Category: Queensland Politics

Queensland: Resolve Strategic and RedBridge Group polls

Two polls offering a somewhat mixed picture of the scale of the defeat awaiting Labor in Queensland, plus other election-related developments.

Three items of Queensland state polling have emerged over the past few days, one being the previously reported national poll by Wolf & Smith that featured results for each state:

• The Brisbane Times has published a state voting intention results from the Queensland components of Resolve Strategic’s monthly national polls from June through to September. This suggests seemingly no end to Labor’s slide, their primary vote down three points from February-to-May to 23%, with the LNP up one to 44%, the Greens down one to 12% and One Nation steady at 8%. While the size of the minor party and independent vote allows for a wide range of uncertainty, I would conservatively put the LNP’s two-party lead at 58-42 based on these primary votes. The sample for the poll was 939.

• Nine’s television news reports a RedBridge Group poll showing the Liberal National Party with a two-party lead of 54.5-45.5, the least bad result for Labor government in some time. However, all that’s reported beyond that is that the Labor is at 29% on the primary vote and the LNP 42%. RedBridge Group director Kos Samaras relates that Labor is in “a very strong position along the Brisbane river”, but “travel out further from that and it gets very very ugly”.

• The aforementioned Wolf & Smith results were not far off Resolve Strategic’s: Labor 24%, LNP 42%, Greens 12% and One Nation 8%, with the LNP leading 57-43 on two-party preferred. The poll was conducted August 6 to 29 from a sample of 1724.

Other happenings relevant to the October 26 state election:

• Stephen Andrew, who has held the central Queensland seat of Mirani for One Nation since 2017, finalised his defection over the weekend from One Nation to Katter’s Australian Party after the former advised him he would not be its endorsed candidate at the election. A letter from Pauline Hanson cited his failure to bring any private members’ bills before parliament, and accused him of planning to join another party or become an independent. One Nation’s new candidate for the seat is Brettlyn Neal, a travelling tent boxer known to the sporting public as “Beaver Brophy”, who ran in the far north Queensland seat of Cook at the 2020 election.

• The LNP candidate for the southern Brisbane seat of Capalaba will be Russell Field, whose son, daughter-in-law and unborn granddaughter were killed when hit by a stolen car in 2021. Field says he is motivated by Labor incumbent Don Brown’s description of youth crime as a “media beat-up” in a social media post he removed when it attracted media attention last year.

• Curtis Pitt has announced he will not seek re-election in the Cairns seat of Mulgrave, which he has held for Labor since 2009. Samuel Davis of the Cairns Post reports Pitt’s favoured successor is Aaron Fa’Aoso, a Logie-winning Indigenous actor, whom Steven Miles has “fallen short of endorsing”. The LNP candidate is former Cairns Regional councillor Terry James. UPDATE: The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks column reports Labor’s administrative committee has chosen former Cairns councillor Richie Bates over “another, unnamed contender”, who was not Fa’Aoso. Bates is aligned to the Right, whereas Pitt “defected to the Old Guard some time back”.

Polls: Resolve Strategic, RedBridge/Accent MRP poll, Wolf & Smith federal and state (open thread)

One regular and two irregular polls, one projecting a Labor minority government, the other offering a rare read on state voting intention across the land.

A lot going on in the world of polling:

Resolve Strategic

Nine Newspapers has the regular monthly Resolve Strategic poll, which has Labor on 28% (down one), the Coalition on 37% (steady), the Greens on 13% (steady) and One Nation on 6% (steady). My estimate of two-party preferred from these results is 50-50, based on preference flows from the 2022 election. Anthony Albanese holds a 35-34 lead as preferred prime minister, after trailing 36-35 last time. Albanese’s combined very good and good rating is up one to 35%, with poor and very poor at up two 53%, while Peter Dutton is respectively steady at 41% and up four to 42%. The poll was conducted Tuesday to Saturday from a sample of 1614.

Accent Research/RedBridge Group MRP poll

Accent Research and RedBridge Group have published their second multi-level regression with post-stratification (MRP) poll, in what looks like being a regular quarterly series. This aims for a detailed projected election result by surveying a large national sample, in this case of 5976 surveyed from July 10 to August 27, and using demographic modelling to produce results for each electorate. The full report isn’t in the public domain as far as I can tell but it’s been covered on the ABC’s Insiders and in the Financial Review. UPDATE: Full report here.

The results are not encouraging for Labor: where the previous exercise rated Labor a strong chance of retaining majority government, with a floor of 73 seats and a further nine nine too close to call, they are now down to 64 with 14 too close to call, with the Coalition up from 53 to 59. The median prediction from a range of potential outcomes is that Labor will hold 69 seats, the Coalition 68, the Greens three and others ten. This is based on primary vote projections in line with the recent trend of national polling, with Labor on 32%, the Coalition on 38% and the Greens on 12%.

Five seats are rated as Coalition gains that weren’t last time, Gilmore, Lingiari, Lyons and Aston having moved from too-close-to-call and Paterson going from Labor retain to Coalition gain without passing go. Bruce, Dobell, Hunter, Casey, Tangney, McEwen and Bennelong go from Labor retain to too-close-to-call, while Coalition-held Deakin and Moore are no longer on their endangered list. However, the traffic is not all one way, with Casey in Victoria and Forde in Queensland going from Coalition retain to too-close-to-call. So far as the underlying model is concerned, it is presumably not a coincidence that both seats are on the metropolitan fringes.

The results show a mixed picture for the teals, who are reckoned to have gone backwards in the city, such that Curtin goes from too-close-to-call to Coalition retain and Goldstein goes from teal retain to Liberal gain, but forwards in the country, shifting Wannon from Coalition retain to too-close-to-call while maintaining Cowper as a teal gain. For the Greens, Ryan goes from retained to too-close-to-call while Brisbane does the opposite, with Melbourne and Griffith remaining Greens retains.

Whereas the last assessment was based on 2022 election boundaries, the latest one makes use of the redistribution proposals for New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia. Respectively, this takes the teal seat of North Sydney out of contention and moves Hughes from Coalition retain to too-close-to-call; costs Labor Higgins and moves Chisholm from Labor retain to too-close-to-call; and introduces Bullwinkel to the too-close-to-call column.

My routine caveat with MRP is that it handles major parties better than independents and minors, perhaps especially with what by MRP standards is fairly modest sample (a similar exercise before the last election involving some of the same personnel had a sample of 18,923). I am particularly dubious about its projection of a blowout Labor win against the Greens in Wills. There also seems reason to doubt its precision in relation to a demographic wild card like Lingiari.

Wolf & Smith federal and state polling

Also just out is an expansive national poll from a new outfit called Wolf & Smith, a “strategic campaign agency based in Sydney” that appears to involve Jim Reed, principal of Resolve Strategic and alumnus of Liberal Party pollsters Crosby Textor. The poll was conducted from August 6 to 29 through an online panel from a vast sample of 10,239, and includes results federally and for each state government. The federal poll has Labor leading 51-49, from primary votes of Labor 29%, Coalition 36%, Greens 13% and One Nation 6%. At state level:

• The poll joins RedBridge Group and Resolve Strategic in recording weak numbers for the Minns government in New South Wales, showing a 50-50 result on two-party preferred from primary votes of Labor 32%, Coalition 38% and Greens 12%, from a sample of 2047.

• The Coalition leads 52-48 in Victoria from primary votes of Labor 28%, Coalition 40% and Greens 14%, from a sample of 2024, which is likewise broadly in line with recent results from RedBridge Group and Resolve Strategic.

• The Liberal National Party leads 57-43 in Queensland from primary votes of Labor 24%, Coalition 42%, Greens 12%, One Nation 8% and Katter’s Australian Party 3%, from a sample of 1724, which lines up well with the most recent YouGov poll.

• Labor leads 55-45 in Western Australia from primary votes of Labor 37%, Liberal 29%, Nationals 3%, Greens 12% and One Nation 4%, from a sample of 878. Again, this sits well with the most recent other poll from the state, conducted for the Liberal Party by Freshwater Strategy in July from a sample of 1000 and published in The West Australian, which had Labor leading 56-44 from primary votes of Labor 39%, Liberal 33%, Nationals 5% and Greens 12%.

• In the first poll result of any substance from the state since the March 2022 election, Labor leads 60-40 in South Australia from primary votes of Labor 41%, Liberal 28%, Greens 11% and One Nation 5%, from a sample of 856. The Liberal leadership change occurred in the first week of the poll’s three-week survey period.

• A Tasmanian sample of 786 finds both major parties down from the March election result, Liberal from 36.7% to 32% and Labor from 29.0% to 23%, with the Greens steady on 14% (13.9% at the election) and the Jacqui Lambie Network up from 6.7% to 11% – though most of the survey period predated the party’s recent implosion.

And the rest

• The University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre has results of polling conducted by YouGov in June concerning the US alliance and related matters of regional strategy, conducted in conjunction with polling in the US and Japan. Together with an Essential Research poll in July, it points to a softening in attitudes towards Donald Trump, with 26% now rating that Australia should withdraw from the alliance if he wins, down from 37% last year. However, 46% would be “very concerned about the state of US democracy. Twenty per cent of Australian respondents felt US handling of China was too aggressive, compared with only 9% in Japan and 10% in the US, and 40% agreed Australia should send military forces “to help the United States defend Taiwan … if China attacks”, down six from last year, with 32% disagreeing, up ten. Respondents in all three countries were asked if it were “a good idea for Australia to have nuclear-powered submarines”: 51% of Australians agreed while 19% disagreed, compared with 35% and 16% of Americans daring to venture an opinion one way or the other. The survey was conducted from June 17 to 25, from sample of a little over 1000 in each country.

• JWS Research has the results of its latest quarterly True Issues survey on issue salience. Cost of living remains by far the issue most frequently invoked as being among the “most important issues the Australian government should focus on”, despite a six-point drop since May. The survey also finds a net minus 22 rating for direction of the national economy, down two on May and the equal worst result going back to the series’ inception in 2013.

YouGov: 50-50 (open thread)

Yet another poll showing a lineball result on two-party preferred, plus a summary of recent preselection and other developments.

YouGov has a new federal poll out showing a tie on two-party preferred, after Labor led 51-49 in the last such poll a month ago. Rounding clearly had something to do with the shift, because Labor is actually up a point on the primary vote to 32% with the Coalition down one to 37%, with the Greens steady on 13% and One Nation up one to 8%. Anthony Albanese is down one on approval to 41% and steady on disapproval 52%, with Peter Dutton steady on 42% and up one to 47%. Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister is 43-38, in from 45-37 last time. The poll was conducted Friday to Wednesday from a sample of 1543.

In other developments:

• Having exhausted every avenue to challenge his preselection defeat, all the way to the Supreme Court, right-wing Queensland Senator Gerard Rennick has quit the Liberal Party and announced he will run at the next election under the banner of the Gerard Rennick People First party. The Australian points out that Rennick has “almost 320,000 followers on Facebook and Twitter”.

• Graham Perrett, who has held the Brisbane seat of Moreton for Labor since 2007, has announced he will retire at the next election. Perrett had hitherto resisted pressure to make way for Julie-Ann Campbell, Left faction colleague and the party’s state secretary, as the Queensland branch struggled to meet its affirmative action quota. A source quoted by Phillip Coorey of the Financial Review said Campbell had the numbers to win a contested preselection, and that Perrett’s backers in the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union had encouraged him to withdraw.

• The Liberals have chosen three candidates for seats in Perth: grains farmer Mic Fels in Swan, Gosnells councillor David Goode in Hasluck, and lawyer and former party staffer Sean Ayres in Burt. Jake Dietsch of The West Australian reports Fels won the party vote in Swan by 38 to 34 ahead of Nick Marvin, former chief executive of the Perth Wildcats basketball and Western Force rugby league clubs.

• Alexandra Smith of the Sydney Morning Herald reports the Liberals are hoping to enlist Northern Beaches deputy mayor Georgia Ryburn, who will shortly lose her seat on council due to the party’s nominations fiasco, to take on teal independent Sophie Scamps in Mackellar.

• Queensland Opposition Leader David Crisafulli has announced that the Liberal National Party will restore optional preferential voting in the seemingly likely event that it wins the October 26 state election. Optional preferential voting was introduced by one Labor government in 1992, and unexpectedly abolished by another in 2016.

YouGov: 57-43 to LNP in Queensland

The tide continues to go out on Labor in Queensland, despite improved personal ratings for Steven Miles.

The Courier-Mail has a YouGov state poll for Queensland that is slightly worse for Labor than its already quite-bad-enough result from the last such poll in April, crediting the Liberal National Party with a two-party preferred lead of 57-43. The primary votes are Labor 26% (down one), LNP 43% (down one), Greens 14% (down one) and, interestingly, One Nation 13% (up three, and up five since the October poll). Steven Miles’ personal ratings have nonetheless improved, up six on approval to 31% and down three on disapproval to 44%, while David Crisafulli is steady on 40% and down three to 23%. Crisafulli now leads Miles 40-29 as preferred premier, in slightly from 40-27 last time. The poll was conducted last Monday to this Monday from a sample of 1019.

YouGov: 50-50 (open thread)

Plus new Victorian and Queensland state polls, and an update on Liberal ructions ensuing from proposed new federal boundaries for Victoria.

The three-weekly YouGov federal poll records little change on last time, with two-party preferred steady at 50-50 from primary votes of Labor 30% (steady), Coalition 38% (steady), Greens 14% (up one) and One Nation 8% (steady). Anthony Albanese’s personal ratings are also unchanged at 41% approval and 53% disapproval, but Peter Dutton is down four on approval to 38% and up three on disapproval to 51%. Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister is at 47-36, out from 44-37. The poll also finds an 84-16 split in favour of the proposition that workers have a right to strike for better wages and job security. It was conducted Friday to Tuesday from a sample of 1500.

There are also two state voting intention results from RedBridge Group, both combining two waves of polling in February and May:

• As reported in the Herald Sun, a poll for Victoria credits Labor with lead of 55-45, out from 54-46 in the last such poll in March, contrasting with the recent bi-monthly Resolve Strategic result which suggested the Coalition had moved into the lead. The primary votes are Labor 35% (down one), Coalition 38% (steady) and Greens 14% (up four). Kevin Bonham on Twitter notes that these primary votes suggest a 53-47 result based on a crude application of flows from the last election, but pollster Kos Samaras says the cumulative “others” pool has moved leftwards because “most of the right-wing minor party votes have shifted to the Coalition”. A full accounting of the results from the pollster should be along shortly. (UPDATE: The pollster has published the full result together with a full account of its “others” pool).

• The second poll such poll is for Queensland, and it maintains Labor’s run of diabolical polling there ahead of an election in October. The Liberal National Party is credited with a two-party lead of 57-43 from primary votes of Labor 28%, LNP 47% and Greens 12%. The poll has a sample of 880, and is somewhat at odds with a union-commissioned uComms polling provided last week to The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks column, conducted on May 14 from a sample of 2400, which found Labor had gone from 26.9% to 30.0% from an earlier poll April, while the LNP had gone from 35.1% to 33.7%, the Greens from 13.0% to 10.9% and One Nation from 10.0% to 5.2%, with undecided down from 16% to 10%.

Latest news related to the various federal redistributions in progress, following last week’s publication of draft boundaries for Victoria and Western Australia:

• The Australian Electoral Commission has announced the proposed new federal boundaries for New South Wales, which will involve the abolition of one of the state’s 47 seats, will be published “around lunchtime” on Friday.

• Suggestions the redistribution proposal for Victoria may have strengthened the Liberals in Kooyong prompted a flurry of speculation concerning a comeback by Josh Frydenberg, with Josh Butler of The Guardian reporting on divided opinions within the party. Seemingly the only one to go on the record was soon-to-retire Queensland member Karen Andrews, who spoke approvingly of the idea, which would potentially have been helpful to a Frydenberg comeback given one of the chief obstacles is the optics involved in deposing an already preselected female candidate, Amelia Hamer. Antony Green was initially invoked as having calculated the seat had been strengthened for the Liberals, which many had taken as read given blue-ribbon Toorak was part of the area to be gained from abolished Higgins, but he shortly clarified it was not possible to infer independent member Monique Ryan’s level of support in areas where she was not on the ballot paper in 2022. The matter was shortly resolved in any case when Frydenberg declared his support for Hamer. Aaron Patrick of the Financial Review reported Frydenberg had commissioned Freshwater Strategy to poll the seat “several times”, with party sources saying the results “didn’t indicate he’d win”.

• The proposed abolition of Higgins has prompted suggestions defeated former Liberal member Katie Allen, who had again been preselected for the seat, will instead contest Chisholm, despite the party already having a candidate for that seat in Monash councillor Theo Zographos. Josh Ferguson of The Australian reports the party will challenge the abolition of Higgins in its submission in response to the proposed new boundaries. The report further says a political foundation established by the seat’s former member, Peter Costello, to help fund campaigning in the seat “is being eyed by Liberal bean counters to help stave off a feared collapse in fundraising capacity for the party”. A Liberal source is quoted saying the fund was established to ensure the money “was not ultimately seized by a factional rival”.

Resolve Strategic: Labor 26, LNP 43, Greens 13 in Queensland

Yet another data point suggesting the end is nigh for Queensland’s nine-year-old Labor government.

The Brisbane Times brings yet more grim polling news for Queensland’s state Labor government, with Resolve Strategic compiling 947 responses from the state across its monthly national polling from February through to May. This finds Labor’s primary vote at just 26%, down seven points since the exercise was last conducted during Annastacia Palaszczuk’s final months as Premier from September through to December, with the Liberal National Party up six to 43%, the Greens up one to 13% and One Nation steady on 8%. Resolve Strategic does not provide two-party preferred results, but this can be estimated at about 56-44 in favour of the LNP, or a 9% swing from the 2020 election result.

When respondents were asked to express positive, neutral or negative views of the two leaders, Steven Miles had 15% more rating him negative than positive, compared with 17% for Palaszczuk’s last result while David Crisafulli had 14% more positive than negative, up five from last time. Crisafulli leads miles 39-28 as preferred premier, which compares with his 39-34 lead over Palaszczuk.

YouGov: 56-44 to LNP in Queensland

A new poll offers the strongest indication yet that a change of government looms in Queensland.

The Courier-Mail reports a new YouGov poll points to something approximating a landslide at the October 26 Queensland election, with the Liberal National Party opening up a 56-44 lead on two-party preferred, compared with 52-48 at the last such poll in October. Labor has slumped six points on the primary vote to 27%, with the LNP up three to 44%, the Greens up two to 15% and One Nation up two to 10%. Leadership ratings show Steven Miles at 25% approval and 47% disapproval, while David Crisafulli is respectively on 40% (up three from October) and 26% (steady). Crisafulli leads 40-27 as preferred premier, having led Annastacia Palaszczuk 37-35 in the October poll. The poll was conducted April 9 to 17 from a sample of 1092.

Further developments relevant to the coming election from the past few months:

• The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks column reports the LNP has committed to not directing preferences to the Greens ahead of Labor. A contrary decision in 2020 helped Amy MacMahon to win South Brisbane for the Greens from Labor’s then deputy leader, Jackie Trad.

• Also from Feeding the Chooks, Labor has preselected Kassandra Hall in Redcliffe and Bisma Asif in Sandgate, respectively to be vacated by Yvette D’Ath and Sterling Hinchliffe. Hall is a former prosecutor and current industrial services officer for the Independent Education Union, who ran for Voluntary Euthanasia Party at the Victorian election in 2018 and was a member of the Liberal Party two decades ago. Asif is a policy adviser to federal Aged Care Minister Anika Wells.

• Stephanie Bennett of the Courier-Mail reports the LNP has confirmed its candidates for the Labor-held marginals of Aspley and Pumicestone, which will respectively be contested by Amanda Cooper, who served Bracken Ridge ward on Brisbane City Council from 2007 to 2019, and Ariana Doolan, 22-year-old electorate officer to Glass House MP Andrew Powell.

• Sally Gall of Queensland Country Life reports former Barcaldine mayor Sean Dillon has won LNP preselection for the rural seat of Gregory, to be vacated at the election with the retirement of Lachlan Miller. Dillon won a local party vote ahead of ABC journalist Nicole Bond, Central Highlands councillor Joe Burns and Western Queensland Drought Committee principal Nicole Heslin.

• Heidi Petith of the Daily Mercury reports Glen Kelly, a Rockhampton region grazier, will be the LNP’s candidate for Mirani, which Stephen Andrew has held for One Nation since 2017.

• Samuel Davis of the Cairns Post reports on three prospective nominees for LNP preselection in Cook: David Kempton, who held the seat from 2012 to 2015; Michael Kerr, mayor of Douglas and chair of the Far North Queensland Regional Organisation of Councils; and Kevin Davies, deputy mayor of Mareeba.

• Paul Weston of the Gold Coast Bulletin reports nominees for LNP preselection in the Gold Coast seat of Gaven are Bianca Stone, former Seven Network reporter; Kirsten Jackson, former staffer to Liberal Senator Alan Eggleston and Nationals Senator Ron Boswell, who ran for the seat in 2020; and Lisa Smith, a teacher and rural fire brigade volunteer.

Queensland by-elections and Brisbane City Council election live

Live coverage of the counts for the Inala and Ipswich West by-elections and the Brisbane City Council election.

Full displays of results:

Inala by-election

Ipswich West by-election

Brisbane Lord Mayor election

Brisbane City Council wards election

11.42pm. My system has the Greens ahead in Paddington now, but slightly behind in Walter Taylor.

10.50pm. The ABC computer has different ideas from mine about a couple of things, notably Paddington, which it’s (again) calling for the Greens while mine has the LNP with its nose in front. This points to the difficulty of projection off an election that was held at the height of COVID, which dramatically changed how people voted. The Greens have a solid lead on the TCP count so far, but this is well behind the count for the primary vote.

10.08pm. One bright note for Labor is that they seem to have come to life in LNP-held Calamvale, which is now rated a likely Labor gain by both me and the ABC. That could see them break even after the loss of Wynnum-Manly, giving them the weak bragging right of not having done worse than last time. The ABC has retracted its call of Paddington as a Greens gain from the LNP — it and Walter Taylor both look very close.

9.54pm. I also note the ABC isn’t calling Ipswich West for the LNP — it’s projecting 52.6% TCP for the LNP whereas I have 53.2%. Mysteries abound — the TCP results on the ECQ site lag far behind the media feed, and actually have Labor ahead (from 6501 votes compared with 14,375 on the feed).

9.52pm. Actually, that’s not the reason my system is being more conservative about Walter Taylor than the ABC’s. I note that every ward result on the ABC says “0 of x centres reporting a preference count”, but preference counts have assuredly been reported. I’m not sure if this is purely a cosmetic issue or if the ABC is working entirely off preference estimates.

9.38pm. So Labor look like they are down from five BCC wards to four, having lost Wynnum-Manly to the LNP. The Greens are in the hunt in LNP-held Paddington and Walter Taylor, which both look very close, to add to their existing The Gabba. The ABC is calling Paddington for the Greens, so I suspect there is an issue here of my preference estimate selling them short — that will be corrected when a few more TCP results are through. However, their second tier hopes of Central, Coorparoo and Enoggera don’t look like coming through for them, so they will not emerge as the second strongest party.

9.35pm. I’ve devoted the last half hour to bug-hunting, at least partly because my read of a Labor disaster in the BCC ward of Wynnum-Manly didn’t seem to gel with the ABC — but now it does. That’s not to say there weren’t bugs though, one of which was stopping the two-candidate preferred tables from populating on the council wards results pages. That has now been fixed.

9.18pm. It’s been noted by preference estimates, which get used before two-candidate preferred numbers report, have been selling the Greens short in seats where they are challenging the LNP. I now have them ahead in Paddington, and a correction should soon come through in their favour in Walter Taylor.

8.41pm. A strong showing by the Greens in Labor-held Moorooka ward, where they look like taking second place from the LNP, but Labor still on track to retain it.

8.38pm. As well as Wynnum-Manly, I’m now projecting the LNP ahead in the Labor-held BCC ward of Morningside, suggesting they could be reduced to three seats. That at least raises the possibility of them being outperformed by the Greens, although it’s far from clear at this stage if they will add anything to their existing solitary seat of The Gabba (which is yet to record any figures) — there are four possibilities, but they’re not actually ahead in any of them.

8.34pm. Paddington still looks like a very close race between the LNP and the Greens with three booths in.

8.30pm. My system is now calling Ipswich West for the LNP. The projected swing in Inala is even bigger, but so is Labor’s buffer there.

8.21pm. My system is now calling six wards for the LNP, one of which is Enoggera.

8.19pm. Early figures suggest Labor are in big danger of losing Wynnum-Manly to the LNP, one of only five BCC wards they held going into the election.

8.18pm. The LNP looks like retaining Enoggera regardless of who comes second out of Labor and the Greens — my system is now favouring the latter. This was one of five LNP-held wards the Greens had identified as possible gains. Of their two presumed strongest chances, Paddington looks lineball and there is nothing in yet from Walter Taylor. Too early to say about their other second tier prospects of Coorparoo and Central.

8.13pm. While Adrian Schrinner is headed for re-election as Lord Mayor, he’s faded on my projection as the count has progressed, with a slight booth-matched swing away from him now recorded on the primary vote.

8.10pm. The good news for Labor is that my system is calling Inala for them. The bad news is that the swing is similar to the one that’s putting it on the cusp of calling Ipswich West for the LNP.

8.08pm. Early indications also point to a close LNP-Greens race in Paddington, where the Greens fancied their chances.

8.06pm. The first booth from the BCC Enoggera ward has the Greens second, but my projection has them behind Labor in a fairly close race for second. The LNP vote looks high enough for them to hold either way, but early days yet.

8.04pm. The Brisbane City booth gives the Greens an encouraging first result in the BCC’s Coorparoo ward — only 168 votes, but it points to a chance they will take it from the LNP, consistent with the party’s own expectations.

8.02pm. A booth in at last from Inala, and there too there is a huge swing to the LNP of over 20% according to my projection, with Labor’s primary vote collapsing 32.5% to 37.8%. No doubt Annastacia Palaszczuk had a big personal vote here, but still. Independent Linh Nyugen on double figures, presumably taking a bit from Labor. Bad as all this is for Labor, it doesn’t suggest they are in serious danger of losing.

8.00pm. It’s been noted that the informal vote in Ipswich West is out from 4.0% to 8.6%, which no doubt has a lot to do with an optional preferential voting council election being held on the same day as a compulsory preferential voting state by-election. Presumably this isn’t doing Labor any favours.

7.58pm. An eleventh booth in Ipswich West was obviously not good for Labor, pushing my projection of the LNP lead out from (from memory) 1.9% to 2.5% and increasing their win probability to 95%.

7.52pm. Substantial progress now in the mayoralty count, confirming what was noted before — Adrian Schrinner holding steady on his 2020 vote, and movement from Labor to the Greens but not enough to get the latter’s candidate, Jonathan Sriranganathan, to second.

7.50pm. The swing in Ipswich West continues to be big enough to make the LNP firm favourites when quite getting them to where my system would call it. The Brisbane council ward of Tennyson has been called for independent incumbent Nicole Johnston, who looks to be doing it easily.

7.43pm. Note that my mayoralty entry page does things like say certain wards have been “retained” by the LNP, which simply means Schrinner is projected to win there again. The system is geared to seat-style contests and I didn’t have time to finesse everything.

7.42pm. The lack of any action from Inala had me checking the ABC to make sure it wasn’t a fault in my system, but no, still no numbers there yet.

7.40pm. Some big lord mayoralty numbers in now, and the situation has settled quite considerably — it now looks like a status quo result with a bit of a swing from Labor to the Greens, rather than historic disaster Labor seemed to be suffering at first. Presumably this will start flowing through to the council ward results shortly.

7.37pm. Labor has perked up a little on my Ipswich West win probability with the reporting of a third two-candidate result, which presumably improved their projected preference flow.

7.33pm. On Brisbane Council, my system is now calling Bracken Ridge and LNP retain, which a huge swing blowing out what was hitherto a fairly tight margin.

7.31pm. My system has actually crossed the threshold where it’s not using my preference estimates in Ipswich West. So the 10% Labor win probability should probably be taken seriously at this point.

7.30pm. Eight booths in now on the primary vote — fast count there, slow one in Inala. Perhaps they’re prioritising by-election and council votes differently. In any case, the new Ipswich West results do not change what was written in the previous update.

7.28pm. Booth number five from Ipswich West is also less bad for Labor, being comparable to the last two. But I may have been wrong to say these booths were coming in below what the LNP needed to win the seat — I was just looking at the Labor primary vote (a lot on my plate at present). The LNP primary vote swing across the board is approaching 20%, which makes them look very dangerous. Legalise Cannabis are soaking up votes from the absent Greens and a lot depends on their preferences. My current projection assumes they will go 60-40 to Labor, but if they’re loaded with Greens voters they may get a stronger flow than that. Once there are enough two-candidate preferred votes in, my projection will go off the swing on preferences rather than my estimates.

7.20pm. From four wards, I’m recording LNP two-party swings of 4.2% to 15.0% for the lord mayoralty. It’s a similar story for the council, albeit that these are the same booths. So Labor would seem in big danger at this early stage of going backwards.

7.17pm. Two further booths from Ipswich West are better for Labor — seemingly a tad below what would cost them the seat. The two booths that came in first were well above that, so Labor will have to be hoping both were outliers. Still nothing from Inala.

7.16pm. My system is calling McDowall ward for the LNP and sees big LNP swings everywhere that a swing can be determined.

7.10pm. I’ve turned off some features that were misfiring on the mayoralty landing page. However, the primary vote numbers are suggesting a very good night for the LNP and not just in Ipswich West.

6.53pm. Remarkable first results from Ipswich West had me checking the ABC to see if there was something amiss in my system, but it concurs the LNP swing is blowing the hinges off. Still early days, but the fact that the ALP has been trounced in two booths will be giving them palpitations.

6.47pm. I’m hoping the screwiness on the lord mayoralty landing page at present will resolve when there are some numbers in that aren’t mobile booths.

6.37pm. To elaborate on that point, the swing results I have for the mobile booths are meaningless — in most cases there were zero mobile results last time, so I think I just gave them a fraction of a vote from the central pre-polling booth so the system would have something to work off. Everywhere else, the swing figures will be based on booth-to-booth comparison.

6.35pm. Two mobile booths in for the lord mayoralty, with the same issues noted in the previous update. The chart and dial on my lord mayoralty landing page won’t show anything until two-candidate preferred results are reported. Ordinarily I run projections based on the primary vote, but didn’t have time to do that in this case. A little perversely, I have projections for the mayoral results at ward level, but not overall. As always, another day to do all this would have been handy.

6.23pm. A mobile polling booth has reported 102 council ward votes in Bracken Ridge. Caution would be required here at the best of times, but especially on this occasion where mobile polling was just about non-existent last time because of COVID, making any swing figure meaningless.

6.20pm. One of the things I didn’t have time to do was code around a recurring issue where sometimes empty XML files get uploaded to my server, so I suspect there will be the odd occasion where you find the page hasn’t been filled out with data. If so, you should find it resolves after a minute or two.

6pm. Polls have closed for Queensland local government elections and Inala and Ipswich West state by-elections. The links above will take you to the Poll Bludger’s own live results pages, which I’m reasonably confident will work well in the case of the by-elections, but merely hopeful in the case of the Brisbane Lord Mayor and council elctions, which were a pretty huge undertaking and for which I was still squashing bugs up to the last, which is usually not a good sign. In any case, the first results should presumably be in in around half an hour or so.

Page 1 of 44
1 2 … 44