I’ve said before that I don’t put too much stock in the quarterly state Newspolls, because they’re taken at such a lengthy interval it’s hard to get a sense of when any movement shown has actually occurred, and it’s more difficult to pick a poll which may be an outlier for various sampling reasons. However, the big shift to Labor in both Queensland and Victoria at state level in the latest lot of polling probably is significant. It’s also shot a huge hole in The Australian’s narrative of a voter desire to “balance” federal Labor by turning away from state ALP governments, which I’ve been suggesting for a long time was just nonsense anyway. In Crikey, Richard Farmer has some fun looking at the reactions (or contortions) from various News Limited journos.
So, what’s going on in Queensland? Anna Bligh’s own numbers were down while Labor’s vote surged, to a point above where it was at the last election (which was won very handily indeed). It’s possible that Bligh herself is suffering a little because she doesn’t fit the mould of the “strong leader” which has always stuck to Queensland Premiers, and which Peter Beattie re-invented. Conversely, there may be a bit of a flight to safety effect in the party vote with the economy slowing. However, here we come across one of the conundrums that haunt the analysis of polling. Queensland Labor types have been suggesting that private polling (which I haven’t seen) has Labor’s vote still on the up but not at such quite stellar heights and Anna Bligh’s numbers better than in Newspoll. I suspect they’re telling the truth, but with these things, as I’ve also said before, the interpretation of the public polls shifts political discourse and in particular the strategy and morale of the opposition.
The Borg is presumably on holidays, because former Liberal leader and current LNP deputy Mark McArdle has been trundled out to make the LNP’s excuses:
Acting Opposition Leader Mark McArdle has described 2008 as a tough year.
“We have come from a Coalition into an LNP – that took some time and effort,” he said.
And therein lies the rub. It wasn’t as if the constituent parts of the LNP were policy powerhouses before the amalgamation. Now they’ve got over the hurdle of their new party (which looks very much like the Nats with the Santoro faction tacked on), very little has been heard from them in a positive sense – two more or less unfunded policy announcements which fell apart on close inspection almost immediately. Supposedly Lawrence Springborg is trying to appear statesmanlike to counter his previous image as a nitpicker. But the LNP is looking more like a rather empty personality vehicle (few shadow ministers have any sort of public profile) at a time when the political stars are aligning closer to where Labor would like them to shine.
Oh and the early election talk? My mail is that Anna is playing with The Borg’s mind.
Update: New post looking at Antony Green’s analysis of the redistribution, and underlining the huge nature of the task that the LNP has to win.
Update: This post has also been published by Crikey today.
Огромное СПАСИБО! Этот блог – супер!!!
Comrades, that tanslates from the Russian as…. “Thank you very much! This blog – super!”.
Just sayin’.
Urgh, well this is dissapointing in general terms, yeah Mark is on the money more or less but it’s the same old story. The voters of QLD will continue to reward this lazy Labor government because of an even lazier and possibly more uncomfortably conservative
LNPNational opposition.The problem will be that we are getting no closer to better governance, Labor will not even bother trying if they don’t have to, this is where I hope the Greens will see their opportunity, there is little point looking to canabalise the Libs and Nats, but there is plenty of soft tissue in Labor’s vote to bite into if they can put together a Left of center policy base that combines good advice with common sense and then sell that policy base to the people and donors.
But I hold out no hope of that, the next election will be a loss for QLD either way, the following 3 years though, who knows.
PinkyOz
Manning you old swaggering Lenin-lover:
thanks for straightening us out, you secret straightener.
For the first time I’ve actually noticed the content of an ad frame here, and it’s apposite to the general post subject, (albeit a tad obliquely and by extension), Anna’s reign, and what sustains it, terror. I’d reference it except right clicking just says “I’m a flash movie from m1.au.2mdn.net”.
It’s a timelapse movie of Lake Mead, Nevada, from 1996-2008, going from full to pretty crusty. The credits at the end say “A lot can change in 12 years…how rising demand for water is changing the way governments work… Get ready for the next 12 years …. Stop Talking Start Doing (with IBM)”
Lake Mead is the biggest reservoir in the US, behind the Hoover dam on the Colorado river. It is the main water supply of Southern California, notably LA.
So Anna, and SEQ, with our very recent, very troubling, very politically charged, water supply problems are not alone, Arnie et al. are in deep do-do as well.
The difference is: Arnie, when the lethal effects of climate change, turbocharged with a profligate population, became bleedingly obvious, responded by promoting massive investment in (australian designed) renewable energy production deployments, and Obama sees the opportunity to develop a green economy.
Whereas what happens here in Bleattie-Rudd-dom? Enthusiastic, fanatical even, promotion of yet more ways, and at even bigger scale, of unfixing ancient carbon, and other hard-hatted, soft-in-the-headed, electoral-cycle-focussed, massive-energy-requiring downstream eco-criminal pandora projects, like aluminium, and concrete production.
But, caught as our politics are in the vice-jaws of “if we didn’t do it, someone else will” and “how else are we gonna employ our dinosaur workforce constituency”, triangulated with the alternative of whatever lunacy the desolate hive of the Borgmind and it’s traditional constituency of eco-rapists can dream up on a weekend, all in the vacuum of no upper house, was there ever any hope of anything better, visionary, sustainable, brains not bricks, evolving out of the primordial slime that is qld politics?
The Greens? hahahahahahaha
New post – Antony Green’s analysis of the redistribution shows just how huge a task the LNP has to win:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/12/19/speaking-of-queensland-politics/
Yeah, its weird: these sort of numbers were found in VIC recently too. For some reasons I cant fathom, brand State Labour has been enjoying a resurgence since about September, in numbers well outside MOE.
Except of course in NSW – which appears to be sucking any and all bad electoral vibes to Sydney, like some enormous black hole.
Well, Lefty E, the dissonance between the Brumby and ALP numbers paralleling the disjunction between Bligh and the ALP has me a bit suspicious that something odd was going on in Newspoll land with the sample. Having said that, there’s not much doubt there’s a trend in each state. Local factors would have a lot of weight, but I suspect it’s largely a back to the incumbent thing in troubling times. Might not say too much about the LNP’s actual trust levels on “economic management” though!
Right mark – I thought the same. Same numbers for Bligh and Brumby, and for the state parties, and with same jump from previous sample. Weird!
Heh on ec management: but japes aside, Im not sure the LNP has ever enjoyed any “trust” at state level – not since fluffing their post-state bank collapse era cred with serial privatisation fiascoes, anyway.
Yep, exactly, LE. That’s been their huge dilemma at state level for some time. They were all tossed out at the end of the 90s and beginning of the 00s as long term discontent with the privatisation of everything mantra crested, and they’ve tried to hide their ideological light under a bushel ever since. So they end up either looking like nitpicking whingers, or have all sorts of kook problems when their right wing crazies get frustrated – oh, and turn on themselves.
LNP in Queensland exemplifies all this, despite the Borg pr extravaganza.
Update: This post has also been published by Crikey today.
Yeah, I really had to wonder at the sanity of some commentators suggesting Bligh was “in trouble” at some recent point. I read it thinking “are we in the same reality?”. On reflection, it must have been the OZ.
That said, I have to put my hand up for disbeleiving Brumby’s poll results.
In my defence, a recent poll suggests a majority of Victorians believe he is RUBBISH on public tranmsport – which was the particular thing up my nose at the time.