There are some interesting tidbits around today about where Queensland politics is at – at a point in time when the serious business of politics has started (at least for the ALP) but where I think the election is still quite a way off. Graham Young at What The People Want has released the results of his online poll – on issues and whether the state is “heading in the right direction” and on perceptions of Anna Bligh and Lawrence Springborg as leaders. This sort of polling is invaluable as it gives everyone access to similar sorts of data to that normally closely guarded by parties and polling companies, so it’s well worth a look. I’ll let the analysis speak for itself.
Meanwhile, in Crikey, Bernard Keane has had a look at the state of the LNP. The article is reproduced (with permission) over the fold.
Bernard Keane writes:
Despite The Australian doing everything but issuing its own writs for a February election, no one other than Anna Bligh knows when during 2009 Queenslanders will go to the polls. But there’s alarm within LNP ranks at both the policy direction of the party and the lack of former Liberal Party members willing to assist in the campaign.The electoral prospects for the Liberal Nationals are mixed at best. They are up against a tired and out-of-touch government, many of whose current and former MPs have records of bullying, harassment and stalking. With the collapse in commodity prices, Queensland is also facing a significant slump in mining royalties and tourism has been dire for months. However, the sheer scale of the economic crisis might shore up support for the Government, and unemployment remains relatively low – especially in Brisbane, the LNP’s weak spot – for now.
Greg Roberts picked up on policy concerns earlier this month in a revealing article on complaints about Lawrence Springborg’s small target strategy. It’s actually less a small target than a big Borg strategy. The party’s clunky website (six video feeds on the entry page?) tells anyone who might want to know what the policies of the alternative Queensland government are to click on over to the site of the former Nationals’ leader. This will tell you eight things you didn’t know about the Borg, but alarmingly, and perhaps tellingly, features an empty page under “Policies“.
Resistance is, in this case, not so much futile as poorly-informed.
Policies can be whistled up fairly quickly, if you’re not too particular. New, active members and quality candidates cannot. Party insiders say a number of preselections only attracted a single entrant. The party’s list of candidates reveals a large number of young candidates in their twenties and early thirties, not to mention 18-year-old Michael Palmer, who in a moment reminiscent of Blackadder’s “Pitt the Embryo” was pre-selected unopposed for the seat of Nudgee.
This is an impressive commitment to youth, but might worry voters looking for a bit of life experience in their political representatives. However, a senior party figure and former Liberal who opposed the merger has pointed out that the formation of the party did encourage some business people to overcome their qualms and get involved in pre-selections, albeit without quite understanding the Machiavellian environment they were getting into.
The LNP initially sent mixed messages about how appealing the new party was to the thousands of Queenslanders it reckoned were just waiting for the conservative side of politics to get its act together before joining. Insiders have told Crikey that the hoped-for influx of new members hasn’t occurred and many former Liberal party members are refusing to get involved in the new organisation, forcing LNP headquarters to repeatedly call for volunteers and plan to bus members from regional areas into metropolitan areas to man booths and hand out how-to-vote cards during the campaign. The loss is particularly heavy amongst older Liberals who did much of the work on the ground for the party. A senior former Liberal said Liberal members had deserted party meetings, leaving only Nationals, but they believe they’ll return during the campaign for the opportunity to help turf out Labor, especially if the local candidate is competitive.
Feet on the ground are a critical component of successful campaigning, and the LNP’s absent members will be especially missed in metropolitan and suburban seats that the party needs to win to have a chance of knocking off Labor. The LNP might be confident it can convince Queensland voters that it wasn’t a Nationals takeover of the Liberals, but it will have a lot more trouble convincing former Liberal members voting with their feet.
As of now, at least, that’s not true: someone at trinity lane reads LP/crikey perhaps?.
As a public service, by way of correction: The policies tab on sprinborg.com exposes links to all 17 of them. Plus some extra fun stuff like the link to the bligh government debt-o-meter. It’s a flash applet which presents a pristine screen to all those folks, presumably the majority, who have a flash blocker operating to avoid ads. But inernetty stuff isn’t one of the 17 LNP policies, so we shouldn’t mark them down: it’s not their special subject.
Hoonwatch, that’s another matter.
I’d think a group of young candidates would be a strength not a weakness, at least as long as they aren’t all staffers for MPs. I’m surprised Keane says there are so many – when I did a random check a few months ago I was thinking “hmm not a lot of young candidates”. Maybe my sample wasn’t big enough, or maybe we have different definitions of how many are needed.
I’d love to know what the “number” of preselections with only one candidate was, and where. if they were mostly in very safe Labor seats then it doesn’t mean much, but if they include seats the LNP needs to win government then its damning.
Oh yes I meant to ask : is it only us homies in Anna’s electorate of South Brisbane wot got a nice green fridge magnet “Anna Bligh’s 7 Step Cloimate Challenge” in the letter box? On the bottom it’s monikered MP for South Brisbane, not Premier.
Anna worried by Greens in South Brisbane? It ( and not Ronan’s ) is pretty much the Greens strongest seat and they have the same candidate this time. His strong performence, (for a green,) last time didn’t have the ex/leader candidate cachet factor, but was simply on the strength the match between his credible background (EPA scientific officer/ operations manager, has to clean up things like Caltex refinery blowups, that sort of thing) and this seat being of the greenest demographic, of the educated sort, (or The Alternate Rich as they say in Consumer Behaviour speak). As an indicator, Anna’s home postcode has the highest percentage of solar PV panel uptake in the nation: the last local pv panel buyer’s group, (which is the way things are done here, in an organised fashion), was oversubscribed in 2 weeks
Here’s the 2006 booth numbers, showing how little her vote needs to erode, ( first pref counted at the booths on the night, 51.27% ), to have to go to preferences, and what separates libs and greens as to who gets to count whose preferences. The libs candidate? Talk about a curate’s egg, ex CFMEU management, ex Nats state secretary, and of course therefore now LNP state secretary. If, as is posited, True Blue Urban Libs, who abound in the glistening riverside towers of Kangaroo Point, find the idea of actually voting for their mutant country cousins, not far enough removed, distasteful in the extreme, Ms Carroll’s twice dubious heritage of unions and nats could be just enough to sway them greenwards, and it will only take 500 or so to do that for greens to pick up lib preferences. Which, if they thought about it, is their best and only chance of getting rid of Anna herself: the green preference vote to labor will always prevent the tories from taking the seat, regardless of party preference directives. Funny how Anna just announced a green project for Kangaroo Point, finally pulling dpwn an asbestos filled old education department building, to put in some barbeques with the bestest city skyline views.
Ahhh, so Michael Palmer was the youngster I saw adorning about three huge billboards in the Nudgee electorate when I was up in Brisbane on the weekend. The billboards also featured “The Borg” looking sort of like he had a fan in front of him to encourage some movement of hair.
I said to my companion, “when’s the election on?”
She replied that the young man has a wealthy father who can afford to do things like put big billboards up way before an election is called.
Haven’t the Liberals always had trouble getting help on the election day?
Danny @ 3 – Bligh could afford to slip below 50% and still win South Brisbane very easily indeed given preference exhaustion. I don’t think there’s anyone else around who thinks she’s in any danger whatever.
Labor back in, but with Anna losing her seat? Ideal outcome! (er.. especially if the member for Coot-tha also lost his seat, now THAT would be perfect!)
The ABS updated it’s Queensland figures today.
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/1312.3?OpenDocument
Now that Springborg has finally released a few policies, although it must be said they look very similar to the quality of policy he took to his last losing campaign,it will be interesting if any stand the test of public scrutiny.
[When we compare samples, Bligh's preferred premier status has increased by one percentage point, but Springborg's has risen by six (although fewer people approve of Springborg than did six months ago, and more disapprove). The LNP is also regarded as more likely to win now than it was, with a six percentage point increase in the expectation that it will win, albeit that 47% of our sample think that Labor will win.]
Fewer People approve of Springborg than did six months ago and more disapprove but his preferred premier Status has risen six points? Huh? That all sounds a bit weird to me.
Despite what the C-M (and Oz) think, Anna has probably shored up a few votes up North with the news that she flew up to see the Cowboys:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24978488-952,00.html