Galaxy: 51-49 to federal Labor in Queensland

After a shaky result for the LNP in yesterday’s state poll, today’s federal follow-up brings even worse news from Queensland for the Abbott government.

Tomorrow’s Courier-Mail carries results of a Galaxy poll of federal voting intention in Queensland, going off the same sample as yesterday’s state poll, and it’s the first of four such polls since the election to show Labor in front. Labor’s 51-49 lead on two-party preferred represents an 8% swing from last year’s federal election, and a three-point shift to Labor from the previous result in February. It also sits well with the current reading from BludgerTrack, suggesting serious problems for the government in what may be the most important state in the country in terms of marginal seats. Primary votes and such to follow shortly. UPDATE: The primary votes are 38% for the Coalition, 36% for Labor, 8% for the Greens and 12% for Palmer United. The poll also finds 36% believe the Abbott government has lived up to expectations, down nine points since February, 56% believe it has performed below them, up nine points, and 4% believe it has been better, down two.

UPDATE (Essential Research): The regular weekly result from Essential Research has both major parties down a point on the primary vote, to 40% for the Coalition and 38% for Labor, and the two main minor parties up one, the Greens to 9% and Palmer United to 6%. Labor gains a point on two-party preferred to lead 52-48. Further questions find a remarkable 43% saying the government should respond to its budget difficulties by calling an election, the breakdowns for party support suggesting this mostly bespeaks a desire to get rid of the government rather than secure the passage of its budget. Thirty-eight per cent say they would rather a new budget be introduced, including a majority among Coalition supporters. I’m not sure if the availability of only two options together with “don’t know” succeeds in capturing the full range of opinion on the subject.

Other questions find opinion on the state of the economy little changed since April, with a good rating of 37% (down one) and a poor rating of 26% (up two), but more thinking it headed in the wrong direction, up seven to 41% with “right direction” down four to 35%. Concern about job losses is up a point to 58%, with the “not at all concerned” response up three to 32%. Twenty-one per cent say the impact of the budget on employment will be good versus 49% for bad. Sixty per cent disapprove of sending troops to Iraq versus 28% who approve, and 36% believe current spending on anti-terrorism measures is about right, compared with 28% who want more and 19% who want less.

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.

1,126 comments on “Galaxy: 51-49 to federal Labor in Queensland”

Comments Page 16 of 23
1 … 15 16 17 … 23

  3. MartinB

    Given the improvements the past Labor government made to rail – including re construction of the Ballarat line – there’s a little unfairness in that.

    Rail is actually one of the cases I had in mind when I talked about incoming governments being stymied by past contracts. It took several years of hard work for the Victorian Labor government to be able to overcome SOME of the restrictions put in place by the Kennett government contracts. In the meantime, the rail network had deteriorated significantly, because the standard of maitenance specified in said contracts was poor (to say the least).

    Labor’s attempts (and yes, in retrospect they cut too many corners) to rebuild country rail lines did cost them politically. The Wodonga – Melbourne line is still a mess, although it’s now become Napthine’s problem!

  4. Actually Clive P may be mad but he is not wrong on some points

    People seem to have forgotten the Tien An Mihn Square masacre in 1990…remember that brave man in front of the tank…what happened to him after the event(no prizes for quessing)
    Hundreds were mown down in the Square on that night and on the following day
    So when Clive says they shoot their own people he is right on the ball there

    Funny also to hear the Libs defending the Chinese communist govt…Menzies must be turning in his grave(actually… he was cremated )….
    History makes it’s own jokes as Voltaire said

    Nurse Bishop is mopping the brows of the kindly chinese leaders whose delicate dispositions make them very sensitive to shock

  6. Dee

    Sure he is correct about the Government in some aspects. I was just laughing at his attempts to explain his comments as being only about CITIC, which is madness.

  10. Victoria

    I hope you are right!

    It took a lived experience and a long hard campaign with workchoices.

    One lives in hope that we don’t need to live the Coalitions budget experience to keep people tuned in.

  11. Can’t help thinking that NewsCorspe fall in profitability coincides with the alienation of the majority of Australians through shameless barracking for the Lying Friar, and Vendetta Journalism against anyone who stands in their way

    [Crikey can reveal that, amid a forest of negative brackets, revenue from News Corp’s Australian newspapers fell 14% to $1.9 billion in 2012-13, with circulation revenue dropping 5% and advertising revenue falling 18%, while operating income fell 67% to $94 million.

    Within the division, The Australian stands out as the worst performer: revenues dropped 20% from $135 million to 108 million in 2012-13, while operating income fell 41% from a loss of $19 million to a loss of $27 million. After depreciation, the masthead’s operating loss fell to $30 million.

    The profit drop in newspapers was only partly offset by growth in other operations like REA Group and Fox Sports, with total operating income falling 38% to $221 million. After income from investments including Foxtel, the group recorded a total profit before interest or tax of $367 million, down 28%.

    After a recent visit to celebrate The Australian’s 50th anniversary, Rupert Murdoch tweeted he’d had an “exciting week in Australia with great team digging company out of many holes” but the heavy falls in print have continued if not accelerated through 2013-14. This is confirmed in News Corp’s most recent quarterly earnings update and annual report, showing the Australian newspapers are dragging on recovering newspaper operations in the US and UK, as well as divisions reporting profit growth, such as book publishing.

    News reported that earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation from Australian newspapers fell by US $67 million in 2013-14, or $73 million — which by Crikey’s estimate represents roughly an 80% fall on the previous year, nearly wiping out the division’s entire operating income. The division dragged heavily on the news and information segment, which reported a 16% drop in EBITDA in 2013-14.

    The operating accounts show Melbourne’s Herald Sun was the mainstay of News Corp in Australia, with the weekday paper generating revenues of $250 million in 2012-13, down 13.5% on the year before, and operating income of $35 million, down 41%. Revenue for the Sunday edition fell 17% to $75 million, while operating income fell 31% to $21 million.

    Of the major tabloids the weekday edition of News’ monopoly masthead in Brisbane, The Courier-Mail, suffered the steepest falls, with revenue dropping 18% to $158 million while operating income fell 68% to just $17 million. The Sunday Mail revenues fell 15% to $71 million and operating income fell 33% to $20 million.

    The weekday edition of Sydney’s Daily Telegraph was another weak performer, with the lowest profit margins at 5%, with revenue dropping 14% to $160 million while operating income fell 65% to just $8 million. The Sunday Telegraph revenues fell 15% to $94 million and operating income fell 53% to $7 million.]

  12. Dee

    I can only go by the feedback i am getting. Whether this translates into lost votes for the coalition at the next election, is another story

  14. Don’t worry I’m more than happy to accord the lion’s share of the blame to the Kennett govt; what they did to PT was truly appalling. And maybe the ALP did do good work behind the scenes. But publicly they have consistently failed to make a long-term argument and have appeared to be as attracted to ‘quick fix’ solutions as the Libs.

  15. [victoria
    Posted Wednesday, August 20, 2014 at 2:15 pm | PERMALINK
    On twitter

    Palmer’s anti-Chinese tirade was crude but nowhere near as dangerous as Abbott & Bishop’s meddling in territorial tensions btw China & Japan]

    Murdoch, Abbott and the shock jocks are certainly going to town on Palmer and Lambie over China.

    Their efforts must be confusing for the demographic that has been brought up to fear and hate the “Communist Chinese”, Muslims, boat people and for that matter, anyone who seems a bit different.

    It is hard to see the political upside for Abbott in attacking Palmer and the PUP senators at this time. The attacks may create a short term diversion from budget woes but ultimately many of the people who fear and hate “others” are dependent on the pension and GP bulk billing.

    In Palmer, these people see a politician who caters to their phobias while at the same time promising to protect them from the budget nasties.

    The upshot is probably a lift in PUP support (as others have mentioned).

  17. Zoomster at 727:

    About much we are actually in heated agreement. The following should be noted:
    1. Whether a government breaches contracts of a previous regime or whether it breaches contracts it had entered into is of no relevance. In each case the counter party sues for damages for breach.

    2. As you rightly point out Kennet himself did know a bit about entrenching contracts. That might in part have been from the education he received in tearing up contracts when he came into power. He was sued by a number of judges of the former Accident Compensation Tribunal for his trouble.

    3. We both agree that the ALP should not promise to rip up any EW tunnel agreement. My point, which I assume you do not dispute, is that the ALP should promise to review any contract signed with a view to ripping it up if on an independent cost-benefit analysis it makes sense to do so.

    Obviously Napthine might entrench the EW tunnel agreement by inserting onerous breach clauses but he, and successive Libnat governments, would have to wear the opprobrium of obviously uncommercial terms.

    At the moment Andrews seems happy to assume that the EW tunnel agreement won’t be able to be broken. Not only is this wrong as a matter of law it misses out on showing strength to the electorate on an issue that most would support him on anyway. So bad policy and bad politics.

  18. Martin B

    Smartbus services were introduced during the Labor years, and they have definitely improved public service here in Melbourne

  20. BTW Z:

    While browsing the other day I was intrigued by your comment re pre-schooling factors involved in NAPLAN success and in particular the claim of a gendered effect in parental engagement. Given what you said I presume you were referring to this paper: http://www.growingupinaustralia.gov.au/conf/2013/abstracts.html#doesschool which does not appear to be online in printed form. Because of that I can’t be sure, but from looking at similar papers I suspect that the claim was about mothers only because they only measured/modelled maternal involvement, rather than measuring maternal and paternal involvement and showing a gendered effect after controlling for depth of engagement.

  21. Re Palmer and China
    ________
    I often find talkback radio as very interesting guide to the public thinking of a certain type of listener,and often listen to the
    I always think in politics it’s a great mistake to onkly listen to your friends

    In the past few days they have had a major numberof callers who actually supported Palmer’s statements

    This eeems to be in line with the lately expressed worries about the huge amount of real estate being bought up by wealthy Chionese in Oz ,where there are now even Chinese real estate agents who are pushing up the price of real estate … there is a very strong anti-Chinese feeling in parts of the cummunity…and I would suspect if that so in Vic it will be even stronger in QLand …where he is doing well in the polls….
    Clive has a winner there I think
    He is cetainly one of the shrewdist media-savvy politicians in the business,and makes dullards like the Dpt PM ..whatshisname….
    and Shorten and most of the Lib ministers look just that

  24. If a government wants to get out of a contract with ridiculous penalty clauses then what it needs to do is to pass an Act of Parliament that gives reasonable compensation for the affected parties and no more.

    Nothing anyone can do about it except whinge.

  27. Re VicRail_______
    The imrovement in Vicrail,notably the Velocity trains to the regional cities like Geelong, etc,was one of the great triumphs of Bracsk,as was the splendid new Southern Cross Station…one of the very few attractive”modern” buildings in Melbourne…it has something of the style of the Sydney Opera House and did win a major international design award a decade ago
    Great work by Bracks for which he deserves praise and acclaim

  28. my solution to the governance of political donations for all levels of gov is that all donations go to a central independent clearing house then forwarded on from there. Any outside the rules are returned and all donations made public

  31. MartinB

    The paper I referred to specifically made the point that it was gender specific, and that fathers being at home didn’t seem to have the same impact that mothers being at home did.

    Of course, this more goes to the way parenting is gender stereotyped. My husband, for example, was an excellent mother – he was the only male on the Parent Teacher Board, for example, and ran a series of activities at the school (chess clubs, science activities). However, whilst he wasn’t the only male acting in the role of ‘stay at home mother’ at the school he was the only male involved who showed that kind of interest in the children’s schooling.

    I have mused in the past that this might indicate that families would be better off taking a short term economic hit by having mum stay at home (or dad, if he’s prepared to be more of a mum) rather than sending both parents out to work so that Junior can go to a private school (which again, recent studies show makes no significant difference to life outcomes).

    Can’t find an online link to the original study, but this article http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/private-schools-no-guarantee-of-higher-naplan-scores-study-finds-20131012-2vf63.html refers to it.

  33. I would speculate that if no government has ever passed such a law it’s because there’s some impediment to them doing so, given that it seems an obvious step to take.

    We’re probably back to ‘in which case, no business would want to invest with that government’ again.

  34. Possum Comitatus ‏@Pollytics 1m

    Stoljar just said something which seems to sum up most of #turc so far: “Legal is one thing, but….”

  35. 777

    The redevelopment of Spencers St Station under the Bracks Government is not without its problems. It was built as a PPP with a private operator that often puts its own commercial interests ahead of proper station function. The renaming of the station was and unfortunately is still a mistake that swapped a well known and geographically relevant name for a vanity project. The pedestrian subway at Little Collins St was also unfortunately closed.

  37. 783

    The Kennet government apparently legislated to overturn teacher contracts signed by the previous government. THe Sky did not fall in.

    If fair warning is provided, such as before the contracts are signed, then there is little risk of contagion to other contracts.

  38. Deb
    [He is cetainly one of the shrewdist media-savvy politicians in the business,and makes dullards like the Dpt PM ..whatshisname….]

    Regardless the merits of some of Palmer’s statements or what he may have or may not have meant, I don’t think his outburst was clever or helpful.

    The last thing Australia needs is another politician making capital out of ethnic bashing.

    If he was shrewd and savvy he would have maintained his position of ‘no comment’, ‘it’s before the courts’.

  39. Victoria
    re talkbacks
    ___________
    The two 3AW programs(Mitchel/Elliot)attract a different clientale to the ABCs(Faine and Epstein)whose clientale is much more to the left-centre…though don’t wait for any critique of Israel from either ABC comperes …for obvious reasons
    The pro-Palmer stuff has mostly been on 3AW …but not from Mitchell or Elliot…but from callers
    I still think Palmer’s is on a winner

  40. …so let’s think this through.

    You’re a company, about to tender for a government contract.

    The government of the day is seriously on the nose and the Opposition is an Abbott type, ‘we’ll repeal everything they did just because they did it’ type.

    The government (the entity, not the party which happens to be in power) has laws limiting the amount of compensation receivable if a government contract is cancelled.

    So the company knows it’s tendering in a situation of risk. They know that if the contract is cancelled, they may lose money.

    In those circumstances, companies are either not going to tender (because, despite the airy views of posters here, no one likes starting a project and then abandoning it midway) or are going to jack up the price of the job considerably as they know there’s no other recourse.

    Of course governments can do all sorts of things and pass all sorts of laws to make these legal. It doesn’t mean that doing so creates the best environment for business investment, or protects the taxpayer from punitive costs in the long term.

    Remember, increasing the costs for business – either because, as guytaur says, they factor in the risk, or because each change of government sees a wholesale readjustment to contract arrangements – actually increases the cost to the taxpayer.

  41. Martin B@744

    I would love to be proved wrong, and will happily put my hand up if so, but IMO there is almost no chance that an incoming ALP govt will rip up an E-W contract because:
    A) however much they may understand the problems better than the Libs they don’t believe they can win the argument against the road lobby and its supporters and don’t have the backbone to try;
    B) don’t have the stomach to commit to the long-term, substantial investment in public transport needed to be able to extend it to the outer suburbs where it is needed, and would make a difference.

    Much as it pains me as an ALP member to say it, I think you are close to the mark.

    The ALP needs to ‘muscle up’ and be prepared to fight on such matters.

    If it is made perfectly clear that the contract will be cancelled by an incoming ALP Govt, any damages should be minimal as fair warning has been given. A prudent bidder would not plan on starting work until after the election.

    I have been catching up on posts and laughing my head off as zoomster performed all her usual tricks with Pegasus, much as it pains me to agree with a Green.

    An incoming Govt could order a PROPER cost benefit by an independent organisation and use the results as a basis for terminating the contract.

  46. bemused

    my ‘usual tricks’ consist of saying exactly what I mean in my starting post, having people misconstrue what I’ve said, and me referring them back to my original post, which says exactly what they said it didn’t.

    I am not responsible for the inability of yourself, Astrobleme or pegasus to understand plain English, thus forcing me to restate what I’ve already stated using big crayons and a lot of butcher’s paper.

  47. 790

    “Repeal everything” is far more drastic than the “legislate to overturn this single specific project`s contract`s excessive compensation”.

  48. De re Palmer
    __________
    As to” helpful” I think the only person Palmer wants to help is himself and party
    and as Hanson once showed there is a deep racist stream ican c be won over

  49. 793

    I remember Cris Curtis commenting that on this blog, if I recall correctly more than one, some time ago. I have no better information that that. That is why I used the word “apparently”.

  50. sprocket:

    [Can’t help thinking that NewsCorspe fall in profitability coincides with the alienation of the majority of Australians through shameless barracking for the Lying Friar, and Vendetta Journalism against anyone who stands in their way]

    The decline in circulation of the NewsCorpse rags is itself a good news story.

    I suspect the shameless partisanship of its ‘newspapers’ is just one factor. Another is that its readership is literally dying off.

    As more than one commentator has pointed out, that absurd ‘Hogans Heroes’ headline (featuring Rudd & co in Nazi uniforms) was revelatory not just because of its politics, but because… who actually remembers ‘Hogans Heroes’?

Comments Page 16 of 23
1 … 15 16 17 … 23

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *