Queensland election minus one day

A calm-before-the-storm post, ahead of a flood of late polling to hit us this evening, followed tomorrow by the only poll that matters.

Just a few things to run by you, pending a more complete review of the situation tomorrow, together with late polling of which there will presumably be a good deal.

Essential Research released a poll compiled from its regular weekly surveying over the past three weekends. The sample is a very modest 566, and the result not terribly timely, but let it be noted nonetheless that the poll has it at 50-50, with primary votes of 39% for the Liberal National Party, 38% for Labor, 7% for the Greens and 5% for Palmer United.

• I’ve finally gotten around to adding campaign updates to my election guide, so you can now find individual electorate entries appended with poll results and accounts of incidents during the campaign period where applicable.

• The one campaign update that won’t sound familiar to followers of my blog posts relates to the electorate of Mackay, and it reads thus: “There has been widespread talk that Labor’s hold on the seat is under serious threat from independent candidate Julie Boyd, explaining Annastacia Palaszczuk’s decision to visit the electorate the Tuesday before polling day. Boyd served as mayor from 1997 to 2008 and made three bids for LNP preselection federally before quitting the party, complaining she had been told she had ‘not made enough tea and bickies’ to win support.”

• For more on Mackay and other independent prospects, I had a good deal to say in a paywalled piece for Crikey yesterday.

UPDATE: The Gold Coast Bulletin reports that a ReachTEL poll of 1115 voters on the Gold Coast, conducted at an unspecified time this week, had the LNP on 48.3% and Labor on 29.4%, compared with 58.3% and 23.7% at the 2012 election. The paper also reports that internal polling by both Labor and Palmer United suggest Albert, with a margin of 11.9%, is “in play”, and that Labor is “hopeful of a win” in Broadwater, margin 11.3%.

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.

131 comments on “Queensland election minus one day”

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  1. On a more general note – the whole “Campaign Bus” thing disturbs me.

    So a pile of journalists hop on the Labor or LNP bus every day like excited schoolkids going on an excursion. They go exactly where that Party wants them to go, see exactly what that Party wants them to see, and hear exactly what that Party wants them to hear. Very much like the “real tourist experiences” that foreigners can get now in North Korea.

    Joh Bjelke-Petersen called this sort of thing “feeding the chooks”, but I’m sure even he would be amazed at how willingly the media people submit.

  2. With Newman likely to lose, and no public promise from anyone that he would have a seat to get back into parliament, the prospect of Jeff Neville-BleijBorg becoming premier looms large. Do we have any public statement that a new LNP government will honour the promises of a man no longer in parliament? In short, are Newman’s promises worth anything at this point?

  3. [Neither was Campbell Newman.]

    Who was nonetheless thought to be better than all of the turkeys the LNP had in parliament.

    One of whom will be LNP leader next week.

  4. But, to be fair, TBA has a point. After all, Victoria election shows how hard it is for unknown, first-term opposition leaders to win an election.

  5. Rocket Rocket @2

    To be fair, good media outlets will go with the party bus and also assign other teams to scrutinise the election outside of these buses.

    However, I can understand the sentiments. Minor parties and independents cannot afford the party bus and the media circus to go with it.

  6. citizen

    The funny part is that I still feel that tomorrow’s Courier-Mail will tack hard the other way with a headline like “Labor set for shock win” – just to frighten the horses and try and prevent such happening.

  7. TBA

    “”The LNP will win this… Anna 2.0 is not Premier material””

    Opinions are the cheapest commodity on Earth and therefor not worth much!.

  8. Going by the actions of my LNP friends in QLD on FB… they’re panicking. If you really thought you were going to win (or at least win relatively cleanly – I think BT would be a clean seat win), you don’t go hardcore negative 24 hours out from voting.

  9. I can’t find any further info on this poll by Essential, which is different from the one William mentions above:

    http://www.northernstar.com.au/news/pm-may-face-a-spill-as-polls-hint-huge-upset/2528110/

    [Latest polling released by Essential have turned the contest on its head, suggesting Labor has a 51%-49% lead over the LNP on a two-party preferred basis.

    The poll has found that if the past week the LNP was favoured by 38% of respondents ahead of Labor, 37%, the Greens 10 % and Palmer United 5%.]

  10. Moksha – it is in all the APN Regional News Network papers. Someone alerted me to it earlier in the Sunshine Coast Daily, and it’s in the Tweed Daily News etc.

    Can’t find it in news.com.au or Fairfax (yet!)

  11. That article claims Galaxy polling has Labor ahead 56.5 to 43.5 and I can’t recall any poll other than Morgan having Labor that far ahead. Not sure where they are getting their polling information.

    On a more light-hearted note I think William’s thread header for this thread should have read “Queensland Election Minus One Premier”.

  12. [ Going by the actions of my LNP friends in QLD on FB… they’re panicking. If you really thought you were going to win (or at least win relatively cleanly – I think BT would be a clean seat win), you don’t go hardcore negative 24 hours out from voting. ]

    I think that realistically the most likely outcome HAS to be that Newman gets the flick, the ALP pick up a BIG bunch of seats, and the LNP retain Govt. The Libs will focus afterwards on retaining Govt, and the ALP will focus on their big comeback in seats. Something in it for everyone except Tony Abbott. 🙂

    But the panic wont be just because the Libs KNOW that they will look like utter wan&ers for having lost such a big majority (in seats) after just a first term. It will be because there is there is an outside chance they will lose their precious position of power and the thought of that scares them just sooooo much.

    There is not enough popcorn in the world to do justice to the prospect of Newman having to do the double concession speech if they do lose Govt, and then watching the question session after Abbott does his Press Club speech monday. 🙂

    [ with late polling of which there will presumably be a good deal. ]

    Awaited with interest. 🙂

  13. Well well…This is going to be far closer than I would’ve predicted .

    I bet the QLD LNP are grateful for all Tony’s assistance this week. LOL!

  14. senior politicians and leaders should be as savvy, educated and principles as fitzgerald – nothing else will do – why is the nation constantly served up a chook raffle prize as leader? why are elections constantly like a chook raffle – neither queensland leader is good enough really but labor might trigger ongoing changes, might, might jiust

  15. I’ve just heard on ABC local radio that a ReachTel (?) poll of about 10 or so seats on the Gold Coast has a 10% swing to Labor putting the shivers up some entrenched LNP pollies. As these seats have margins over 10%, they may not shift this time, but it will make them marginal for 2018.

  16. @ 26

    A further point to the one you made about swings on the Gold Coast.

    Verity Barton, the LNP Broadwater MP was actively campaigning outside the Broadwater Pre-Poll Voting Centre when I went to vote on Wednesday. Coincidence? I doubt it.

  17. Aaron 27, it seems she has come out of hiding. After further checks of margins, Burleigh at 11% is at risk and Gaven at 19% may also get interesting, especially with the incumbent Alex Douglas preferencing Labor.

  18. 26. Only 10%? The LNP will be hoping so, it’s their best case scenario!. Even so they’ll lose Albert with ALP also an outside chance in Gaven, if it’s true that the ex-LNP member is giving them preferences there. I’ll also keep and very lazy eye on Currumbin, Burleigh and Southport. Forget Broadwater though, Peta Kaye-Croft had a huge personal vote and that should be one of the smaller swings.

  19. 29

    If Barton was not such a poor local member than I would agree with you about Broadwater.

    Southport and Currumbin under no danger at all.

    Albert and Gaven probably 50/50. Burleigh slightly in favour of LNP but not by much.

  20. I can’t understand why its assumed (even by pseph’s)that the ALP needs 50%. In 1995 they won 46-43 (counting Gladstone as ALP)with 46.5%, and in 2009 52-34 with 50.5%. The electoral geography favours the ALP as in SA.
    Another thing to consider is that preferences won’t split the same this time as in 2012, and a lot less green voters will exhaust. TPP based on last election preferences will be wrong. If preferences in the 2014 Victorian election had split the same as in 2010 the result would have been 50.7% instead of 52.0%, so I’d be inclined to deduct this from the reported LNP TPP figure.

  21. Peterk

    Qite true about preferences. All the HtV is Ashgrove are directing to Kate Jones. One of the independents is a “bikie” candidate, so no prizes for where his preferences will go. Met him at prepoll. Quite charismatic

  22. 29. Agree Currumbin would be very outside and I think Jann Stuckey is reasonably entrenched. But it was the ALP’s strongest during the 90’s and the LNP only gained it by accident whilst in opposition – now that they are in government a different dynamic will apply and I’d expect a big correction. Why so definate about Southport though?

  23. I think the whole ‘based on 2012 preferences’ thing is a really bad idea with this election. Considering that the preference flow to Labor dried up three years… wasn’t the GRN -> ALP rate only in the 50s? This is obviously not going to be the case.

    Add in the VERY high risk the LNP have managed to grace themselves with “only vote one” at a time when their primary votes aren’t going to go up… it boggles my mind.

  24. [I can’t understand why its assumed (even by pseph’s)that the ALP needs 50%.]

    I think every serious commentator, including Bill Bowe, Antony Green and Brian Costar, has pointed out that OPV makes a 2PP estimate difficult or meaningless. Costar also points oit the geography you describe.

  25. Good point Martin B. Has William or anyone else run a seat by seat simulation model to test the result on a 50/50 vote? Intuitively, if the LNP believed they were in front, they would not have gone so hardly negative this week.

  26. David 36, what complicates Gaven is the incumbent, Alex Douglas, has quit the LNP and PUP and is now an independent. The word is he’s preferencing the impressively credentialled Labor candidate, who is the son of Joe Riordan (a confrere of Whitlam). It could be a boil over

  27. Tom 40

    Too right.

    But what can they do – guarantee he wont stay on if he loses his seat? Ha! They have themselves between a rock and a hard place but pretty sure they will all be in the hall of mirrors by the end of it.

  28. David 36,
    I don’t think swings needed are as meaningful as usual after the freak result of 2012. The 2009 pendalum is argueably a better guide, or even 2006 for some seats. In 2006 the ALP won Gaven without the benefit of incumbency. I’d be surprised if they win it though, but not shocked.
    Martin 37,
    I don’t think its meaningless at all, just harder to measure.

  29. Looking at the Gold Coast polling it really depends on how many of those “others” get preferenced. With the Labor vote under 30% there would need to be very high number of second preferences with a big % flowing to Labor.

    However the scare may send a few voters back to the LNP 🙂

  30. 40

    Where the article says there is also no restriction on PMs being outside the Commonwealth Parliament, it is wrong. It is capped at 3 months (which is needed because when the Parliament is dissolved for elections, there are technically no MPs and in the case of Double Dissolutions, no Senators either).

    However the Commonwealth Constitution does allow state government ministers to sit in the Commonwealth Parliament. So Newman could be a Commonwealth MP or Senator and still Queensland Premier.

  31. Yes that report from the Gold Coast says the ALP primary is up 5.7% which is really on the low side…Seems like good news for the LNP

  32. All this hype about Newman remaining premier after losing his seat is really only hype and something male cattle leave in paddocks.

  33. peterk also their analysis is comparing an average change in PV to 2PP margins. The analysis just doesn’t hold up unless all that 10% gets preferenced and ends up with Labor.

  34. [
    All this hype about Newman remaining premier after losing his seat is really only hype and something male cattle leave in paddocks.]

    It will be a shock if he wins his seat so what will happen if he loses as all indications are is a very fair question. Given how terrible a government they have been as outlined by Fitzgerald it is perfectly fair to consider what shonky bad governance plans they have if they win.

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