The Sunday Mail has a YouGov Galaxy poll of state voting intention in Queensland, which provides more evidence of a national slump in Coalition support since Malcolm Turnbull’s demise: the Liberal National Party is down three on the primary vote since August to 34%, and Labor’s lead on two-party preferred is out from 51-49 to 53-47. Labor is up one on the primary vote to 36%, while the Greens and One Nation are respectively steady on 11% and 10%. Both leaders record improved personal ratings: Annastacia Palasczcuk is up five on approval to 46%, and down one on disapproval to 37%, while Deb Frecklington is respectively up four to 35% and up three to 29%. Palaszczuk holds a 43-36 lead on preferred premier – I’m not sure that they asked this question last time (UPDATE: Apparently that should read 43-26, and has narrowed from 44-23 last time – thanks as ever to the Ghost with the most). The poll was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday from a sample of 839 – hopefully there will be federal voting intention numbers from the same poll in the coming days.
This result does not auger well for the Feds, in the wake of Morrison’s rainbow tour up here.
William, there is a typo in the Courier-Mail’s graphic. The preferred premier result is Palaszczuk ALP 43 (-1) Frecklington LNP 26 (+3).
I sometimes wonder just when it sank in for the Queensland LNP just how badly they squandered their 2012 victory.
After the 2015 election, many were probably thinking, “Hey, it’s just an unstable Labor minority government we’re up against, led by some woman noones heard of and whose name noone can pronounce or spell. Should be a piece of cake to get back in in three years.”
But after the 2017 election, it must have truly hit home that they could well be facing another lengthy stint in the wilderness, and one that was totally avoidable.
Meanwhile, Labor’s devastating 2012 loss – the one that was supposed to keep them “out of power for a generation” – is now looking more and more like a brief little interruption in what is otherwise almost a thirty year reign in Queensland.
Fun fact: The last time a Coalition/LNP government managed to get re-elected in Queensland, Joh was still premier!
If the LNP loses badly in the next Federal Election in Queensland we may well see the LNP experiment over.
Asha Leu says:
Saturday, November 10, 2018 at 11:19 pm
Fun fact: The last time a Coalition/LNP government managed to get re-elected in Queensland, Joh was still premier!
Fun fact it was just the National Party in 1986. The Liberals had a bit of intestinal fortitude in those days and sat in opposition. Don “Shady” Lane and Brian Austin left the Libs after 1982 and joined the Nats. They both went to Jail as a result of Fitzgerald.
I guess the last time a coalition Government was returned was 1980.
38 years ago.
Upnorth:
Right, I’d forgotten the Nat/Lib coalition wasn’t actually active in the final years of the Bjelke-Peterson government.
Ah, Joh. The only thing he hated more than the Labor party was his own coalition partners, and he happily screwed them over just as much with his electoral malaportionment.
And we’re on fixed terms after this next one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensland_term_length_referendum,_2016
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1617/AustralianElectionsTimetable#_Toc460249640
@ Asha Leu
Yeah Joh hated the surburban Libs with a vengeance.
I really do rhink the LNP are a cross roads. Will the shotgun wedding engineered by Sprinborg continue if they lose more elections.
When your church is too broad it’s hard to have common values, let alone any you can sell. I think the LNP have diluted themselves. And maybe that’s why KAP and ON are doing as well as they are in Qld, taking votes off the NP side of the LNP. And on the other side of the LNP church, I think the Greens have prospects in professional-class seats which would typically be the L side of the LNP.
Palaszczuk and her team are doing well and show every sign of continuing that way. Without an upper house the careful measured temperament Pallaszczuk appears to have, and appears to have instilled in her government, should keep most of us content. We’re a conservative bunch at heart. Do your job and let us get on with ours.
If an election were held in the 2nd half of next year (maybe for symmetry in the last week of October) then it’s easy to see Labor in power in Qld until at least 2023.
Compulsory preferences reduce the need for a single party. The comparative marginality of the vast majority Queensland urban seats, what seems to be a much higher proportion of losable to the other side of politics seats compared with other mainland state Legislative Assembly/House of Assembly seats, still raises the question of which party gets to provide the Coalition leader.
In regards to the next Queensland election – it will be held on Saturday October 31, 2020 as a start to 4 year terms.
The following election will be Saturday October 26, 2024.
Had Queensland gone to the last election in early 2018 (as was available) the first 4 year term would have commenced on Saturday October 3o, 2021.
The ALP chose a late 2017 election date which locked in the 2020 start for 4 year terms.
Queensland disappointingly saved Turnbull and the Federal Coalition in 2016…. this state opinion poll suggests that Queensland is likely to sink ScuMo and the Federal Coalition, not just the State LNP….
What’s the current trend for State and Federal opinion polls across the three major states?
Latest state election opinion polls:
Qld 53% ALP (Galaxy)
Vic 54% ALP (Newspoll)
NSW 50% ALP (Fairfax-ReachTEL)
Federal opinion polls results from the BludgerTrack:
Qld 52.9% ALP
Vic 56.5% ALP
NSW 53.7% ALP
As a Qlder, I agree with the point about letting the Government of the day get on with its job. Newman and the LNP lost the unlosable election, because they focussed on deliberately going in the opposite direction and put ideology before pragmatism. Had it not done so, the LNP would have lost a very comfortable majority but retained power. Newmans agressive, opinionated and autocratic style alienated many people from many sectors of Qld society.
By contrast, APs style may not be attractive and can be criticized for blandness, but she is doing just what Qlders want- getting on with the job, inspite of problems with some ministers and Qld Rail in particular.
On the other side we have Deb Frecklington. Stereotypical female LNP leader. She almost outdoes AP in blandness. The real power behind her throne is Deputy Tim Mander, who seems to pop up on our screens before Frecklington does. If Frecklington cannot defeat AP, the knives will be out, with Mander in control. He’s already tried to roll an LNP leader once, so there’s a sense of inevitability about that.
The question is- what direction would a possible LNP government go with the strong likelihood of a Federal Labor government ? Voters are tired of negativity and parochialism. The growth of population in suburban and urban Qld is also changing voting patterns. The next Federal election may see the demise of a few Qld LNP representatives.
For the LNP to become the next Government, it, like Federal Labor has done, has to reassess its policies, its candidate selection and its internal problems in order to become a broader, more representative alternative, but Conservative Rural Qld may yet have a say in that..
The LNP are reaping the rewards of laziness.
Queenslanders hardly hear from Opposition Leader Frecklington these days, she leaves the work to happy clapper Tim Mander, and he has a knack of picking the wrong issues to attack Labor on and coming across as a goose when he stuffs the attack up, and that happens a lot lately.
Things have gotten so bad for the LNP in recent months that The Courier Mail has felt the need, again, to become the official opposition, printing non stop anti ALP stories daily.
Channel 9 up here has also adopted the opposition role for the LNP broadcasting at least three to four anti ALP stories daily in their 6pm National News slot.
None of this has been lost on the voters who have seen this story many times in the past. The LNP drop their bundle, the media pick up the cudgels.
As it currently stands, Frecklington will be deposed next year and Mander will replace her, but truly, he is just as hopeless.
Labor could not have hoped for anything better.
The Courier Mail has become so transparent with its anti-ALP agenda in recent years that I’d have to think most Queenslanders with an ounce of sense completely ignore it now. Many a biased news source manages to still maintain the illusion of being an objective, dispassionate outlet, but the Courier Mail is just laughably over-the-top. It isn’t even just politics – crime and even sports stories have a way of coming across like bitter opinion pieces instead of sober news articles.
@ Asha Leu
Couldn’t agree more. The CM has become Qlds Sun- Herald, but not its Daily Telegraph (yet). Rowan Dean was its recent Editor-in-Chief, and that says it all.
There is an interesting comparison between Palaszczuk and Frecklington doing the rounds in Queensland. Palaszczuk is described as the older sister we would all like to have. Frecklington is described as the grumpy auntie many of us did have.
Agreed. I read months ago that the LNP will not stand passively by if they don’t think Deb Frecklington can win the next election. There is a prize of a four year fixed term at stake.
Tim Mandar probably would be the replacement. There is nobody else really in the realms.
There is no easy fix for the LNP they to need to win seats in Brisbane and North Queensland. They also want to win voters back from there right flank from One Nation but moderate voters in Brisbane won’t have a bar of them if they continue to play footies with One Nation.
RB:
I agree with your assessment of Mander. Frecklington has been pretty invisible, but – while I have no time whatsoever for her politics – I think she’s actually rather likeable and articulate as far as Nats go, and her presence as leader helps make the LNP look less like reactionary dinosaurs. Were I an LNP parliamentarian (god forbid), I’d be looking to keep her around and just encourage her to put herself in the spotlight a bit more and try to avoid going into “whining Springborg” mode. But as things stand, I think you’re correct that she’s unlikely to make it to the election.
Not only does Mander have pretty, er, questionable political judgement, but while he would appeal to conservative Christians in urban areas and *some* One Nation types, he would be anathema to lefties and moderates, and just another out-of-touch city Lib to the typical Nat/Katter base, more concerned with “family values” issues than the “real” stuff going on in the bush.
He was all over the news recently protesting the new abortion laws, which I’m sure would go down a treat with the average Queenslander in 2018, most of whom (if the discussions I had around the time were any indication) seemed stunned to discover that abortion was actually still illegal here. While it was just Brisbanites I was speaking to, having grown up in rural north Queensland, I reckon many conservative country folk would take a dim view of any government that seems to be standing in the way of them getting a root when they want it – and that goes doubly so for the outer suburban “bogan” demographic that One Nation tends to appeal to.
There are a lot of conservatives in Queensland, but they aren’t “family values” conservatives. Sure, some might bang on about protecting religious freedoms and safe schools and the like, but that has far more to do with sticking it to the PC crowd and innate homophobia than any kind of strong (or even weak) religious convictions.
There is an interesting comparison between Palaszczuk and Frecklington doing the rounds in Queensland. Palaszczuk is described as the older sister we would all like to have. Frecklington is described as the grumpy auntie many of us did have.
It’s weird. During the 2017 election night coverage, I thought Frecklington actually came across as very likeable, charismatic, and well-spoken (for someone who holds opposing views on almost every issue to myself), and thought she’d be quite a formidable opponent for Palaszczuk. But since becoming opposition leader, she seems to be making the same mistake Laurence Springborg and John-Paul Langbroek continually did – coming across as a miserable, perpetual whinger. And as Springborg discovered in three separate elections, Australians hate a whinger.
It’s a difficult balancing act to pull, since the very job description of an opposition leader is to, well, oppose and criticize the government, but the successful ones manage to do it without coming across as someone who is just never happy about anything.
(Incidentally, having experienced many years of Springborg repeatedly losing unloseable elections against on-the-nose, scandal-riven state Labor governments, this is one reason why I don’t buy into the complaints some make about Shorten “not going hard enough” against the government – I think he is, quite wisely, avoiding the trap of looking like a perpetually whinger, and has pretty much been successful so far.)
Onebobsworth:
Totally agree. I remember that when Campbell Newman was first elected, I was devastated. Not so much about how badly Labor was trounced, but because – in direct contrast to the Queensland LNP’s natural state of a being a chaotic, laughable stew of fail – Newman seemed like a sane, intelligent, charismatic, and reasonably moderate leader who would be pragmatic and savvy enough to turn his enormous majority into many terms in power.
Instead – drunk on power and hubris, and likely assuming the sheer size of their majority insulated themselves from any possibility of being knocked out in one term – his government immediately set out on a ruthlessly ideological agenda that wasn’t even remotely hinted at during the election campaign, with Newman himself dropping the relatively easy-going, pragmatic, competent persona he had as Brisbane mayor (in all his time in that role, I don’t think he ever mustered opinions stronger than “yeah, he seems fine” or, at worst, “please stop with all the tunnels”), to reveal a bitter, authoritative, thin-skinned ideologue.
Had he kept his ego in check, and had his government adopted a incremental, “don’t-scare-the-horses” approach to putting their agenda into place, they would probably still be in power right now.
Asha,
I go back to the Joh era and have seen them all
This current LNP bunch are the least impressive of them all.
Even Robbie Katter comes across as a progressive better than any of the LNP.
As to the Freck, I picked her out as a compulsive whiner years ago. She has not disappointed in her current role.
We have a dog with a funny highpitched yappy bark and everytime Frecklington opens her mouth she immediately reminds us all of Kali our little dog. And whenever Kali barks, someone in the house will say that’s enough Deb.
I bet we are are not the only ones who think that way about Frecklington.
(Just to clarify, the first paragraph of my post at 10:38am is a quote of Peter Stanton’s earlier post.)
Mander (who had previously been the head of Scripture Union) is another Morrison. If the LNP think replacing Frecklington with Mander will work I think they may get a big surprise.
It’s just under 2 years to the next Qld State election (and a lot can happen) but I still think they have to keep Deb there to face up against Anna. She at least deserves one go.
They call Frecklington “Hecklington” enough said.
ausdavo @ #12 Sunday, November 11th, 2018 – 5:58 am
Saturday October 31, 2020 makes a lot of sense as it is close to a three year term for the current parliament and allows the four year terms to start in the last week of October. But is this set? Could Palaszczuk go 12 months early?
All I managed to find is the following.
https://www.ecq.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/65735/FINAL-REPORT-Fixed-4-Year-Elections-Referendum-19-March-2016.pdf
If the bus is working this good, it’s about time the Libs sent a whole train load of ScoMo impersonators! Well they would if they were fair dinkum!
Asha Leu
I am still stunned at how Campbell Newman completely stuffed up after such a massive win!
The problem for the Liberals was that they went through a long period where they got similar total votes but fewer seats than the Nats. So the Nats ruled the roost, quite literally from 1983-1989 when they dumped the Libs. When we lived in Queensland I think there were 1000 Victorians shifting there per week in the early 90s. It seemed inevitable that this would change the demographics – these “southerners” might vote Liberal but they were probably not going to vote for the Nationals.
The LNP was a clever device to try and get around this Nationals-same votes-more seats- therefore more power problem. But one of the problems of it is that everyone knows who is really a Nat and who is really a Lib – in the Federal sphere they have to go to separate party room meetings even though they are all supposedly in the same “LNP”.
So since 1989 there have been two conservative Premiers – Rob Borbidge, a Gold Coast National in the “interregnum” 1996-1998, and Campbell Newman, a Brisbane Liberal 2012-2015. The days of a rural National Premier have long gone I think.
It is extraordinary when thinking back to the Bjelke-Petersen era that Queensland in now Australia’s “most Labor” state – 24/29 years in power since Wayne Goss’ historic 1989 victory.
Rocket Rocket:
One of the main reasons the coalition set-up in Queensland was so unsustainable after the Wayne Goss “1 vote, 1 value” reforms was that the vagaries of the state’s electoral make-up meant that the Nationals were the bigger Coalition partner in opposition, but the marginals were increasingly suburban Liberal seats that, in the event of a Coalition victory, would make the Liberals the bigger party when they were in government. This inevitably led to very awkward moments in election campaigns where both the National and Liberal leaders would be repeatedly questioned on just who would be premier if they won the election, and often they would be unable to give a straight answer.
The only reason this didn’t happen sooner was due to Joh manipulating the electoral boundaries in the such a way that the Nationals always won more seats than the Liberals, despite the latter often polling much higher in elections. If not for that, the Liberals likely would have taken over as the senior Coalition partner at some point in the 70s.
I’m not sure what the answer is for the LNP now. The merger hasn’t exactly been a great success, but splitting into separate parties would likely lead to same problems that it did in the 90s and 00s. The real answer would be for them to unite behind a sensible, relatively centrist leader, likely a somewhat reasonable, articulate, non-reactionary Nat who can appeal to the bush but won’t put off moderates and Liberals in urban areas- but I think that’s well beyond the party in its current state. More likely, they will just continue bleeding moderate Libs to Labor and the alt-right types and traditional Nats to One Nation and Katter, maybe getting a shot at another chaotic one-term government once Labor in a decade or so once Labor sufficiently on the nose again.
Could a coalition agreement not be written that guarantees the Liberals the leadership and Nationals the deputy leadership, and their brand back?
calumniousfox says:
Sunday, November 11, 2018 at 2:16 pm
Could a coalition agreement not be written that guarantees the Liberals the leadership and Nationals the deputy leadership, and their brand back?
What if the Nats win more seats than the Libs? That’s the pig in the poke
calumniousfox:
Possibly, but Nationals would have to agree to that, and I’d imagine they’d be loathe to give up holding the Premiership for good.
Even when the LNP have had Liberal leaders, there’s always been Nats waiting in the wing to take over. There’s a (pretty convincing) theory that many Nationals supported Newman’s ascendancy in the hopes they’d win in 2012 but Newman wouldn’t win Ashgrove (a reasonable prediction prior to Labor’s support utterly collapsing), allowing Seeney to become Premier – and had the LNP scraped through in 2015 , we almost certainly would have gotten Premier Seeney or Springborg, both of whom are Nationals.
This is a commendable result for Labor and Palszczuk, and pretty awful for the LNP and Frecklington. Considering difficulties like Jo Miller and Hinchliffe in her own siide, and the QR debacle(s), Anna has done well. I would love to know the split by gender, and whether the courageous recent votes on abortion law reform and a few other social issues has actually won Labor more votes than it cost. I hope so.
Palszczuk can’t take all the credit though. I know people here have commented on state LNP antics and how state politics might affect the Federal poll. But I have to wonder if the opposite is also true. Reichspotato Dutton living in his Palm Beach mansion and bringing down a PM must have helped wound the image of the LNP, as would the complete rabble the national party half have degenerated into post Barnaby. Combined with Katter and Hanson’s recent public statements, the non-Labor options in Qld are not looking very palatable.
Stephen Wardhill wrote a terrific article in the couier mail. He suggested the main problem with the LNP is in the ranks they are just short of talent period.
He suggested despite the flaws of Labor pre-selection process through unions and factions out of the process the cream seems to rise to the top in terms of talent.
LNP pre-selection is outright rank and file vote. And Wardhill suggests while rank and file gets a larger say the problem with the process it’s a lot harder to dislodge non-performers or mps who have out stayed their welcome. If you look at all the Mps LNP have on the Gold Coast you could say the cupboard is quite bare considering the amount seats that they have.
In truth the LNP is a very delicate union of two groups who do not really like each other. Due to the decentralised population of Queensland the support for Nationals is higher than other states. It is common for there to be close to even National and Liberal members. This means there is constant tension about which group will provide the leader. When they lose a state election the Liberals tend to lose more seats to Labor than the Nationals. When they win it is the Liberals who gain seats. So in opposition the Nationals have the majority but in Government the Liberals have the numbers. This creates ongoing leadership tension. Until the two groups either sort out their differences or split into two parties they will struggle. Long may this problem persist.
As others have pointed out, once Labor won in 1989 it became increasingly likely that if the conservative parties ever got a combined majority then the Liberals would almost certainly have more seats than the Nationals. I remember discussing this very dilemma with someone who is now a mid level Liberal apparatchik. And to give them credit they didn’t think that the LNP idea then on the table would be a lasting solution.
For Australia it really is a unique situation. There are examples like it in Europe more usually in proportional representation systems. I suppose the problem of saying the Premier would come from the party that wins more seats is that it would end up with both parties contesting some regional seats and going hard against each other in search of the prize.
Asha, I think you’re right. The LNP will only get back in by default when a tired Labor government is eventually on the nose
From afar, but the magnitude of the Newman win, reducing Labor to the numbers they had and led by the lady who is now Premier, and the recovery of Labor to claim back government reducing Newman to one term plus now a second term and this polling 12 months into this second terms, speaks volumes for Labor and its Leader
This achievement is unparalleled in Australian political history, surely?
Queensland is the one-term (or less) conservative Government capital of Australia. They have had 3 (Moore 1929-32, Borbidge 1996-1998 and Newman) in the modern political era (since 1909, when there has constantly been the ALP and 1 or 2 conservative parties as the major parties (and the QLP/DLP and One Nation for both around a couple of decades)).
Moore`s government gained 15 out of the 72 seats (for a total of 43 out of the 72) on the way in and lost 15 (one to and independent) out of the total 62 (the Moore Government redistributed, cutting mainly ALP held seats) on the way out. The result was party due to the Depression and the government`s response thereto.
Borbidge was a narrow victory (a minority government that came to power after gaining a seat at a by-election caused by a problem in the closest seat in the 1995 election), followed by a medium loss (exacerbated by One Nation).
Newman gained 44 on the way in and lost a net 34 on the way out (they however gained a seat back from an independent) (both totals out of 89).
The only Commonwealth Government to have a similar one-term trajectory was the Scullin Government which also suffered from the Depression, its handling thereof, only having 4 seats in the Senate (they were elected at a House-only election and had not done at all well at the previous 2 Senate elections (which were under the 1919-1949 majoritarian system, where the party with a 2PP majority in the State got all 3 Senators, having won one of their seats because of a candidate shortage on the other side)) and the resulting double split. The ALP gained 15 seats o the way in and lost 32 on the way out (leaving only 14 out of 75).
I agree with most of what has been written today about Qld politics but add:
The LNP can’t dump Frecklington. Given the current Federal Coalition preoccupation with slicing and dicing leaders, Mander and Crisafulli ( likely to be the next LNP leader instead of Mander, who is particularly unsaleable to progressive Qlders ) would be unlikely to try and roll her as AP and Qld Labor would simply make mileage out of that by saying, “here go the Conservatives again, another leader gone. Not a good look. Look at our stability.”
The next State Election is there to be lost by Labor, rather than won by the Opposition, especially with its current LNP team which doesn’t inspire voter enthusiasm at all.
The increase in electorate numbers in the growing ( and more progressive) SE corner puts more pressure on the LNP to win seats there in order to take government. The National Party faction is seeing its chances of ever holding the Premiership again as probably irretreviably lost.
The opportunity is there for AP to change some Ministers in the next 12-18 months, probably Hinchliffe to start with. The slightly renegade Ipswich MP Joanne Miller has been de-toothed and
will be non-news now, inspite of the CM and Wardill trying to be mischievious.
Adani struggles to be a factor any more in the State employment debate as most Qlders in the tactically important SE part of the State have moved on. The fact that Adani is desperately trying to save the Carmichael project by downsizing it further weakens any claim by the company and the LNP that its go-ahead in any form will create large-scale jobs.
Barring any “black swan” crisis for Qld Labor, AP appears set for a third term, particularly as a Federal Labor Government will be handy to have alongside. I reckon AP would step aside sometime then to make way for an easy transition to Jackie Trad as leader and Premier.
There’s always stumbling blocks along the road for any Party but I think the LNPs road to Government in Qld is particularly difficult. Like its Federal counterpart, it needs to reassess its policies, become at least quite a bit more progressive and desist majorally from being driven by ideological hardline factions. Both of them need to be dragged into the new view of politics in Australia.
The very lopsided election results, when there is a big swing, and potential fights over the leadership of the Coalition (if the LNP break up) can only really be fixed with some form of proportional representation. Even 2-member electorates with proportional representation would be much fairer and result in a more stable parliament.
@Tom the first and best
Are you a Greens supporter? Nobody is talking about proportional voting and nobody cares. The 2012 result was accumulation of a lot of things but the most important factor was Labor had been in power 20 years and people felt it was time for a change.
Actually Queensland parliament has been stable for Labor. Labor has had just four leaders since Wayne Goss became leader in 1987. It’s not Labors fault the LNP can’t get their act togeather and they would show zero interest in changing system to calm the National/Liberal divide.
The LNP merger is not the problem it’s the LNP’s arrogance that was the problem. They blew through a record majority because they didn’t think the could be beaten and behaved accordingly. Blaming the merger is just a copout for the biggest political choke we have seen in a century in state politics.
The 2012 election gave the LNP a majority the was undemocratically big. From just under 50% of the Primary vote they got nearly 88% of the seats. It made the Opposition (the ALP got over 26% but only 7 of of 89 seats, not a stable result) and crossbench (KAP, the Greens and others got over 23% combined) undemocratically small. Lop-sided parliaments make effective opposition harder and let governments get away with more.
Re Newman’s loss, it was my most satisfying political moment second only to the 1993 Federal election. Our local candidate Anthony Lynham set the ball rolling with a huge by election swing against the LNP.