The Courier-Mail today carries a Galaxy poll of 900 respondents in Queensland (paywalled link) which finds Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Labor government trailing by 51-49 on two-party preferred, a slight improvement on its 52-48 deficit in the last such poll a month ago. This is derived from primary votes of 43% for the Liberal National Party (steady) and 39% for Labor (up two), with preference flows determined through an average of the past three elections. If Labor repeated its strong result on preferences at the last election, the two-party numbers would be reversed. The poll also finds 57% of respondents believe the Premier “would be justified” in calling an early election after the government’s precarious position in parliament was further weakened by Cairns MP Rob Pyne’s resignation from the ALP, with 29% deeming otherwise. It should be observed from the question wording that this doesn’t quite amount to “demanding Annastacia Palaszczuk make good on her threat to call a snap election”, as suggested by the Courier-Mail. The poll finds 44% expecting that Labor would win such an election, with 34% favouring the LNP.
The poll comes a week before Queenslanders vote on a referendum proposal for fixed four-year terms with elections set for the last week in October. According to a Galaxy poll of 540 voters conducted for the Nine Network last week, voters in the City of Brisbane favoured the proposal by 48% to 35%, although Steven Wardill of the Courier-Mail offers that “regional Queenslanders are expected to be much more sceptical towards the proposal”. The referendum has been timed to coincide with local government elections, meaning that the big partisan prize of the Brisbane lord mayoralty is up for grabs. The Galaxy poll found Liberal National Party incumbent Graham Quirk with a 53-47 two-party lead over Labor’s Tim Harding, compared with his winning margin of 68.3-31.7 at the 2012 election, which was held a few weeks after Anna Bligh’s government had been decimated at the polls.
UPDATE (13/3): The Sunday Mail has a ReachTEL poll of 1116 respondents for the Brisbane lord mayoral election, conducted on Thursday night, which has Graham Quirk leading Tim Harding 52-48, from respective primary votes of 42.6% and 29.4%, with Greens candidate Ben Pennings on 10.8% and a 13.6% undecided component that broke fairly evenly when asked who they were leaning towards.
Qld’ers almost deserve Lawrence James Springborg as Premier.
CTar
That is very cruel! I am slightly more amazed that Quirk might be reelected Mayor of Brisbane. He presides over a huge budget, showers public land on his financial supporters without public tenders, and proposes an expensive metro to fix the traffic problems that still exist despite wasting billions on tunnels that went bankrupt. Can Labor not find a strong candidate in an entire city?
Just reading up Harding and I fear I have been too harsh. He does seem a strong candidate having had a real career outside politics. I have to conclude Labor’s state situation is impacting his vote.
Soc
[That is very cruel!]
I put some thought into @1 and added ‘almost’ in an effort to be as polite as possible.
😀
Socrates
Brisbane elections are even later to grab the voters attention than state and federal elections and the feeling on the ground is that the situation is still very fluid. The Brisbane result may well surprise. Lots of anger about bad development decisions and traffic congestion being exploited by Labor in local ward campaigns. LNP campaign has been very reactive, indicating a mixture of complacency and nothing much positive to say about themselves.
Brisbane City Council covers an area of about 1,400 sq km, has a population of a bit over 1.1M and the Council has a budget of 2.6B, so it’s quite significant in terms of Australian Governments
Ctar1
they certainly deserve the Queensland Reds as their rugby team.
Poking tongue at Ctar and Simon.
SK & dwh,
Jointly, and severably (being a little technical here), but get stufffffed.
Go Brumbies…….
Socrates
Harding is proving to be a real “quiet achiever”
Quirk is the sort of guy that nobody notices. There has been no community outrage because he is so totally inoffensive. Any problems with the council were lumped at the door of Qld’s most hated ie Campbell Newman. After the aggressive, publicity seeking little Tasmanian, Graham Quirke seems so mild mannered and inoffensive.
But the development issue has just started to bite. The situation IS fluid. Most people are not even aware there is a vote at all.
Interesting… The trend is not Quirk’s friend. If this continues it could be quite close.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/graham-quirks-lord-mayoralty-on-a-knifeedge-poll-20160313-gnhste.html
Dtt
I fear one of the reasons Quirk does not get noticed is because the financial links between developers, politicians and large development approvals have become far too opaque. No need for Sir Joh’s brown paper bags with cash any more. Just “donate” to a friendly foundation.
John Birmingham has a friendly dig at Quirke and his use of mayoral power.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/comment/blunt-instrument/john-birmingham-lord-mayor-graham-quirk-owes-me-two-dollars-20160314-gnil6x.html
I wonder if Quirke has put any free parking outside the Labor party office?
Thought I’d drop by for the first time in a while. The comments here have always been a Labor right echo chamber, but it has deteriorated badly. Fact free ranting and raving about the Greens which just happens to align perfectly with the ALP’s current misguided smear campaign, homophobic religious nutters justifying the hard right’s assault on gay youth, and the deluded notion that the government is in trouble due to the tactical brilliance of human dish rag Bill Shorten. What a shame… This used to be quite an interesting place to get some real insight.