Galaxy: 51-49 to federal Coalition in Queensland

A new Galaxy poll finds the Abbott government rallying in Queensland, and records next to nothing left of Palmer United support even in its home state.

Today’s Courier-Mail brings a Galaxy poll of federal voting intention in Queensland, encompassing 800 respondents and presumably conducted over the past few days. The primary vote numbers are 44% for the Coalition, 36% for Labor, 10% for the Greens and 2% for Palmer United, compared with respective results at the 2013 election of 45.7%, 29.8%, 6.2% and 11.0%. This converts into a Coalition two-party lead of 51-49, a swing to Labor of 6% from the 2013 result.

A fair bit happening lately on the federal preselection front:

• Joanna Lindgren will fill the Queensland Senate vacancy created by Brett Mason’s appointment as ambassador to the Netherlands, after prevailing in a preselection ballot over seven rival candidates. Her win was achieved despite Tony Abbott, John Howard and Julie Bishop having backed Bill Glasson, an opthamologist, former Australian Medical Association president and twice-unsuccessful candidate for Griffith, firstly against Kevin Rudd in 2013 and again at the by-election held to replace him the following February. Lindgren has been described as a “project officer”, and is apparently the great-niece of former Liberal Senator Neville Bonner, Australia’s first indigenous parliamentarian.

• The Queensland ALP wrapped up preselection in nearly every seat that matters on Wednesday. Cameron Atfield of the Sydney Morning Herald reports the candidate for Forde in Brisbane’s outer south is Des Hardman, who made way for Peter Beattie’s unsuccessful bid for the seat in 2013. Laura Fraser Hardy, a lawyer, will make her second successive run against Liberal incumbent Ross Vasta in the bayside marginal seat of Bonner. The preselection of five out of Labor’s six lower house incumbents was also confirmed, including that of Wayne Swan in Lilley. The exception is Bernie Ripoll in Oxley, who will make way for Brisbane City Council opposition leader Milton Dick.

• A Liberal National Party preselection held this morning for Clive Palmer’s seat of Fairfax was won by Ted O’Brien, managing director of government relations firm Barton Deakin and the unsuccessful candidate in 2013. Others in the field were Peter Duffy, a construction manager; Don Jamieson, a banking manager; Chloe Kopilovic, a solicitor; Adrian McCallum, an engineering lecturer at the University of Sunshine Coast; and Mark Somlyay, an accountant and son of former member Alex Somlyay. Labor has preselected Scott Anderson, an IT consultant.

• Heath Aston of the Sydney Morning Herald reports that NSW Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon’s bid for another term is meeting resistance from no fewer than 16 rival preselection nominees. Among them are several colleagues of Rhiannon’s in the “hard left” faction, including Jim Casey, the state secretary of the Fire Brigade Employees Union, together with “James Ryan, Amanda Findley, Jane Oakley and Ben Hammond”. Also in the field are Cate Faerhrmann, who filled Rhiannon’s state upper house vacancy when she moved to the Senate in 2010, before abandoning it for an unsuccessful Senate bid in 2013; and Arthur Chesterfield-Evans, who held a state upper house seat for the Australian Democrats from 1998 to 2007.

• Sean Ford of the Burnie Advocate reports that Labor’s preselection candidates for the north-western Tasmanian seat of Braddon include Justine Keay, a Devonport alderman and electorate officer to Tasmanian Opposition Leader Bryan Green, and Themba Bulle, a Burnie general practitioner. The current Liberal member, Brett Whiteley, won the seat from Labor’s Sid Sidebottom in 2013.

• Labor’s candidate to run against Adam Bandt in Melbourne is Sophie Ismail, a Victorian Education Department lawyer and member of the Socialist Left faction.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,250 comments on “Galaxy: 51-49 to federal Coalition in Queensland”

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  1. Fess @ 1066

    [Is that fraud? Is it rorting? Is it double, even triple dipping?]

    It’s not fraud, because it is perfectly legal under the rules that the politicians have approved for themselves.

    Rorting and double dipping are essentially meaningless terms that are used to denigrate others.

    But there is no question that it is immoral and unethical to take the taxpayer’s money designed to cover legitimate expenses and use it in a way that enables you to accrue a financial advantage that other people travelling for work-related purposes are not entitled to.

  2. So we have a Minister for Counter Terrorism yet we don’t for Science and Technology. Good to see, it’s back to the Dark Ages for us (well with these clowns we are half way there now).

    Not concerned with ABC series on the RG wars – simple response, that was in the past, nothing to do with the present, both protagonists have departed the scene, relevance now? It will all be done and dusted before Abbott can call a DD. He needs to be more concerned the economy will be tanking by the time he calls it.

  4. [Bw

    Hockey started with a bit of a fib last night

    How surprising.]

    He started as he intended to go on. It was the only consistency he brought to the night.

    But at least he had the guts (or perhaps the sheer stupid foolhardiness) to turn up. Abbott is absolutely terrified of any serious pressure.

  5. Bernardi

    If you don’t want long-winded political answers, don’t ask the questions. All talking together 🙂 🙂

  7. Thanks Fess

    It’s disappointing that no-one else has tried it and reported back (re my 1073) but at least I know it’s not a universal problem.

  8. I only just heard about The Killing Season. I’m really looking forward to it. If it’s half as good as “Labor in Power” then it should be excellent.

    I thought “The Howard Years” was crap, I hope it’s better than that effort.

  11. lizzie@1057

    Hartcher

    Tony Abbott won an election promising to help families cut their power bills by getting rid of the carbon tax. He kept his promise. Electricity prices fell by an average of 9 per cent.


    What 9%? My elec bill has just gone up and up and up (to quote the Master).

    My bills have only gone down because I installed PV as soon as Abbott got into power. If I applied today’s rates on my old pre-PV bills, I’ll definitely be paying more than I did during the Carbon Tax days.

  12. Apparently on q and a last night Hockey said in relation to SSM that the government had to be wary of creating division in the community.

    I thought that was what Tory governments did, it is their reason for existing.

  13. lizzie @ 1095

    [The shorts I have seen show Rudd sarcastic against Gillard. So ABC have picked out something which suggests there’s a lot of aggro in the series. This may be just to encourage viewers.]

    They make it sound like a kind of Struggle Street comes to Parliament House. There are some very good stories to tell about Labor’s time in power – especially dealing with the GFC. It will be interesting to see if this program is actually a proper telling of what happened or whether it will simply be the same old faux Shakespearian tragedy bs.

  17. [ Are Turnbull/Hockey creating a diversion by using SSM to hide the crap budget 2.0 ? ]

    David Pope certainly thinks so –

  18. Hartcher

    Tony Abbott won an election promising to help families cut their power bills by getting rid of the carbon tax. He kept his promise. Electricity prices fell by an average of 9 per cent.

    What 9%? My elec bill has just gone up and up and up (to quote the Master).

    I told youse all what would happen: the Carbon Tax removal would cause prices to go down by 9%, and the removal of discounts would see it go back up to where it was, or greater.

    This is exactly what has happened with our electricity bill.

    Additionally, half or more of most electricity bills is “gold-plated poles and wires”, which did not attract the Carbon Tax. Unless pole and wires go down in price, electricity bills will continue to rise.

    Further, our proud electricity capitalists who “welcome competition” &etc. are in one fo the few industries that does not perform according to classical market economics.

    In most industries, when demand slumps, so do prices.

    In Electricity, if demand halves, the price doubles.

    It’s a neat way of maintaining revenue and profit, with the governments – keen to flog their generating assets off – making suire that prices stay high, now and into the future, to make the purchase of infrastructure look attractive.

    You have a combination of the Electricity retailers carrying out the old supermarket trick of offering lots of discounted items, while putting the price of other lines up to RRP (in the case of Eleftricity, compartmentalizing each account, so that a discount on one can be made up by a price hike on the other), plus a tied market with a guaranteed price.

    De-gridding your household only means that the rest pay more for the dwindling resource, as has been the case with solar rooftop installations. As more of these come on stream, the hold-outs will be slugged until such time as the electricity retailers decide to go solar/alternative themselves. I believe there was such an announcement by AGL in the last few days. They will go “alternative” when they are good and ready, which will be when their competitors have been emasculated by various governments chopping at their businesses and their fossil fuel generation infrastructure is fully depreciated.

    The same principle applies to Foxtel. Copper hasn’t worked. The promised “full rollout by 2016” hasn’t eventuated, and doesn’t look like it will happen for a decade. By which time Murdoch will have ported his assets over to the internet, and FTTP can go ahead.

    Of course not! Even with the crappy chewing gum and string internet we have now, businesses like Netflix are eating into Foxtel’s customer base. It is in Rupert’s interests to slow down even the second rate copper rollout until he can figure out a way to capitalize on optical fibre (which will be when all those free set-top boxes wear out, at least as far as the depreciation books are concerned). Same-same as the Electricity companies.

    The reasons why punters who live in more shady and otherwise unsuitable (sunshine-wize) areas can’t all pool their money together and set up solar farms – micro to medium-sized generating nodes, in effect – out in the sunny open, but instead are restricted to having to use their inefficient rooftops to qualify for the kickback, and the reason why we can’t have the no-brainer of optical fibre to our homes are the same: Big Business bought the government that stopped both.

    We will pay less for our electricity…. never. We will pay less for our internet… never. We will pay less for our city expressways… never. We will pay more taxes… always… as the rich and the powerful tell corruptible governments what they are to do, and when.

  19. This is old territory re power bills I know, but in WA power bills (at least in the Perth metro, but as country is cross-subsidised, much the same there) went up about 60% plus in a relatively short time span.

    This increase was sheeted down to Labor in office, keeping power costs artificially low.

    Barnett promised no increases over inflation, an election promise which is in the same dustbin as the Light Rail promise and the one of rail to Ellenbrook.

    In the meantime, and with CT coming and going, with a very small increase (offset by PMJG’s subsidy to oldies), power bills are on their way up again, this time by 4% – along with water and other utilities.

    We are still waiting for the $550 blood oath promise from Abbott on the rescinding of the CT. Only fools believed this promise then, while even bigger fools still think Abbott is an okay leader.

  20. [Additionally, half or more of most electricity bills is “gold-plated poles and wires”, which did not attract the Carbon Tax. Unless pole and wires go down in price, electricity bills will continue to rise.]

    Not only electricity. In my most recent gas bill, for the end of summer when I don’t need it for heating, the various charges for supply, administration, etc were more than the charge for the gas used.

  22. “@ABCNews24: Senator @sarahinthesen8 says @Greens will officially start debate on #marriageequality. Hope to vote in parli November 12 #auspol”

  23. “@ABCNews24: Senator @sarahinthesen8 says @Greens will officially start debate on #marriageequality. Hope to vote in parli November 12 #auspol”

  24. [Joe Hockey has left the door open to enact future changes to superannuation, just hours after Tony Abbott vowed the government was “not going to touch” the existing arrangements.

    Speaking on the ABC’s Q&A program on Monday night, Hockey said the commitment not to touch the tax applied only while super returns were low.]

    And we’re supposed to take him seriously?
    http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/may/26/joe-hockey-tells-qa-super-will-be-untouched-only-while-returns-are-low

  25. @lizzie/1124

    This government is playing with voters minds, it’s about time Labor stop agreeing to reform the system while Coalition Party are in government, after back and forth yes/no propaganda from the government.

    Because that is exactly what they are doing.

  26. The benefits of solar do outweigh its costs. Some have a hard time accepting it Giles Parkinson:

    “Oh dear. Here we go again. The solar industry is clearly winning the battle to turn the global electricity industry upside down and inside out. The plunging cost of battery storage will accelerate that process. It’s just that some people have a hard time accepting it.

    The latest big headlines are from the Grattan Institute, which wrote in a report that the economic costs of rooftop solar outweighed the benefits by $9bn. When you actually look at the numbers, they’re a witch’s brew of mistaken assumptions and omissions.”

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/25/the-benefits-of-solar-do-outweigh-its-costs-some-have-a-hard-time-accepting-it?CMP=share_btn_tw

  27. “@Mark_Butler_MP: CER gives #Estimates evidence: Govt will pay $660 million for 10 million tonnes of carbon abatement – a carbon price of $66 per tonne.”

  34. Both Hartcher and Giles Parkinson have shown themselves to be not the deepest of thinkers in the last few days, imho.

  37. New Commissioner of Vic Police was appointed in part due to his expertise on “terrorism”. He states that terrorism is his number one concern and focus. Obviously the vic state govt concur.

  39. Labor is slipping back in its most marginal SA seat, Hindmarsh, according to a ReachTEL poll of 690 people on Sunday, The Advertiser reports.

    Labor’s primary vote had dropped from 38% at the 2013 election to 33.7%, the Liberal vote was down just a little, from 46.2% to 44.6%, the Greens “soaked up a few more votes” and 7.2% were undecided.

    If Labor can’t do better than that in the most marginal seat in its best state, what hope does it have?

    Steve Georganas is recontesting against the Libs’ Matt Williams.

  40. Cormann attacks Labor in every one of his answers.
    (Senate, Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee (Senate Estimates))

  41. CTar @ 1135..

    “Are you the last user?”

    Lol!! …my wife’s computer ..I use an Apple Imac (fantastic!!). However, Vista works better than Win 8.1 imho.. 😉

  44. Giles seems to be arguing that the increase in network costs driven by PV don’t matter because when we all get (currently still bloody expensive) batteries, the problems in the networks will all be sorted.

    Which is fine, but we have already have the PV, and have already spent the money strengthening the networks.

    And how we are paying for it! And it gets better, because not only are the amortised network costs expensive, we’re not paying in proportion to how much effect we’ve each had on them! The costs have been smeared on average across everyone – it’s a free riders’ delight.

    The situation is best described a clusterfwrk, and Giles’ dissembling rivals Hockey.

  46. [Tony’s Tradies? ]

    Yep, and there are a few of them around. Don’t ever kid yourself otherwise.

    Critical difference is that now they have been given the nod and wink from their Wonder-Hero Tony to dump their barely repressed filth out in public.

    Cue denial from Wonder-Hero Boy, that will somehow actually blame those damn moozi women for bringing it on themselves with their conspiratorial moozi scarves and secret moozi wordspeak, and using socialist public transport in a provocatively moozi manner.

    The terror, the terror. Always the terror.

  48. 1144

    Most of the money spent on upgrades of power systems in recent years has been for air-conditioning related peaks. End user location PV reduces air-conditioning related peaks on the grid. Therefore PV reduces the need for grid spending. Much of the grid spending was due to a lack of anticipation of solar and other electricity demand reduction.

  49. CTari

    [Windows / Firefox – No error message just no preview.

    We’ll have to wait and see if Musrum turns up to fix it.]

    I tried typing this with Greasemonkey and cccp turned off. I think it might be more of a Crikey blog issue. Preview doesn’t work.

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