The Poll Bludger has all the figures on a disastrous Galaxy poll for Queensland Labor. The 59-41 two party preferred in favour of the LNP isn’t so significant in the context of optional preferential voting, where many voters don’t preference past their first choice, but a 48-31-13 split in favour of the LNP, Labor and The Greens respectively should really have the ALP very worried indeed.
While the election is a long time away, Labor’s polling has been appalling since very shortly after Anna Bligh’s government was returned, with the vastly unpopular privatisations being accurately seen as a symbol of a fundamental loss of public trust in state Labor. To return to a position where they’re even competitive would probably require both a new leader and a reversal of the asset sales decision.
The Greens’ primary vote should be very encouraging for them – it’s very high in the Queensland context, and a lot of it would be concentrated in marginal Brisbane and coastal Labor seats. I would imagine that a lot of Labor’s primary has moved straight over to the LNP, and that The Greens’ increase in support is probably coming from the more ideologically committed segment of the ALP vote. With the primary vote all important in Queensland, the rational move for the ALP if it were to pursue a save the furniture strategy would be to go to the left to rebuild its primary and maximise preference flow. Don’t hold your breath, though. We’re more likely to see more hard hat bluster.
The state election may be two years away but it is the imminence of the federal poll that suggests this result will ring the curtain down on Anna Bligh’s leadership. Federal Labor has enough problems of its own to tolerate having to wear some practice licks from the famous Queensland baseball bats. The dilemma here though is, if not Bligh, who? It is Labor that has presided over an increase in the complication of daily life for Queenslanders _ water restrictions, skyrocketing power bills, public transport fare hikes, separate water bills, the end of the petrol subsidy nd a housing market in which it is difficult for first homebuyers to find a new home let alone afford to buy it. Add all that to the crucial loss of trust you mention and it’s obvious Bligh’s goose is cooked.
Yes, it really has got to the stage of almost inevitability about the ALP losing in Queensland. It may well be the case that a new leader might be in order to try to contain damage federally, if not save the state government, but it’s also not at all apparent whether there’s anyone else who’d be particularly compelling.
I would have to question the Greens if they give their preferences to Labor at the next Queensland election as I think that this Labor government have been the most ungreen government for a long time. Look at Traveston where they wanted to put a dam in the middle of the beautiful Mary Valley, which didn’t even have the correct soil type suitable for a dam. Then wanting to put a de-salination plant on Bribie in addition to the one they put at the Gold Coast. They simply want a quick fix instead of planning for the next 50 years or so. They made no attempt to pipe water from North Queensland where it rains constantly and the dams are often overflowing and they simply discredited anyone who mentioned anything other than their own agenda. If the Greens give preferences to Labor, I’ll lose all respect for the Greens. I certainly think the LNP has some good environmental policy which is worth consideration.
Reading across these results with any eye to federal election: looking pretty good for the first Green senator from QLD!
Does anyone know – has pole position been decided yet for the 2010 election?
And PS Mark is right: if Greens are mow polling 13 thats probably 3% of the electorate has recently dumped the QLD ALP over its retro privatisation policy. And who knows how many have gone LNP over the same issue (which, Southerners might not understand – actually can make sense in the QLD context).
Think you might need that numbers back, Anna et al? Then think again.
Lefty, the Greens’ Qld senate ticket is 1. Larissa Waters, 2. Libby Connors 3. Jenny Stirling.
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Message to all Australian politicians: if you privatise state and nationally owned assetts, we’ll boot you out!
Ta Darryl. Right, Larissa Waters was the one who just missed out in 07. Looking quite good this time.
Rudd has been described as Kevin07 before the election and now he’s known as Kevin747. The most ungreen prime minister in Australian history. Not only that, he also fills half a 747 with government beaurocrats and jetsets off to Copenhagen at taxpayers expense. Guy, I think that federal Labor may have learnt something off QLD Labor. Not much better here in NSW either mate. Catastrophic economic situation and high levels of debt with no infrastructure to show for it and now he wants to boost the population by 13 million. Where’s the intelligence in that? We haven’t even got the infrastructure for our current population. If the ALP don’t change their leader to Chris Evans or someone with a brain between their ears before the next election, they are in for defeat.
Hey. I got polled for that poll! They asked me about each of the privatisation targets to which I was ‘strongly disagree’. They also asked if I thought that the Labs had decided to privatise before the last state election. I was ‘strongly agree’. The pollsters must have got badd news all day.
Bingo! Hard hats on the news tonight – Gateway duplication.
Aha!
Peter Dutton needs to get some advice from Mike Kaiser on how to get your mates to help you escape a lost cause.
For a southerner’s understanding. Is this all about privatisation? Or has the economy taken a hit?
At the moment Anna gives the impression of someone in a mad panic. Problem comes up? Panic solution presented yet again by the hard hat girl. There is no feeling of a government that has worked out a framework of what it is going to do and acting within that framework. The perception is that of a government in panic that is blundering from crisis to crisis. It was noticeable that the mad panic came to a halt when Anna was away and Paul Lucas was acting premier.
The image is not helped by Andrew Frazer acting the smug young smartarse while providing no clear case for the privatizations. The government has got to put up some plan B’s showing what has to be done if the privatizations don’t take place. Queenslanders would be a lot happier with an increase in coal freight rates instead of selling off the cash cow.
Anna is not Peter Beattie and its about time that she stopped behaving like him. She doesn’t have to be on television every night and she doesn’t have to be the front person every time there is a hiccup. What she does need to do is calm down, think through what the government is really trying to do and have a hard look at the necessity of the privatization now that the economy has picked up. Most of all, it would be smart to stop working incredible hours and to concentrate on doing fewer things smarter.
WBB, both. Plus the whiff of staleness and mediocrity that starts to emanate form all governments that have been in for over a decade. It may have been delayed somewhat by the truly awful nature of the opposition, like a steak left in a Coles cooler bag in the boot of a car, rather than in direct sunlight.
Modern Labor is very good at winning elections but not very good at losing. There’s a knack to losing well and living to fight another day. The worry for Victorian Labor is that 2 years from now they may be in a similar position.
What faction is Stirling Hinchcliffe?
If Bligh resigns before the end of term (unlikely, but possible), I hope the Greens think long and hard about a candidate for the by-election. Not only is her seat (South Brisbane) one of the most probable pickups, the inevitable backlash is going to depress the ALP vote. One of the strengths of the Greens is that they are the only big unambiguously anti-privatisation party going. They should play to the strengths.
D&OoSG: You might have noticed that last week City Council voted (on party lines) to send the
Campbell’s 30 Story Concrete CanyonSouth Brisbane Riverside / West End-Woolloongabba Local Area Plan to Anna and her Minister for Infrastructure and Planning for a ‘State’s Interests Check’.If Anna and Hinchcliffe, as infra&plan min, play this wrong, (not respond to the strength of local feeling against being bullied by council into having to wear the local population being blown from 8000 to 33000, and the number of drive-in drive-out rat-running workers in her seat go from 17,000 to 72,000, and having all the new city bypass bridge traffic driven through the heart of it, inculding 4 lanes bisecting the high school campus, ) it would provide a terrific wedge opportunity that the greens candidate could play their strengths to.
The LNP could even vacate the field ( after all they haven’t a chance of winning, all they’ve got to lose is their electoral office $5000 or so), and leave South Brisbane to a play out a Fremantle scenario, distract Anna that it doesn’t turn into another Bennelong.
That’s if she stays on. I think she’s over it. And why not, she’s got her place in history, it’s just a matter of having the career plan in place. NBNCo? I was told she was booed by the crowd at Suncorp at some huge game, back when the State assets sellout was news. I can’t vouch for that, but I did see her jeered at the local, quite big, street festival, a prominent part of some larger Brisbane Festival, and grimly steer her way through the crowd and out of there with her minders. As I remember, even her local branch voted to expel her from the party or something, so there won’t be too much love lost at home by her bailing. An electoral hospital pass to whoever those ratbags preselect would be a fitting gesture.
What stands between her and having this issue being local electoral poison for her is Stirling Hincliffe’s response to the LNP’s secret Brisbane seats weapon, Campbell, Quirk, and Cooper. Which is why I was wondering what faction he rides with.
Patrick @ 9:
If I recall correctly, the RAAF VIP fleet do not have Boeing 747s, and the Boeing 737s that they do have are substantially smaller aircraft.
I seem to also recall that the PM immediately before the current one wasn’t exactly one for remaining within Australia, with 19 overseas trips in the first three years of his government, not to mention his use of the 737 to commute between Sydney and Canberra between 1996 and 2007 because he was not prepared to live in The Lodge.