Essential Research has published monthly results of state voting intention for Queensland as well as Victoria (see above) and New South Wales (see below). The latest result from Essential Research is slightly worse for the government than Galaxy’s recent 55-45, showing the Liberal National Party leading 53-47 from primary votes of 41% for the LNP, 36% for Labor, 12% for Palmer United and 4% for the Greens. This follows an incongruously good result for Labor in the previous month’s reading, in which Labor led 52-48. I have gone to the effort of producing a poll trend chart for the current term based on various results around the place from Newspoll, ReachTEL, Galaxy and Essential. I have not bothered with a two-party preferred chart, as the availability of data for minor parties is spotty – which is unfortunate, given the ongoing growth of the Palmer United factor – and the behaviour of their preferences an unknown quantity. Grey on the chart below indicates the combined vote for everyone other than the LNP, Labor and the Greens.
Terrible result for the Greens, good result for Palmer.
Decent result also for Labor – given where they’re coming back from.
Queensland is the Greens’ weakest state by far. No upper house, no minature LGAs that allow members to have a punt at being councillors before going for state and federal roles. They’ve got one Senator, but I don’t have too much hope for her re-election.
But if the’re going backwards, they’re doing it slowly.
Are the preference flows based on last election? I wonder if there’s any speculation to how much leakage from Palmer’s votes would end up with Labor instead of the LNP.
Also, should the PUP get it’s own line in the graph considering it’s significance against the top 3 parties?
I think there’s a danger at reading too much into 53/47. With PUP at 12% they are now likely to replace the ALP in second spot in a number of conservative seats. This is going to make the ALP’s preferences decisive to the final outcome of these seats (think Kawana or Buderim electorates). The ALP will never seriously challenge the LNP in these seats, but PUP will.
2
The main problem is neither the lack of an upper house nor the size of councils, it is the lack of PR.
PR gets the Greens into the mainland upper houses, Tasmanian lower house and most of the councils they are on. Sure the sheer size of the council wards, especially in Brisbane, reduces the Greens` ability to carve out a niche in their strongest areas but lack of PR is the main issue.
If there is a DD, the Greens would be almost certain of a seat in Queensland. They are also in with a chance in a half-Senate election with the Green vote recovering from supporting the previous government and the ALP vote also recovering.
Louis Davis@4
I’m not sure how easy this is because:
* while it is true that there is a high PUP vote, an increasing Labor vote raises the barrier for PUP to get over in those seats
* Even if they do get over, it is not easy to win from a distant second on preferences under OPV. Palmer wouldn’t have won Fairfax under that system.
Perhaps as the election approaches there will be a really big surge in the PUP vote and they will take lots of seats but on current figures I’d be surprised if they got more than 3, if even that.
In seats where Labor comes third, Labor voters will be much less likely to exhaust than trailing candidates usually are under OPV. Palmer has made enough “left” noises lately for Labor voters to be enthusiastic to preference him in order to defeat LNP members. Beating Bleijie in Kawana would be a great coup.
Interessant. Second poll in a day where Libs have done as well or better than ALP on prefs.
Is this a trend due to Libs shedding primary votes? Or an artefact of OPV?
(This matters as it will determine if the Libs for OPV push keeps it up nationally).
Palmer only won Fairfax last time because of late swing with undecideds, and a leg up from centre left types in Nambour see to strategically voting for Wellington at state level. He will need Laborites, and compulsory preferences next time.
The Sunshine Cosst is not his fiefdom; they know his warts better than most.
But he will spend big in Qld next year; one reason the LNP is amassing a huge war chest and liberalising electoral finance law to compete.
Preference distributions look very odd. In the Brisbane seats I checked, Palmer voters preferenced Labor above LNP almost 50% of the time. That would basically reverse the outcome [Labor 52% LNP 47%].
Joel, I haven’t crunched the numbers carefully myself, but are you factoring in that under Queensland’s optional preferential system, most preferences will exhaust? That would make the LNP’s 5% primary vote lead very hard for Labor to chase down on preferences.
That’s a fair point – after accounting for that LNP would be ahead certainly – but not quite as far, I’d think.
Joel@11
The only way it makes sense is if there are rounding issues, eg the LNP are nearly 41.5, ALP are barely 35.5, 2PP is barely above 52.5, meaning that preferences actually close the primary gap by a point. Beyond that I agree that the LNP should not be that far ahead as it’s hard to see how they could possibly gain on preferences.
As best as I could tell when I looked at the 2012 results, Katter preferences broke about a third to the LNP and a sixth to Labor with half exhausting. My guess is that Essential is applying that to Palmer.
I do not know which side of politics Paul Pisasale belongs to, but it is clearly time for him to be cut loose. Concealing campaign donors is one thing. Taking money under false pretenses is much worse. If events are as reported, is this a CMC matter or a police one?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-02/charity-golf-day-funds-channelled-into-paul-pisasales-campaign/5494992
Queensland, perfect one day, corrupt the next.
Possum, Director of Campaign Research at W4Q, has been doing polling for QLD state electorates and gaves us some highlights.
Polling for Pine Rivers, Morayfield, Kallangur
https://twitter.com/Pollytics/status/474155453622915072
We can also add to that Bundaberg LNP 34, ALP 35, Greens 4, KAP 4, PUP 15, Other 3, Undecided 6
https://twitter.com/Pollytics/status/474155626348560385
Ashgrove 55/45 to ALP (Sun rises in east). LNP in every other inner city suburb can’t get a TPP above 44
https://twitter.com/Pollytics/status/474155769617608704
Palmer voters: “If the Palmer United Party asked you to put the ALP ahead of the LNP when filling out your ballot paper, would you?” 64% Yes
https://twitter.com/Pollytics/status/474155945811902466
Regardless of who you would vote for, do you believe the Newman gov has demonstrated it deserves to be re-elected
https://twitter.com/Pollytics/status/474156056512167936