ReachTEL: 55-45 to LNP in Queensland

ReachTEL has published results from an automated phone poll of voting intention in Queensland conducted for the Seven Network, and while two-party figures aren’t provided, my own calculation off preferences flows from the March election (a slightly inexact science) has the LNP’s two-party preferred lead at 55-45, compared with about 56.5-43.5 at the previous such poll a month ago and 62.8-37.2 at the election. The latest poll in fact has the LNP vote up slightly, from 44.2% to 44.7%, but Labor is up further, from 31.6% to 34.7%. Most of the gain comes from the Greens, down from 9.2% to 7.0%, with Katter’s Australian Party essentially steady at 9.4%. The results at the election were 49.7% for the LNP, 26.7% for Labor, 11.5% for Katter’s Australian Party and 7.5% for the Greens.

A seat results projection of the results Poliquant now has Labor at 28 seats, compared with 24 last month and seven at the election. Possum Comitatus, who is privy to polling conducted by ReachTel for the union movement in Queensland, published aggregated results for last month from both published and unpublished figures which indicated a 6.9% swing to Labor in Brisbane off a sample of about 2000, and a 5.0% swing in regional areas off a sample of about 800.

The poll also finds over a third of respondents now rating Campbell Newman’s performance as “very poor”, which has progressed since July from 14.8% to 27.4% to 35.8%. Interestingly, his “very good” rating is down only slightly, with most of the movement coming off “indifferent”, down from 20.0% to 8.6%. Annastacia Palaszczuk’s ratings have improved slightly, with a combined good and very good result up from 19.4% to 23.2% since July, with poor and very poor down from 32.3% to 29.1%. The budget has not done much to change views on the appropriateness of the government’s cost-cutting measures, with results of 51.2% for gone too far, 16.6% for not gone far enough and 30.5% for too early to tell, which is little changed on a month ago.

Stay tuned for what promises to be a glut of federal polling over the coming days: Nielsen tonight, Newspoll most likely tomorrow evening, Essential Research early tomorrow afternoon, and Morgan on Tuesday afternoon.

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.

17 comments on “ReachTEL: 55-45 to LNP in Queensland”

  1. ReachTel will hopefully have a go in NSW and see if there is any movement here. Maybe it will do some work in the seat of Sydney now that Clover will soon be gone.

  2. [shellbell
    Posted Sunday, September 16, 2012 at 8:18 pm | Permalink
    ReachTel will hopefully have a go in NSW and see if there is any movement here. Maybe it will do some work in the seat of Sydney now that Clover will soon be gone.]

    It would be good to see, post the education announcement.

  3. BG

    Do you have a view as to whether the ICAC enquiry into Obeid and his merry men may stymie any ALP resurgence in NSW, stare or federal?

  4. [Stay tuned for what promises to be a glut of federal polling over the coming days: Nielsen tonight, Newspoll most likely tomorrow evening, Essential Research early tomorrow afternoon, and Morgan on Tuesday afternoon.]

    When too much polling is barely enough

  5. Is there any polling happening for WA or the ACT? The ACT’s got an election coming up soonish, and it’d be nice to have somewhere to talk WA stuff too.

  6. So the LNP has lost 8% 2PP in six months, with Newman’s personal popularity falling to match. That must be one of the more spectacular falls in recent Oz political history. Note that more than 50% of voters think the cuts have gone too far I.e even some of the LNP 2PP vote is opposed to this.

    I predict it will get even worse for Newman and the LNP. At present the rusted on LNP voters don’t care about the public servants and only the left voters are drifting back to Labor. I think this budget will put Qld into an (avoidable) recession, which will annoy the neutral voters as well.

  7. We should remember that Newman is deliberately doing all his nasty stuff early in his term, in the expectation that most people will have got over it by the next election. That was also Kennett’s strategy in 1992-96, and it worked for him, although he had four years while Newman has only three. And of course he can stand losing 25 seats in 2015 and still have a comfortable majority. So I wouldn’t get too excited just yet.

    The real question is what effect Newman’s short-term unpopularity will have on the ferderal election next year. At the least it should help Labor losing its current marginals like Petrie, Blair and Moreton. It might even help Labor win back seats like Brisbane, Forde and Bonner.

  8. Bird, Newspoll for some reason skipped its state polling for the second quarter of this year, but the third quarter result for WA should be out early next month. The Canberra Times might commission Patterson Market Research to do some polling of the ACT, but not for a while yet I wouldn’t imagine.

  9. [Psephos, what makes you think this nasty stuff will stop ?]

    He only needs to gut the public service once, defund the communitry sector once, etc etc. He can do all that in Year 1, and spend Years 2 and 3 being Mr Nice Guy. That should enable him to get a second term with only moderate losses (ie, less than 20 seats). Anastasia Whatever seems nice enough but I can’t see her beating Newman. I’m sorry to be politically incorrect but, sadly, I think what the Qld ALP needs now is a healthy dose of bloke: ie a forceful male leader. I don’t they have a suitable one at present. They should get either or both the Dicks back in parliament at the first opportunity. (That means you retiring, Desley Scott.)

  10. I spoke to a former colleague from the Qld public service and he confirmed something intersting about an engineering unit I am familiar with there: 4 out of 8 technical staff in the unit were retrenched or redeployed last week. This unit fulfills a key analytical role for infrastructure in SE Qld and has high demand for its services. There were not enough people to do all the work previously and most will have to be outsourced now. This is consistent with other anecdotal evidence that a large number of technical specialists, not administrators, have been sacked. Similar stories have emerged from scientists, techical specialists and engineers in many departments, including Health, Natural Resources and Primary Industries to name a few.

    To me this confirms that what is going on is NOT about reducing DEBT. It is about the privatisation of large chunks of the Qld public service. When people fulfilling essential roles are dismissed, then the same services will have to be hired back again from the private sector. This will not save any money, and probably cost more. Plus there is the $800M cost of the redundancy payments.

    Various audit commissions that looked into the Howard govenments outsourcing of IT services and selling off of Commonewalth buildings in the 90s concluded that there was a net loss to the taxpayer.

  11. Newman and Springborg are sticking to their promise not to sack frontline nurses and teachers – they are getting their regional health boards to do it for them.
    [Nurses are experiencing “off the Richter scale” distress as Queensland Health boards look for savings, including efficiencies worth $40 million in Brisbane Metro South, their union says.
    Health Minister Lawrence Springborg this month announced plans to reduce 1537 positions from Queensland’s 17 Hospital and Health Services, the regions now controlled by boards that run hospitals and services across the state.
    Metro South Hospital and Health Service chief executive Richard Ashby wrote to staff on Wednesday outlining plans to improve efficiency in the region…
    “Metro South Health is required to improve its efficiency by approximately 2.5 per cent of its overall budget which equates to $40 million,” Dr Ashby said in the email.]
    http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/distress-off-the-richter-scale-as-queensland-health-searches-for-savings-20120920-26996.html#ixzz2735GAtlw

    How can you find 2.5% efficiency savings in a region where the population is growing at 2% per year and the cost of medicine is rising faster than inflation? Qld health nursing and service jobs are certain to go. Springborg has just learnt from Uncle Joe Stalin to force an underling to do the knife work, rather than get his own hands dirty.

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