Category: Queensland Politics

Click here for full Queensland election results updated live.

Tuesday evening

In the two days since my last update, Labor’s narrow lead in Bundaberg has worn away, with the LNP sneaking ahead by four votes at the close of play yesterday. However, they continue to hang on grimly in Nicklin, where a slight edge on absents cancelled out their usual deficit from postals, leaving their lead at 67 compared with 84 the other night. Neither I nor the ABC is calling Currumbin for the LNP, where their lead has nudged from 268 to 302, but I imagine the addition of a two-party count on absent pre-polls will take care of that. Similarly, there is no LNP call yet for Clayfield, where counting is proceeding slowly, but there assuredly will be when the postal two-party votes are added.

Three seats are being called that weren’t as of Sunday night: Hervey Bay, now rated a Labor gain after an outstanding pre-poll result came in, and they further managed a remarkably strong result on postals; Burleigh, which is now confirmed LNP with their lead at 582; and Coomera, where the LNP now has a clearly decisive lead of 901.

Monday afternoon

A piece I wrote for Crikey that they didn’t have room/money for:

As the world braces for an electoral convulsion of one kind of another in the United States, Australia has maintained its COVID-19 era habit of endorsing the status quo with Annastacia Palaszczuk’s re-election in Queensland on the weekend.

It was a good night for the political left, with a Labor government returned, the Greens’ inner-city empire expanded, One Nation rebuffed, Clive Palmer saved from humiliation only by his lack of shame, and the Morrison government denied a return on the capital it spent taking Labor on before and during the campaign. In a parliament of 93 seats, Labor seems most likely to make a net gain of two or three on the 48 it won in 2017, with the negative side of its ledger consisting of former Deputy Premier Jackie Trad in South Brisbane defeat by the Greens in South Brisbane.

The demographics of the seats that have actually or potentially been gained point to Labor’s success among a cohort whose support it probably shouldn’t get used to, namely seniors. The three clearly gained by Labor are Hervey Bay, Pumicestone and Caloundra, which rank second, third and eighth out of the state’s 93 seats by median age (it is no doubt also notable that each was being vacated by a retiring LNP incumbent). In the retiree-rich and normally solid blue Sunshine Coast region, Labor’s performance was of an equal with the Peter Beattie landslides of two decades ago.

Relatedly, Labor seemed to do better than expected among the many greying legions of One Nation deserters, which helped blunt the LNP’s much-touted attack in central and north Queensland. The LNP had plotted a path to victory that ran through as many as seven Labor-held seats in these regions — among them Mackay, which the party did not even win in its epochal landslide of 2012 — but emerged completely empty-handed.

At the other end of the age spectrum, the Greens added South Brisbane to a trophy wall of youthful inner-city state seats that includes Balmain and Newtown in New South Wales, Melbourne, Brunswick and Prahran in Victoria, and Maiwar in Queensland — none of which the party held a decade ago. Reflecting the situation in Sydney and Melbourne, the Greens’ footprint is expanding into the inner urban periphery, adding Campbell Newman’s old seat of Cooper (then known as Ashgrove) to McConnel in the CBD as a potential target for future elections. However, such prospects may depend on the grace of the LNP, which gave the Greens an unusual fillip on this occasion by putting Labor last on its how-to-vote cards.

The resulting transformation in the Greens’ share of LNP preferences in South Brisbane — from about 40% in 2017 to 68% on the latest numbers — had Labor’s election night panellists crying blue murder and Anthony Albanese complaining of an “LNP-Greens coalition”. Had preference flowed as they did in 2017, South Brisbane would be going down to the wire, compared with what looks to be a Greens margin of around 5%.

The other fly in the Greens’ ointment was that their success was very much limited to inner Brisbane. They were not spared the exodus from the minor parties elsewhere, resulting in a drop in their overall vote from 10% to 9%. This raises the possibility that a focus on the very particular kind of seat the party can win at state elections, in terms of both campaign resource allocation and policy orientation, is weakening it elsewhere and imperilling its hold on Senate seats that are determined by the statewide vote.

Last but not least, the election was also the first serious test of Australian opinion polling since last year’s federal debacle, and in particular for YouGov, which has since assumed the job of conducting Newspoll for The Australian. The result was a qualified pass: the election eve Newspoll got the winner right and nailed the LNP vote, but tested its margin-of-error by short-changing Labor by three points and understating the decline of the minor parties.

Sunday night

This post will be progressively updated with news on the late counting for the Queensland election. My live election results pages now include the preference flow by candidate data that the ECQ is uniquely publishing progressively, in a rather more user-friendly and easy-to-locate form than on the ECQ’s site. Here you can readily find the answers to such questions as how many LNP preferences are flowing to the Greens in South Brisbane (the current answer being 67.8% of them).

The ECQ separately publishes the election night count of the primary vote and what other jurisdictions would describe as the “recheck”, on which work began yesterday. This means I have a choice between publishing the election night or the recheck results, and I will be sticking with the former until the latter are largely or entirely completed.

My results system is calling 49 seat for Labor, 30 for the LNP and cross-bench of seven, with seven Labor-versus-LNP contests in doubt. However, some of these are not really so, as will be explained when I consider them in turn shortly: one of the seven should probably be counted for Labor and four for the LNP, leaving only two generally in doubt. And another reminder that the extensive effort that has gone into all this can be rewarded via the “Become a Supporter” button at the top of the page.

• The ABC is calling Hervey Bay for Labor but my system is a hair’s breadth away from doing so. It probably should, because one of the two pre-poll booths has 7639 votes that have so far reported only the primary vote, and which will boost Labor’s 760 lead to by about 375 when its two-party count finally comes through.

• Labor leads by 277 in Bundaberg, but this is without a two-party count on 2833 postals, which by my reckoning should slightly more than halve that. That flow of about 52.5-47.5 to the LNP on postals presumably indicates there is a good chance last postals will wear away what remains of Labor’s lead.

• Labor leads by 84 in Nicklin, and could get a fillip when absents are added, if 2017 is any guide. Against that will be the usual trend to the LNP on late postals.

• The LNP leads by 268 in Currumbin, but there probably aren’t that many votes outstanding, so there would been to be some surprises here on absents and late postals for Labor to win.

• The LNP leads Labor by 547 in Burleigh, which late postals will presumably widen.

• The LNP leads by only 365 in Clayfield, but 5441 votes from the Clayfield early voting centre and 6743 postals should blow that out when they have two-party as well as primary votes reported. The ABC is calling this for the LNP.

• The LNP leads by 814 in Coomera, without much remaining to be added, so you can put down your glasses there.

Click here for full Queensland election results updated live.

The bugs in my election results facility are largely dealt with now, some niggles notwithstanding – here you will find booth results in a far more manageable form than offered by the ECQ, and the only swing data at booth level available anywhere. This will updated live throughout the final stages of the count, although the ECQ’s move to the separately published “official” count either today or tomorrow will need to be finessed. If you find any value in this labour-intensive effort, gestures of appreciation in the form of donations are gratefully received through the “Become a Supporter” button at the top of the page.

My results system is giving Labor 50 out of the 52 seats in which they currently lead the two-party count, and the LNP 29 of their 34, with the Greens to win two barring late-count surprises at Labor’s expense in McConnel and Cooper, and the cross-bench otherwise being a status quo of three Katter’s Australian Party, one One Nation and one independent. In the few cases where my system disagrees, I suspect it is because the ABC is projecting the two-party result in large pre-poll centres that have so far reported only the primary vote. A large pre-poll booth in Hervey Bay is one such, while another pre-poll booth in the seat hasn’t reported at all. Hervey Bay also hasn’t reported any postals yet, which went around 63-37 to the LNP in 2017 compared with 59-41 in the electorate at large. Even so, even the ABC projection has Labor’s lead at 3.2% compared with a raw 4.9%, so they would have to be rated the strong favourite.

My system and the ABC’s are agreed that the LNP is not yet home and dry in Burleigh, Chatsworth, Coomera and Currumbin, but my fifth LNP in-doubt seat is Clayfield and the ABC’s is Glass House, which mine is giving away just barely. I would think it likely that the LNP will get home in all of them. I presume the ABC’s call of Clayfield relates to it projecting a two-party result from the Clayfield Early Voting Centre, which as yet has only reported on the primary vote and accounts for more than a quarter of the current primary vote total. Labor will need to achieve something special in Glass House out of the Woodford Early Voting Centre, which hasn’t reported on either the primary or two-party count. I also wouldn’t be too amazed if Labor’s leads in LNP-held Bundaberg and Nicklin failed to survive the late count, and their existing total of 50 proves their final score, one up on the result from 2017.

I’ll offer a more in-depth analysis of the situation tomorrow, together with ongoing commentary on the late count.

The Australian brings us a campaign eve Newspoll that will, on top of anything else, be the first real-world test for the poll since YouGov took it over last year. It suggests no swing at all compared with the 2017 election on the two-party vote, with Labor leading 51.5-48.5 – technically a half-point move to the LNP since the last poll a fortnight ago, but that result would have been rounded to a whole number (this one might have been rounded either to a half-point or a decimal place).

The primary votes are Labor 37%, which is unchanged on the last poll and up from 35.4% in 2017; the LNP is down one to 36%, compared with 33.7% in 2017; the Greens are unchanged on 11%, compared with 10.0%; and One Nation is on 10%, which is up one but down from their 13.7% in 2017, despite the fact they are running in nearly every seat this time but only ran in two thirds last time. Breakdowns for the regions and the south-east would have been nice, but no such luck apparently.

The LNP is surprisingly competitive given how the leadership ratings are looking: Annastacia Palaszczuk is up one on approval to 62% and steady on disapproval at 33%, while Deb Frecklington appears not have had a good campaign, with her approval down two to 35% and disapproval up four to 48%. However, Palaszczuk’s 56-30 lead as preferred premier is little changed from the 57-32 she scored a fortnight ago. The poll was conducted from Sunday until earlier today from a sample of 1032.

In light of all that, the following observation from my paywalled piece in Crikey today holds up okay:

For all that though, Labor strategists are being kept awake at night by the path to victory that remains open to the LNP in the same parts of the state that savaged Labor at the federal election.

When the federal seats of central and northern Queensland recorded swings upwards of 10% last year, the effect was certainly demoralising for Labor, but the impact was limited by the fact that there had only been one seat there for them to lose — the Townsville-based seat of Herbert, which the party gained by a paper-thin margin in 2016.

At the state level though, the region is so richly endowed with Labor marginals that a locally concentrated swing could deliver the LNP victory even if it loses the statewide two-party vote, as the latest polls suggest.

Last but certainly not least, I believe I’m in a position to promise a functioning live election results facility tomorrow evening, similar in format to my acclaimed effort from the Eden-Monaro by-election, barring unforeseen egregious technical mishaps on either my end or the Electoral Commission of Queensland’s (the latter hopefully having made good its deficiencies from the night of the council elections and state by-elections in February). For anyone whose interest in the result extends to the booth level, this will easily be the best place to view the results, assuming all goes according to plan.

Two days out from an election that is in a sense already half over, the rate of pre-polling and postal voting being what it is:

• Hot on the heels of similar polling from New South Wales and Victoria, the Financial Review yesterday published results of a voting intention-free poll from Ipsos. The most striking finding is that “half” believe Annastacia Palaszczuk would do a better job on the economy compared with 26% for LNP leader Deb Frecklington, a question on which conservatives traditionally have the edge. Sixty-five per cent of respondents took a positive view of Palaszczuk’s handling of coronavirus, including 38% very satisfied, with “only one in five” dissatisfied. The poll also found 40% support and 30% opposition to Adani’s Carmichael coal mine, with support at 45% in regional Queensland and 35% in “the cities”, which I take to mean the south-east. The poll was conducted last Wednesday to Friday from a sample of 1003.

• There is increasing talk about the prospects of independent Claire Richardson is the southern bayside seat of Oodgeroo, which Mark Robinson holds for the LNP on a margin of 7.2% over Labor. Richardson is the owner of a local engineering consultancy, and narrowly failed to unseat LNP incumbent in the Redlands mayoral election in March. A “senior LNP strategist” quoted in The Australian yesterday went so far as to say that Robinson would win the seat.

• Writing in Crikey earlier this week, Madonna King reported a view among Labor strategists that coronavirus had secured them the “grey vote”, reflecting a dynamic that appears to be playing out in the United States. This is reflected in Labor’s hopes of snaring LNP-held seats on Gold Coast (Bonney, Currumbin and Burleigh, in ascending order of margin) and Sunshine Coast (Caloundra and Glass House).

• On a less optimistic note for Labor, Annastacia Palaszczuk visited Mackay on Tuesday, where the LNP is talking up its chances despite an 8.3% margin and its long record as a Labor stronghold. An LNP source quoted in the Courier-Mail claimed support for Labor was “tanking in the regions”.

• The first of two leaders debates was held last night, with the other to follow tomorrow, with 53% of the hand-picked audience of 47 undecided voters saying the debate had made them more likely to vote Labor compared with 30% for the LNP, which I guess means 25 to 14. However, it would appear 23 of those selected to attend failed to show up on a night of inclement weather, thereby serving as a proxy for the nearly half of Queensland voters who are in no position to be influenced by the debate since they have voted already.

• Kevin Bonham reviews the betting markets so I don’t have to: “Labor favourite in 44 seats, LNP 39, KAP 3, GRN 3, ONP 1, IND 1. One ALP/LNP tie, one LNP/KAP tie. Only 6 seats (inc Whitsunday) with incumbent not favourite. IND almost favourite in Oodgeroo“. I have a notion that things might have shifted further in Labor’s favour in the two days since that was written, as Sportsbet is offering just $1.25 on Labor to form government compared with $3.75 for the LNP, whereas not that long ago the markets gave the LNP the edge.

It turns out The Australian was holding back one last Newspoll marginal seat poll, to go with the Pumiceston, Mundingburra and Mansfield polls covered in this post. This time it’s South Brisbane, where Amy MacMahon of the Greens is created with a 54.5-45.5 lead over Labor’s Jackie Trad, who won by 3.5% in 2017. The primary votes are Greens 39% (34.4% in 2017), Labor 32% (36.0%) and LNP 24% (24.3%).

The two-party result is based on a 60-40 split of preferences from the LNP, who have Labor last on their how-to-vote cards, which is apparently a guesstimate. The only precedent I can think of for which the relevant data is readily available is Melbourne at the 2007 and 2010 federal elections (the Liberals put Adam Bandt behind Labor at later elections), at which the flow of Liberal preferences was upwards of 80%. Annastacia Palaszczuk has a 62-22 lead in the electorate over Deb Frecklington, which perhaps predictably is the widest among the four electorates polled, it being by far the weakest for the LNP.

As with the other seat polls, this was conducted last Tuesday to Thursday from a curiously exact sample of 404, and thus carries a wide theoretical error margin of 5%. It may also be noted that the record of polling in inner-city Labor-Greens contests is patchy at best.

• Elsewhere, the ABC’s state politics reporter, Peter McCutcheon, reckons there is “growing evidence the LNP is giving up on the idea of forming majority government”. This refers to the LNP’s pursuit of a curfew policy that might poach seats from Labor in the target markets in Cairns and Townsville, but will do so at a cost in support in the Brisbane marginals that are must-win from a majority point of view. It is noted that Frecklington’s campaign has made defensive plays in the Gold Coast seat of Currumbin while neglecting most vulnerable seats in Brisbane, Aspley, Mansfield and Redlands. Conversely, a “senior Labor source” quoted in The Australian says the election will be “won and lost” on Townsville, where Labor could “possibly afford to lose one seat, but any more and we’re in trouble”.

• Charlie Peel of The Australian reports the LNP are hopeful of winning north Queensland seats where they finished third behind One Nation in 2017, including Mackay, Keppel and Thuringowa. Such results are predicated on a strong flow of preferences from One Nation candidates who stand to be excluded this time, and thus amount to a backfiring of Labor’s abolition of optional preferential voting at the last election. Internal LNP polling is said to show 65% of One Nation voters intend to preference the LNP ahead of Labor, much as they did at the federal election.

• Katter’s Australian Party is hawking a ReachTEL poll that shows 57% support for North Queensland to form a new state, for which the party is pushing for a referendum to be held after the election. The Courier-Mail says “350 voters in the marginal electorate of Mundingburra (were) polled as part of the survey”, leading me to wonder if that was part of the sample or the whole. Also on the KAP front, Robbie Katter says both that his party has not official position on euthanasia, which Labor has put on the agenda by promising reactivate stalled assisted dying laws, but also that he “would find it enormously hard to align with anyone that would ever contemplate pushing that agenda in the next parliament”.

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.

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.