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”.
Can we please keep this thread for discussion of Queensland politics. The open thread for general discussion is here.
Whichever of these polls is accurate, the news is still not good. In my knowledge, no government has ever won from a position like this in polling. At least Labor will hold some seats in middle-ring Brisbane, the Ipswich-Springfield area and Gladstone. They also might be able to keep some of Cairns, Cook, Maryborough and Mulgrave.
There seems to be absolutely no doubt that Labor is going to be trounced in the election. Will it be as bad as 2012? Perhaps not quite, but Bligh was a far more capable leader than Miles.
I wonder how they’d be going if they’d retained Annastacia? Perhaps a little better? To my eyes, Miles is just as big a turkey as Premier as he always seemed to be when he was Deputy Premier, so he’s been of no help whatsoever.
Steven Miles comes across to me as a well intentioned but bumbling idiot, Cameron Dick was surely the better option for them when the former Premier retired(or was told to retire), but hey, the Queensland Labor left knew better and promoted their bloke.
@2nd of December, I’d argue it’s plausible the ALP could lose Gladstone. Yes, it’s on a 24% margin. If you are on the ground, the anger against the ALP is palpable. Closing the maternity unit and general failure of other government services has left a strong taste of abandonment. The swings in regional Queensland are going to be very,very different to Brisbane.
Sausage: There’s a school of thought that he was a sacrificial lamb – most of the damage was already done under Palaszczuk so they didn’t want to set Dick up to fail so he can have a fresh go of it in 4 years. I suspect that true, but also I think they wanted a progressive like Miles to keep the Greens at bay. Once Crisafulli switches to OPV, it will be hard for the LNP to lose in seats where the Labor/Green vote is split down the middle but below a certain threshold. Labor wants to keep the incumbency advantage in places where the Greens are stronger.
Like Newman, I reckon Crisafulli will be a one term wonder, he will be as obnoxious and pig headed, most of his cabinet are warmovers from the Newman days as well.
‘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”.’
Travel out further to north of Kedron Brook and it gets very very very ugly … you find yourself in Dutton territory.
Assuming Crisafulli wins and polling looks bad for the LNP in 2028, there’s the chance that Jarrod Bleijie would roll him. And knowing him, it’ll probably make things worse for them if he becomes Premier.
‘One Nation’s new candidate for the seat is Brettlyn Neal, a travelling tent boxer known to the sporting public as “Beaver Brophy” …’
A boy from the bush … in all senses of the word? 😉
Jarrod Bleijie-Petersen?
the 50c train fares seem to be very popular, that’s the impression I’m getting on social media, but am I correct that outside of Brisbane, public transport in Qld is pretty limited and lacklustre?
You’re not wrong, DS.
@The Wombat
Maybe so. But the question is to whom? There is no Indie running there, at least not yet, and the current Mayor Matt Burnell is ALP.
If Gladstone gets the 20% swing against Labor that’s needed for them to lose, it might be a tossup between the LNP and One Nation, who undoubtedly would be preferencing each other over Labor.
It’s rather hard to say, right-leaning Independent Liz Cunningham pretty much owned the seat from 1995-2015, but in 2017, One Nation polled higher than the LNP.
42% primary is a fair bit short of Cando Newman’s 49% and there is is plenty of ammo to throw at them this time which will reduce this further – asset sales, land clearing, assault on the public service and services and very importantly rolling over on Mr Duttons toxic nuclear plans. LNP will win but the margin might be not as catastrophic as NT .
@DS you’re pretty much right RE: public transport outside of Brisbane. I’d only offer that Gold Coast public transport is okay too, but probably doesn’t get as much love as it should.
On this topic, I think Labor had deliberately targeted the Gold Coast as part of their 50 cent fares policy. Plotting a pathway down through Coomera, Theodore, Gaven, Bonney, Southport, Mermaid Beach, Burleigh, Currumbin. As insurance to offset potential regional losses in Bundaberg, Hervey Bay, Ninderry, Caloundra, etc. This strategy was of course probably conceived well before things completely fell over. And now probably will only serve to try and hold onto Gaven and Macalister.
Along the river would be Lytton, McConnell, Cooper, Miller, Bulimba, South Brisbane, Greenslopes, Mt Ommaney.
Forget Ipswich in a swing like this, only a good local member can hold Gladstone for any length of time, one longstanding problem there is that kids of people born in the town can’t get work in the good paying unionised industries, yet blow ins from the southern capitals with the right connections get a walk up start.
I wouldn’t blame Palaszczuk or Miles, the reality is that Labor has been the Party of the Managerial Class for nearly 60 years, and the results are there for all to see.
They’ve pulled the ladder up after themselves and the devil take the hindmost.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
So, 8 in Brisbane, plus Bundamba, Inala, Woodridge, and Cook in FNQ.
That’s 12 seats, One Nation got 11 in 1998 with a similar share of the PV.
edited
I wonder if anyone in the media will ask Crisafulli what he plans to do with the long distance trains like the Westlander, Spirit of the Outback, Inlander, Gulflander, etc?
Newman scrapped the Sunlander in 2014 after all.
Long distance Passenger train travel is a thing of long ago.
Beattie was giving away tickets on the Sunlander to pensioners, that was 20 years ago
@Kirsdarke
I guess it could be in trouble. But it has always voted ALP even at a federal level. I guess with increasing alienation between Labor and the union movement, that could flip some WWC votes to PHON. But if Labor lost Gladstone, the only regional seat they would have a snowball’s chance in hell of holding would be Cook (due to its demographics).
Senior Labor staffer on Cook:
It’s restrained panic stations ATM [considering what happened in Ipswich West and Inala].
https://capeyorkweekly.com.au/race-for-cook-takes-shape-as-lnp-kap-unveil-runners/9498/
@Badthinker
Well if Crisafulli does end up scrapping those services, I’m sure the people that live out there would gladly accept their fate of ending up like most other Central Australian former railway towns.
Probably after they get over why their children moved out of town and don’t really want to visit or talk to them anymore.
These are just apocalyptic numbers. Not much to say apart from, yet again, the reflection that Miles was the catastrophically wrong choice over either Dick or Fentiman.
50 cent opal public transport fares in NSW would be wildly popular if the Minns Govetnment here in Sydney ever copied the Qld policy.
I agree the dye for Qld Labor was cast ages ago, but the ineptness of Miles has just made a bad situation worse. It will be a furniture saving exercise at the October election.
50 cent public transport was always effectively just pork barrelling metro Brisbane seats. It’s only pushing the government vote down further in the outer metro and regional areas where there isn’t much in the way of public transport and where the ALP vote was already collapsing. But I doubt that comes as a surprise to the government. It’s really a furniture saving exercise, and most of the ALP furniture is in Brisbane, now.
“Queensland is set to televise its own election debate between Premier Steven Miles and Opposition Leader David Crisafulli.
The one-hour October 3 event will be televised live from 7.30pm on Channel Nine and 9Now.
News anchor Melissa Downes will host the debate alongside Brisbane Times editor Sean Parnell, Nine News’ state political reporter, Tim Arvier, and 4BC Afternoons presenter Sofie Formica.”
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/as-it-happened-brisbane-on-thursday-september-12-20240911-p5k9r9.html
Wombat : I would say that the 50 cent fares advantage those further out. If you catch the train from gold coast to bris CBD as many do for work you would save $100 per fortnight. Many far flung parts of bris have train services and are saving a packet. Keeping fares low subsidised by mining royalties would be popular in more than just inner Brisbane. LNP almost certainly will get rid of extra mining royalties.
Link to Redbridge poll here:
https://redbridgegroup.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Queensland-vote-intention-and-leader-ratings-May-Aug-2024-1.pdf
Labor putting a new levy on the coal industry has allowed Miles to spread the joy far and wide. L/NP has given all that a tick. Qld also bought down balanced budgets included biggest surplus by any State Govt ever.
There has also been a big spend on renewables and this is where differences of policies of the major parties are starkest. Solar same same. Hydro Boromba dam well down the track, Fitzroy Mackay will need hard negotiating work so that will let L/NP pass on it and further hydro, their stated position.
Wind power now operating 1025MW, enought to power 600,000 homes. Approved and advanced 3500MW, 2,100,000 homes. In discussion prior to lodging submissions 1000MW, another 550,000. Much of this generation is going into industry but housing figures shown to illustrate. L/NP want no turbines and don’t want wind in the equation despite northern Aus being one of the most reliable areas in the country. West of Mt Isa has proven mineral reserves worth over $500 billion.
Dutton and Crucifooli don’t want renewables. They will delay, defer and decline renewable projects. Young Aussies rightfully level a lot of criticism about how carbon emissions have been damaging the planet. Now is the time to stop complaining and get active. L/NP plans have been laid out for you to see. The Federal Liberals set Australia back a decade by doing nothing for renewables. Qld L/NP will follow the same pattern to protect those polluting mining companies. Put the L/NP last on every ballot you ever complete.