Newspoll Queensland marginal seat polls

Very close races in two Labor-held marginals, but Labor appears to have a break in the LNP-held seat of Pumicestone.

The Australian brings us Queensland election state polls courtesy of Newspoll, the results of which are consistent with a general intelligence picture covered here: a close election with regionally patchy results, a slump in support for minor parties and especially for One Nation, and negligible support for Clive Palmer’s party, which in each case has support at either 1% or 2%.

• In the Brisbane seat of Mansfield, which Corrine McMillan gained for Labor in 2017 by a margin of 1.6%, Labor is credited with a lead of 50.5-49.5, from primary votes of Labor 41% (39.4% at the 2017 election), LNP 45% (40.2%), Greens 9% (11.3%) and One Nation 2% (9.1%). Annastacia Palaszczuk leads Deb Frecklington as preferred premier by 54-32. Sample: 404.

• In the Townsville seat of Mundingburra, which Labor holds by a 1.1% margin, the LNP leads 50.5-49.5, from primary votes of LNP 32% (26.1% in 2017), Labor 35% (31.4%), Katter’s Australian Party 14% (13.9%), One Nation 11% (16.7%) and Greens 4% (7.6%). Palaszczuk leads 43-36 as preferred premier. The seat is being vacated with the retirement of Labor member Coralee O’Rourke.

• In Pumicestone, on the cusp of northern Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, which the LNP won by an 0.8% margin in 2017, Labor leads 54-46, from primary votes of Labor 45% (35.6% in 2017), LNP 37% (29.9%), One Nation 9% (23.3%) and Greens 6% (5%). Palaszczuk leads 55-29 as preferred premier. The seat is being vacated with the retirement of LNP member Simone Wilson.

Samples sizes are small – apparently exactly 404 apiece – but Campbell White of YouGov relates that these are the “first ever Newspoll seat polls conducted by live telephone to mobile phones”, presumably reflecting the fact that past seat polling was either in the landline era or conducted by robopolling. The polling was conducted from Tuesday to Thursday.

Queensland election minus nine days

A Roy Morgan SMS poll adds to the impression of a close race, as both sides pay an inordinate amount of attention to north Queensland.

Roy Morgan yesterday published an SMS poll crediting Labor with a 51-49 lead ahead of next Saturday’s Queensland election, from primary votes of Labor 36%, LNP 35%, One Nation 12%, Greens 10% and Katter’s Australian Party 2.5%. The poll was conducted Monday to Thursday last week from a sample of 1187.

Other happenings:

• Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party has run double page advertisements attacking Labor each day in the Courier-Mail since Sunday, with a half devoted to the government’s “policy-motivated stance” (apparently a bad thing) on COVID-19 and the other to a made-up claim about a Labor plot to introduce a death tax. The Roy Morgan poll had support for the party in statistically significant territory, at less than 0.5%.

• The campaign has been all about north Queensland this week, and in particular about the future of the Bruce Highway. The LNP signature election promise is a $200 million contribution to a dual carriageway from Gympie to Cairns, to which Labor has responded this week by building an alternative route further inland for heavy vehicles. Labor has been mocking the LNP for relying on an $800 million contribution from the federal government, but its own policies encounter much the same issue.

• Also in north Queensland, three Labor candidates have been disseminating campaign material imploring voters to “put the LNP last”, at odds with the party’s official position that that honour should go to One Nation, and with Labor’s attacks on the LNP for favouring both One Nation and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party ahead of Labor on its how-to-vote cards. These include incumbents Craig Crawford in Barron River and Brittany Lauga in Keppel, along with Mike Brunker in Burdekin, which the LNP holds on a margin of 0.8%.

• Deb Frecklington yesterday targeted (white) voters in Townsville and Cairns by proposing curfews on children in the two cities, with parents potentially to receive $250 fines if it is broken. All three of Townsville’s seats are held by Labor on tight margins (Townsville by 0.4%, Mundingburra by 1.1% and Thuringowa by 4.1%), as are two of the three seats that cover Cairns (Cairns by 3.3% and Barron River by 1.8%). Townsville in particular is suffering a confluence of high crime and unemployment, as noted in a report in The Australian. While the notion of a curfew evidently has support locally, it has been criticised not just by indigenous and human rights groups, but also by some local police and Katter’s Australian Party, with Hinchinbrook MP Nick Dametto questioning the need for a “police special ops team just to look after stray kids”.

• A “Labor insider” quoted in the Courier-Mail says the party is “not ahead in all the seats we have”, but it hopes to compensate for any losses by poaching Pumicestone, Currumbin, Coomera and Caloundra from the LNP. Both sides are said to be feeling confident about Aspley.

The Australian reports the Electoral Commission of Queensland expects 1.5 million out of a total of around 3 million votes to be cast as pre-polls. This comes after around 120,000 such votes were cast when voting opened on Monday, compared with an equivalent figure of 29,000 in 2017, with a further 140,000 voting on Tuesday.

Newspoll: 52-48 to Labor in Queensland

A second poll in a week suggesting Labor has its nose slightly in front ahead of a Queensland state election now a fortnight away.

A week after YouGov’s 52-48 result for the Courier-Mail, the same pollster – this time under the Newspoll brand – has produced the same result for The Australian. The headline two-party result is all we have go on for now, as related in an analysis piece by Jamie Walker. Full results will assuredly follow later this evening, and will be related here when that happens.

UPDATE: The primary votes are also remarkably similar to the YouGov poll, with both showing Labor and the LNP at 37% apiece and One Nation at 9%, and the only difference being the Greens’ 11% in the Newspoll and 12% in the YouGov. Annastacia Palaszczuk is on 63% approval and 33% disapproval, while Deb Frecklington is struggling with 37% approval and 44% disapproval, and Palaszczuk leads 56-32 as preferred premier. Palaszczuk and Scott Morrison record identical ratings for their handling of coronavirus, at 76% well and 22% badly. The poll was conducted Friday to Wednesday from a sample of 1001.

Queensland election minus 16 days

Vaguely optimistic noises from Labor over party polling in two key seats, and a look at some of the names to emerge from the declaration of candidates.

Following Sunday’s closure of nominations and ballot paper draws, I have given my Queensland election guide a good once-over, adding full lists of candidates and expanded biographical detail.

Campaign developments of note:

The Australian reported yesterday that Labor was “increasingly confident” Jackie Trad would hold out in South Brisbane, with “several Labor insiders” saying Greens support was weakening. Also in South Brisbane, Greens candidate Amy MacMahon is standing by a young party volunteer after a media beat-up and opportunistic Labor attacks over a harmless pop culture meme she posted on Twitter.

• The Courier-Mail reported last Friday that Labor internal polling conducted in late September showed the party was “holding on to its slim 1.1 per cent margin” in the Townsville seat of Mundingburra, albeit that any such finding would have placed an LNP win within the poll’s margin of error. The seat is being vacated with the retirement of two-term member Coralee O’Rourke.

• Among the late nominees is Andrew Bartlett, who will run for the Greens against former LNP leader Tim Nicholls in Clayfield. Bartlett was an Australian Democrats Senator from 1997 to 2008, including a stint as leader from 2002 to 2004, and briefly a Greens Senator from November 2017 to August 2018, when he replaced Larissa Waters after her resignation on Section 44 grounds. This follows the disendorsement of the Greens’ original candidate, John Meyer, over alleged threatening behaviour towards women. Meyer is now seeking to upset his former party’s applecart in South Brisbane by running as an independent, claiming his dumping had been retribution for efforts to blow the whistle on financial impropriety within the party.

• Candidates in the marginal LNP seat of Currumbin on the Gold Coast include independent Richard Stuckey, husband of Jann Stuckey, who held the seat for the LNP until her resignation in January. The candidate of the party that will appear on ballot papers as “Clive Palmer’s UAP” is the boss’s wife, Anna Palmer. Sarah Elks of The Australian reports one third of the party’s 55 candidates are either employees or relatives of Palmer, and that their combined $13,750 nomination fees were paid for on the credit card of his company Mineralogy.

YouGov: 52-48 to Labor in Queensland

Shortly ahead of the official start of the campaign for the October 31 election, an encouraging poll for Labor suggesting a decline in One Nation support is yielding an insufficient dividend for the LNP.

After a period in which we have only had sketchy reporting of sometimes dubious private polling, the Courier-Mail offers the first statewide poll of Queensland voting intention in two months, courtesy of YouGov (and while I’m on the subject, please note my recently published Queensland election guide, to which you will find a permanent link on the sidebar).

The result is somewhat at odds with some of the media narratives in showing Labor with a 52-48 lead, reversing the result of the last such poll in early June. Both major parties are on 37% of the primary vote, which is up five in Labor’s case and down one in the LNP’s, while the Greens are steady on 12%, One Nation is down three to 9% and Katter’s Australian Party is down one to 2%. The most recent state poll was a Newspoll in late July, conducted by YouGov but published by The Australian rather than a News Corp tabloid, which had the LNP ahead 51-49 from primary votes of Labor 34%, LNP 38%, Greens 12% and One Nation 11%.

Breakdowns are provided for Brisbane, the Gold and Sunshine coasts combined, and regional Queensland:

• Labor leads 57-43 in Brisbane, a 1% swing to the LNP compared with the 2017 election, suggesting Labor may struggle to retain Aspley (1.2%) and Mansfield (1.6%). The primary votes are Labor 42% (43% in 2017), LNP 34% (31%), Greens 16% (13%) and One Nation 6% (9%).

• The LNP leads 54-46 on the coasts, a 3% swing to Labor, enough to net Labor Bonney (1.7%) on the Gold Coast and put the LNP under pressure in Currumbin on the Gold Coast (3.3%) and Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast (3.4%), and perhaps also Pumicestone (0.8%) which straddles the Sunshine Coast and outer metropolitan Brisbane. The primary votes of Labor 33% (27%), the LNP 46% (43%), Greens 12% (11%) and One Nation 7% (12%).

• The LNP leads 53-47 in the regions, a 1% swing in their favour – and while regional results are prone to be variable, this would bring Labor-held Mundingburra (1.1%) in Townsville down to the wire if uniform. The primary votes are Labor 32% (30%), LNP 35% (31%), Greens 7% (5%), One Nation 14% (21%) and Katter’s Australian Party 7% (8%).

On leaders’ ratings, Annastacia Palaszczuk is at 57% approval (up eight from the last YouGov, but down six on a Newspoll result a fortnight ago) and 27% disapproval (down six on both YouGov and Newspoll), while LNP leader Deb Frecklington is at 29% approval (up three on the June YouGov poll) and 32% disapproval (down three), indicating an unusually high uncommitted rating even for a state Opposition Leader. Palaszczuk holds a 48-22 lead as preferred premier, out from 44-23 in the June YouGov poll.

The poll has an unusually large sample size of 2000 – big enough to produce credible sub-samples for the regional breakdowns – as well as an unusually long field work period, running from Thursday, September 24 to Thursday, October 1.

Queensland election guide

Introducing the Poll Bludger’s (almost) all-encompassing guide to the October 31 Queensland state election.

There’s a lot of biographical detail still to be added for significant candidates, and it could as always have used another day of proof reading before being set out into the wild — but nonetheless, let it be noted that the Poll Bludger’s comprehensive overview and seat-by-seat guide to the October 31 Queensland state election is open for business. Together with expanding and updating this guide in the days to come, my next order of business it get a guide happening for the Australian Capital Territory election on October 17, which should be about a week away if the wind blows in the right direction. Please use this thread for general discussion of the Queensland campaign and to point out the errors and design flaws that are no doubt to be found on the site.