Category: Queensland Politics

Queensland election minus three weeks

Multiple indications of a double-digit swing against Labor, including from the seats of McConnel and Waterford.

Some accounts of private polling from Queensland to relate, all of it adding a picture of an election-losing swing headed the way of the Labor government:

• The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks column relates that union-funded polling by DemosAU has the Greens on 37.9% in the Labor-held Brisbane CBD seat of McConnel, up from 28.1% in 2020, with the LNP on 27.4%, down from 31.0%, and Labor on 27.2%, down from 35.3%. The suggests Labor separately has an even chance of surviving to the final count and winning when it gets there with the help of LNP preferences. The polling also suggests a 10% swing statewide and a Labor seat tally of 31 out or 93.

• Last week’s Feeding the Chooks column had Labor sources saying their polling showed Health Minister Shannon Fentiman facing a 13% swing in Waterford, where her margin is 16.0%. The report noted “confusion about who commissioned the dire phone poll by Labor’s preferred pollsters Talbot Mills (business partners with banned lobbyists Evan Moorhead and Fentiman’s ex-husband David Nelson), but the smart money is on the MP’s own union, the AMWU”.

• Madura McCormack of the Courier-Mail reported on Thursday that a Greens-commissioned YouGov poll had Labor on 31% in Brisbane and the Greens on 16%. Assuming this is Brisbane broadly defined, it suggests a fifteen-point drop in Labor support from 2020 and a three-point increase for the Greens. The poll also found the Greens on 13% statewide, compared with 9.5% in 2020, and 54% support for its proposed cap on rental increases, with the report neglecting to say how many were opposed and how many undecided.

• Katter’s Australian Party has announced it will direct preferences to the LNP over Labor in the three Townsville seats of Townsville, Mundingburra and Thuringowa, which it has apparently never done in the city before, citing Labor failure on youth crime.

• The campaign leaders’ debate was conducted on Thursday, highlighted by David Crisafulli’s promise to stand down if crime victim numbers did not fall on his watch. There did not appear to be any effort to evaluate voter impressions of who had won.

Queensland election guide

A big day for Queensland gets even better with the publication of the Poll Bludger’s guide to the October 26 state election.

With a day under four weeks to go, the Poll Bludger’s guide to the Queensland election is in action. As always, this expansive endeavour involves pages for every one of the state’s 93 electorates, featuring extensive reviews of history, electoral geography and candidate backgrounds, charts, tables and interactive maps displaying past results, and a one page overview for beginners. Those who find the endeavour in any way useful or interesting are encouraged to chip in with a donation, which can be done through the “become a supporter” button at the top of the site, as it involved a vast amount of labour amid what’s been a rather lean month on that score. By no means does the matter end there, as this site will be all over developments in the campaign over the next four weeks, culminating in a new-look and better-than-ever live election results reporting on October 26 and beyond.

UPDATE (Freshwater Strategy poll): The Financial Review has a Freshwater Strategy state poll showing the LNP leading 56-44, from primary votes of Labor 30% (down four on the last such poll in June 2023), LNP 43% (up three), Greens 12% (up one) and One Nation 8% (up one). David Crusafulli leads Steven Miles 46-38 as preferred premier, compared with 45-44 against Annastacia Palaszczuk in the last poll. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1062.

Newspoll: 55-45 to LNP in Queensland

Five weeks out from the Queensland election, further indications of a looming change of government.

The Australian has greeted the unofficial start of the campaign period for the October 26 Queensland state election with a Newspoll result that’s less bad for Labor than some of its polling this year, but still leaves little doubt about the likely result. The LNP is credited with a two-party lead of 55-45, out from 54-46 at the last such poll in March, although primary votes are little changed at Labor 30% (steady), LNP 42% (steady), Greens 12% (down one) and One Nation 8% (steady). Steven Miles is up three on approval to 41% and up two on disapproval to 51%, while David Crisafulli is up two to 49% and up four to 37%. Crisafulli leads 46-39 as preferred premier, compared with 43-37 in March. The poll was conducted last Thursday to Wednesday from a sample of 1047.

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”.

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