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 thoughts on “Galaxy: 51-49 to federal Labor in Queensland”

Comments Page 19 of 23
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  1. martin B,

    So your contention is that labor would win the election by promising to repudiate contracts.

    Well, we are all glad that you never ventured in to the world of electoral politics.

    Any serious Party interested in actually governing would be slaughtered with such a haughty disregard of contract law.

  2. Retweeted by Greens
    Rachel Siewert ‏@SenatorSiewert 3m

    Day 1 of Senate inquiry into Govt changes to social security ie punishing the most vulnerable, was very depressing #bustthebudget

  4. zoomster@874

    bemused @ 868

    So we’re basically in agreement, and the rest is just your normal ‘zoomster has said something, I must try and attack it’ thing.

    Classic!

    I have not changed my position one iota. I am not agreeing with you.

    You started off arguing that there would have to be something wrong with a contract before it could be ‘torn up’. I have never agreed with such a position.

    Your slipperiness is just breathtaking.

  5. Now it is time for journalists to point out that Hockey has doubled the budget deficit. Hardly the act of someone worried about the debt and deficit disaster.

  7. Wakefield@892

    Bemused. No reason to be paying out expected profit. Just the costs reasonably incurred to date. The costs might be $10million and the expected profit $500million. Big difference.

    I was pointing to a worst case or ambit claim.

    In reality I would expect a much lower payout.

  8. Astrobleme@893

    Zoomster

    Astro

    your poor petal.

    You reacted to the ‘realist’ comment by a long series of posts which – despite repeated requests from me – didn’t go beyond you making statements which were purely your personal opinion, without an ounce of evidence to support them.

    That’s what I was arguing in all those posts, not whether or not Greens were realists. All you did was help to prove my point by relying on ‘feelings in your waters’ rather than actual fact.

    That your underlying agenda was to prove that Greens were realists wasn’t the centre of your argument, and thus irrelevant to the conversation.

    When you finally made it clear that that was what you were trying to prove all along, I very kindly put you out of your misery.


    So you wasted my time.
    AND still think that somehow you have ‘evidence’ when what you had was simply your opinion.

    You claimed you were the realist, yet you were no more ‘realistic’ than the Greens. It was CENTRAL to the argumemt. You were claiming that your beliefs were realistic because they were based on evidence, yet you cannot have evidence for future polling.

    So you still make the argument that you’re the realist, yet at the same time claim that you’re joking.

    This is Clive Palmer style logic.

    Yes, and to put it more simply, in zoomsters world, her opinion is ‘evidence’ and anyone else’s ‘opinion’ or ‘evidence’ is just ‘opinion’. 😀

    Got it?

  9. Pascoe –

    It’s now clear why News Corp doesn’t break out the profitability of its Australian newspapers – there may not be any.

    Or not much anyway, according to a Crikey.com.au report built upon a leaked copy of Murdoch’s 2012-13 internal financial statements that show a paper-by-paper comparison of the businesses.

    “Combined with the sharp earnings drop already reported in 2013-14, and with circulation and advertising revenues continuing to decline, the accounts suggest News Corp’s Australian newspapers, including the national, metro and regional publications, will struggle to break even this financial year,” writes Crikey’s Paddy Manning.

    “The accounts raise the question of how long the rest of the News Corp empire can carry the underperforming Australian newspapers business.”

    http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/australian-newspapers-dragging-down-news-corp-20140820-1069v5.html#ixzz3Auswka61

  10. So your contention is that labor would win the election by promising to repudiate contracts.

    No. If you read what I said, I agreed that if the ALP (or any party) spoke about repudiating contracts in an open-ended way then they would lose credibility.

    OTOH if the ALP made a clear, detailed, tightly-argued case around a specific contract, namely the E-W link, then they would probably gain votes, and be able to stare down the limited business reaction.

    As it happens I think the ALP will not even want to try to stare down the business reaction.

  11. Cutting someone’s head off to make a political point is abhorrent, particularly when that someone is innocent.

    It cannot be justified.

    But neither can our part in generating some of the context for the beheading be justified. IMHO, Australia as a state has some of the blood of that innocent man on its hands. As individuals of that state, some of us have more blood and some of us have less blood, but the ISIS murderer has the most blood of all on his hands.

    ISIS did not spring out of the desert. It did not just happen. It did not spontaneously grow out of the so-called islamic death cult. ISIS grew in part because the soil was prepared and fertilised for them by the West with over two decades of mass killings, mass dislocation of individuals and societies, and of mass destruction of economies. The most startling element about ISIS as a military force is that it is extremely good at exploiting power vacuums.

    Abbott was a senior minister in the Cabinet that took us to war in Iraq. You can be absolutely certain that he will never take any responsibility at all for the consequences of his actions in taking Australia into Iraq. You can be absolutely certain that he will zero in on the beheading as if it were just another event in his personal 24/7 struggle with the truth.

    How many innocents have Australians and their various allies killed in the past two decades in the ME and Afghanistan? And I do mean innocents: ordinary unarmed men, women and children who wanted nothing more than to be left alone to get along with their lives. People just like you and me.

    Because this is one of the unavoidable qualities of war: innocent persons ends up dead. Shit happens. Some might argue that there is a moral difference between, on the one hand, choosing a particular innocent and deliberately cutting off his head, and, on the other hand, slaughtering tens of thousands of innocents by accident, as it were. IMHO, if we choose to go to war we are choosing to kill innocents. If we choose an immoral war, or a wrong war, or a war that we will lose or a war that we don’t finish, then our general carelessness with the lives of innocents is very, very immoral.

    Our military and political levels have combined assiduously for two decades to sanitise our wars. Australians don’t even know how many innocent men, women and children we, our state, our armed forces have killed in the past 20 years.

    Not a clue. Australian civilians do not want them to know, and the military and the parties did not want us to know either: a perfect storm of confected, deliberate and self-serving ignorance. How many of these deaths involved children having their heads blown off their shoulders? We don’t want to know; not really halal is it?

    How do we actually experience our wars? We see video footage featuring a crosshair target followed by a building exploding. There is no smell of roast flesh or of half-digested shit spread around the place.

    Australian journalists are embedded. They are coddled organisationally, financially and logistically. If the journalists don’t toe the line they do not get access to the ‘real’ war that the pollies and the uniforms want us to experience. But our journalists have become addlepated. They have lost their critical faculties. They swallow the embedded, micro-managed rubbish and regurgitate it as willing participants – basking in the reflected glory of our knights in shining armour. I can’t recall a single Australian journalist mentioning the word ‘entrail’ or mentioning that some innocent civilians had had their heads blown off their shoulders.

    The statistics are managed with extreme care.

    Deaths on our side are sanitised by the pomp of ramp ceremonies, everything neat, clean, solemn, slow, quiet; sanitised bios (not one of our war dead was a mean-spirited, evil-tempered bastard who drank to excess and, when drunk, beat his wife and children, praise be to God), and solemn footage of funeral ceremonies with the pollies, if they are about, looking grim-facedly, grimly, grim.

    Not a metre of entrails in sight. No flies on our dead. No rats gnawing at them in a desert somewhere. All the bits picked up. Good, clean disposal. After each death we dry our hands anew and get on with the next bit of our infotainment.

    Even the latest Gaza footage, as we received it, was rather tame. For example, we saw no entrails, not even a metre of entrails. But when two thousand people are killed and eight thousand more are wounded in extremely violent explosions, the entrails very, very often escape. We saw no smoking childrens’ heads or other body separated body parts either. We did hear children cry and we did see some blood and even some small wounds (it’s only a flesh wound) here and there, which was enough for a propaganda win for Hamas.

    By way of contrast, and this is something else the pollies and the uniforms decided not to tell us, vivid footage of the real results of Australia and its Allies’ wars on our invadees, men, women and children, have been assiduously served up for breakfast, lunch and dinner for two decades to muslim audiences all round the world: unsanitised, complete with entrails hanging out of the children or children with no heads. ISIS didn’t even have to make that stuff up. We served it up for them to propagate. How easy was that for ISIS?

    It is a century since Australia’s wars featured large scale death at first hand using edged weapons, including such refinements as sharpened shovels. War, as we now receive it, is increasingly remote and increasingly difficult to separate from video games. Pilots fly their drones from their home towns, destroy a family somewhere on the far side of the world, and then go home to a family dinner.

    So, is our response to a video of a single beheading done by hand disproportionate?

    Does it take footage of only one single real beheading for our illusions about our good clean santised wars to catch up to us in a visceral way? Didn’t we really get it from the last two decades of Australians and their Allies killing tens of thousands of men, women and children, that the human body leaks so much blood?

    It turns out that real violent death is not video game stuff after all.

    The beheading cuts through the spin we have been fed for decades. I am guessing that part of the anger is about knowing that the beheading does have a context, that we had a hand in that context and that we might not get away scot free this time round.

    This war is no longer about experiencing vicariously the nobility of our knights fighting a crusade in some distant place. These crazies might come after us for real – not the sort of vicarious war we want at all.

    The beheading is actually just what our wars are all about: separating enough heads from bodies, separating enough body parts from each other, eviscerating enough men, wome and children and so and so forth until we can declare victory and bugger off, leaving massive unresolved human misery, economic and social smash ups, murder and more mayhem behind us.

    So,is our way of death really so noble while that of ISIS is somehow much more barbaric because it is so personal?

    IMHO the answer is not nearly as clear cut as our pollies will, for a certainty, tell us. They will tell us what they themselves want to believe, what we want to hear, and what we want to believe.

  12. http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/03/09/admiral-samuel-locklear-commander-pacific-forces-warns-that-climate-change-top-threat/BHdPVCLrWEMxRe9IXJZcHL/story.html

    “America’s top military officer in charge of monitoring hostile actions by North Korea, escalating tensions between China and Japan, and a spike in computer attacks traced to China provides an unexpected answer when asked what is the biggest long-term security threat in the Pacific region: climate change.”

  14. Here is the body of a promotional email I got today from a woodworking business, that is a supplier of woodworking tools to the small business, hobbyist, and home crafter.

    We welcome you all to visit our new shop.

    We have settled in and now getting ready for the Canberra Timber & Working with Wood Show as well as a couple of turnarounds. Lucindale in SA and Phillip Island in Vic.

    The Canberra show is always enjoyable as a smaller show , we hope that Tony Abbott does not put any announcements in the paper about job losses for the public sector like last year, certainly put a downer on the show.

    Again (xxxx) will be demonstrating on the Vicmarc VL240 Lathe so this will be your chance to get up close and personal with this lathe.

    I have left off the address so they don’t get trolled by RwNJs.

  15. I read an interesting little piece today about research into a comparison of reading comprehension, and recall of the plot, between a paper book and an e-book on kindle. The conclusion was that readers remember less from kindle.

    At the time I didn’t bother to save the link, but I should have. The arguments on PB which seem to rise from misunderstandings or misreadings would, I think, provide ample reason for further study. 😉

  16. Remember this lie from Abbott? He has form.

    May 10, 2005 – 8:10PM

    The government broke its iron-clad Medicare election promise when it lifted the threshold of the safety net and slugged concession-card holders by reducing the number of free prescriptions.

    It also hit women and the elderly by removing calcium tablets from the subsidised drug list.

    Health Minister Tony Abbott said the cost of the Medicare safety net threshold announced during last year’s election campaign had blown out by $560 million in the three years to 2006-07.

    Despite giving an iron-clad and rock-solid guarantee that the government would not increase Medicare safety net thresholds, out-of-pocket medical expenses for low incomes earners will be lifted to $500, up from $300, before the government picks up 80 per cent of the tab.

    For others the threshold will be lifted to at least $1,000, up from $700.

  18. lizzie@915

    I read an interesting little piece today about research into a comparison of reading comprehension, and recall of the plot, between a paper book and an e-book on kindle. The conclusion was that readers remember less from kindle.

    At the time I didn’t bother to save the link, but I should have. The arguments on PB which seem to rise from misunderstandings or misreadings would, I think, provide ample reason for further study.

    Possibly, but I have discerned a pattern already. 😛

  19. All that money:

    CommSec ‏@CommSec 3m

    So far 67 companies from the ASX 200 index have reported full year earnings: profits $44.5bn +39.7%; cash $59.6bn, +40.9%. ^CJ #ozearnings

  22. BK@921

    bemused
    I find that I can skim well on screen but need hard copy to study and absorb in detail.

    I have been reading from screens for a long time and am used to it although I have not been reading books online for long.

    I read a couple recently in preparation for a course and had no problem.

    I have just run out of space for hardcopy books and will be very selective in buying any more. It will be mainly e-books from now on.

  23. Zoomster

    Shame on Labor for not promising to tear the contract up.

    Because governments can only tear up contracts signed by past governments if they’re obviously illegal in nature or the contractor can’t deliver as promised.

    If we’re talking sovereign risk, a government which shows no regard for contract law would be top of the charts.

    Conroy successfully tore up the Libs’ broadband contract, but that’s the only example I know of, and – as the government then didn’t have its a*se sued off -he obviously had very sound grounds.

    Rubbish. Pegasus has already listed the many reasons why this is false. I could also list many instances where governments have torn up contracts for good reasons, including far more than their being illegal or undeliverable. In fact there is a legal doctrine that says you cannot limit a government’s ability to do so if it is acting in the public interest. Kenneth Davidson and others have already disposed of the “Sovereign Risk” lie.

    Zoom, I know your heart is in the right place but I wish you would not “tell one for the team”. Either you do not know what you are talking about, or you know you are just repeating sound bytes that are B grade political spin. Labor can easily tear up this contract, if it has the moral courage to do what is in the interest of Victorian taxpayers. Guess not. Dumb politics, and bad economics. Night all.

  26. Socrates@923

    Zoomster

    Rubbish. Pegasus has already listed the many reasons why this is false. I could also list many instances where governments have torn up contracts for good reasons, including far more than their being illegal or undeliverable. In fact there is a legal doctrine that says you cannot limit a government’s ability to do so if it is acting in the public interest. Kenneth Davidson and others have already disposed of the “Sovereign Risk” lie.

    Zoom, I know your heart is in the right place but I wish you would not “tell one for the team”. Either you do not know what you are talking about, or you know you are just repeating sound bytes that are B grade political spin. Labor can easily tear up this contract, if it has the moral courage to do what is in the interest of Victorian taxpayers. Guess not. Dumb politics, and bad economics. Night all.

    Zoomster is an ALP neophyte who imagines she is all wise and all knowing.

    Most ALP members I know, who have been around a bit longer, are less inclined to swallow BS from politicians too timid to stand up for what is right.

  31. Darren Laver
    Posted Wednesday, August 20, 2014 at 5:00 pm | PERMALINK
    [Top Stories: No-show Clive Palmer irks prestigious economics committee
    http://abc.net.au/news/5684320

    Even ABC is now getting on the bash Palmer bandwagon with this very focused and anonymous source driven piece…

    Ch7 6pm news had the same story – they really went to town on Palmer with a chart showing his non-attendance at committee hearings. Almost certainly the media were fed the information by the Abbott government.

    We can probably expect similar darts to be thrown at Palmer over the next week or at least until Newspoll this weekend.

  34. The Media frenzy over Clive is a result of the L-NP and LNP being shit scared of him.

    The problem (for them) is how to attack him. All Abbott and the Libs have done today is pat China on the back. Clive will be ecstatic, his scheme worked as it always does.

    Once again Clive has sucked all the political oxygen away from Abbott.

  36. La France a bien livré des armes aux rebelles syriens
    le 20 août 2014 à 10h35

    Dans un entretien exclusif au « Monde », François Hollande confirme, pour la première fois, que la France à soutenu la « rébellion syrienne démocratique » en lui livrant des armes. Il s’agit de « matériel conforme aux engagements européens ».

    Breaking news: France confirms it supplied weaponry to the Syrian rebels.

  38. JBishop tells the Chinese government they are “goodies” despite her statements to the contrary in July and Abbott’s public statements on Japan vs China.

    The government is determined not to let Mr Palmer’s legal troubles escalate into a full-blown diplomatic row.

    Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has contacted the Chinese embassy to assure Beijing that Mr Palmer’s views do not reflect the attitude of Australians.

    The government wants to finalise a free trade agreement with China – Australia’s largest trading partner – by the end of the year.

    http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/palmer-defiant-as-rant-fallout-continues/story-e6frfku9-1227031085377

  39. Seems Cormann doesn’t want to give up the attacks on the Poor.

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/mathias-cormann-stokes-debt-fears-in-attempt-to-transform-budget-debate-20140819-105z17.html

    “In an address to the Sydney Institute that builds on Treasurer Joe Hockey’s warning of “emergency” action and a Queensland-style austerity budget if structural reforms such as the $7 GP fee, higher education and welfare changes are not passed, Senator Cormann said the budget debate should not be a “spectator sport” and that “this is no game”.”

    Mr Cormann, it is you and the rich that has turned against the Poor Australians.

    Austerity trickle down polices attack the poor.

  41. Darren Laver
    Posted Wednesday, August 20, 2014 at 6:51 pm | PERMALINK
    La France a bien livré des armes aux rebelles syriens
    le 20 août 2014 à 10h35

    Dans un entretien exclusif au « Monde », François Hollande confirme, pour la première fois, que la France à soutenu la « rébellion syrienne démocratique » en lui livrant des armes. Il s’agit de « matériel conforme aux engagements européens ».

    Breaking news: France confirms it supplied weaponry to the Syrian rebels.

    Governments from the ‘east’ & ‘west’ have a lot to answer for for their arming of inhumane psychopaths.

    We voters reap what we sow.

  42. Hmmmmm

    A book detailing the life and times of corrupt former NSW Labor MP Eddie Obeid has been pulled off the shelves.
    He Who Must Be Obeid, by senior journalists Kate McClymont and Linton Besser, was published with much fanfare on July 30, but is now the subject of legal action.
    It’s understood the legal action is not being taken by any member of the Obeid family.
    The book’s distributors, Random House, sent an urgent recall to booksellers on Wednesday afternoon telling them to remove it from sale and from store websites.
    A spokesman for Abbey’s Bookshop, on York Street in Sydney CBD, said the book had been one of its best sellers since its release.
    “We got extra stock in because we’ve sold out of the first stock,” the spokesman said.
    On Wednesday afternoon, the book was still advertised on its website under a banner reading: “This book is longer available for sale. This title is currently subject to an injunction.”

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/he-who-must-be-obeid-by-kate-mcclymont-and-linton-besser-pulled-off-shelves-20140820-106ex5.html#ixzz3AvAMR3ON

  43. I’d suggest to Daniel Andrews that a major vote winner would be a very, VERY, vocal campaign re giving IBAC some razor sharp teeth.

    Victoria might have had one years ago if the ALP had not opposed the introduction of such a body when they were in government. And the genesis of the current body was formulated under the Brumby government. Daniel Andrews was a minister in those governments. A stronger body would eb welcomed but for Labor it would smack of opportunism or the hope that the NSW imbroglio would be repeated south of the Murray.

  50. For those who missedit.

    Victoria’s first anti-corruption body will be overhauled under Labor, which argues it lacks the teeth needed to properly investigate.

    Labor says that if elected in November, it will give the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) power to investigate misconduct in public office.

    It would also enable the body to investigate indictable matters without first needing to find prima facie evidence of an offence.

    http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/04/01/vic-alp-would-overhaul-toothless-ibac

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