor raising the prospect that a vote for Barnett wil actually be a vote for the reviled Troy Buswell – a man whose antics with women make Tony Abbott look like a feminist.]

    Buswell is smarter than Abbott, more honest and much easier to like.

    McGowan is doing ok as you say.

  17. [Peter Doyle ‏@PeterDoyley

    Opposition Leader Tony Abbott ‘we have a low, mean and dishonorable Government in Canberra.’ — Latika Bourke (@latikambourke) he meant Qld ]

  18. [Space Kidette ‏@SpaceKidette

    Is Peta Credlin, Abbott’s puppetmaster, on holidays this week? Abbott’s gone off the reservation. #Petaaaaaaaarrrggghhhh #auspol ]

  19. He just said something about a fair go for women…what are the focus groups telling them?
    Green Army. All the women will wear green?

  20. Twitter is merciless:

    [Latika Bourke ‏@latikambourke

    Opposition Leader Tony Abbott – I didn’t enter Parliament to hold office and enjoy the perks of public life.

    1m Steve Thompson Steve Thompson ‏@stevethompson49

    @latikambourke Now thats a lie. ]

  21. [Latika Bourke ‏@latikambourke

    Any ideas what TAbbott means re ‘tough public culture?’ Does he mean public service?

    1m Externallylaws Externallylaws ‏@externallylaws

    @latikambourke #asktony….

    1m Latika Bourke Latika Bourke ‏@latikambourke

    @externallylaws well played. #asktony ]

  22. This has to be comedy

    @latikambourke: Tony Abbott – I’ve been the victim of a few television programs in my time but I don’t panic in the face of a television program.

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