Category: Queensland Election 2024

Following a week in which abortion unexpectedly took centre stage of the Queensland election campaign, The Australian’s Feeding the Chooks column reports the issue “has helped Labor’s cause in Brisbane, where it faces losses to the LNP and the Greens”. The evidence for this would appear to be Labor internal polling suggesting Grace Grace is well placed to retain the Greens target of McConnel, outpolling them 27% to 24% with the LNP on 34%. This is quite a bit different from polling the column published from a different source last week, which had the Greens on 37.9%, the LNP on 27.4% and Labor on 27.2%. A “senior Labor insider” is further quoted saying a party that feared a near wipeout regionally, leaving it only with Gladstone outside of Brisbane, now sees “glimmers of hope in Cairns, Rockhampton and Maryborough”.

The other big event for the week was the closure of nominations and ballot paper draws, revealing a decline in the total number of candidates to 525 (5.6%) from 597 (6.4%) in 2020. A breakdown from Antony Green shows Labor, the LNP, the Greens and One Nation are contesting all seats, Family First is putting in its biggest effort in some time with 59 candidates, with lesser numbers from Legalise Cannabis, Katter’s Australian Party, Animal Justice and the Libertarians.

Also of note: the website Australian Election Forecasts, operating off an admittedly shallow pool of data, calculates an 85.8% chance the LNP will have a “clear path to government” compared with 4.4% for Labor, the median predicted outcome being 55 seats for the LNP, 29 for Labor, three each for the Greens and Katter’s Australian Party and one independent.

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.

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.