Newspoll via The Oz are releasing their latest quarterly and bi-monthly State poll fests this week and first cabs off the rank are South Australia and Queensland. The story is the same for both – Labor on the nose and the conservatives charging back.
Looking at QLD first where the primary vote is the most important metric here because of Optional Preferential Voting operating north of the Rio Tweed, the ALP is down 5 points to 38 with the LNP up 3 to 41. Greens are chuffing along at 9 with the Others coming in at 12. TPP is 51/49 to the ALP but needs to be taken with a small grain of salt. I haven’t been keeping track of two party preferred measures in QLD because of the three party contest working with OPV making it all a little redundant, but now with The Merger we’ll start to tracking it in the future.
This is how the primary vote estimates and Better Premier rating play out.
This is how the Satisfaction ratings play out:
Beware people, or rather Queensland Nats, saying that The Merger is responsible for this changing of political fortune – as you can clearly see from the timeline, Bligh becoming Premier is what seems to be driving most of this, with Labor falling sharply and the Conservative party vote increasing substantially before the merger occurred. Springborg’s Better Premier rating is in the bin, again, as it probably always will be – the bloke is a liability in metro seats.
Moving on to South Oz, the Rann government is down 3 to 38 on the primary with the Libs up 5 to 40 for a Two Party Preferred split of 50/50. Dissatisfaction levels are up trending sharply upward for both leaders while Rann still holds on to an 18 point lead as Better Premier.
More of the State polls will come out this week if Newspoll follow their usual timeline – what I’m finding interesting with these State polls so far this year is the sudden turn against Labor governments both in vote terms and in their satisfaction ratings, even if the satisfaction ratings of their opponents are similarly declining. Previously it was the State Oppositions that were taking the hit in their vote estimates because of their satisfaction ratings but now it seems to have reversed with the State Governments taking the vote hit regardless of how satisfied the public are with Oppositions.
Australia seems to be in the mood for political blood starting from the last Federal Election – I’d be surprised if any State government is safe with this apparent enthusiasm for taking a broom to our Parliaments that is going on at the moment.
Elsewhere: Larvatus Prodeo and the Pollbludger twice.
7 Comments
Poss, can you really see this ruckus translating into a continential political inversion, fed ALP v all state LIB/NP? Is it that straightforward?
It might An Cu – there could be a state or two that bucks the trend and holds on with a messy victory, but the State polling since the 2007 Federal Election has been running strongly against incumbents across the country. The Australian population seems to be pretty keen to take the broom to governments everywhere at the moment.
might not be a bad thing – then the ALP in the states can rediscover their socialist roots and stop posing as ersatz conservatives.
David, I think most voters would just be happy for them to rediscover competence!
LOL touche Poss
Although.. in the case of SA government, incompetence is not an issue (not in the traditional economic orthodoxy sense). Rann and Co. have not been incompetent, just very very focused on defence and mining sectors – with perhaps a hint of corruption in regards to certain developments where the state government overrode councils or fast-tracked projects, and declared others off limits to protest because of being (in their view) of strategic economic importance.
In purely management terms – they have been competent.. just lacking in the social policy dimension.
In contrast, the Libs are incompetent, and as a pointer, Alexander Downer outranks Hamilton-Smith in the desired Lib leader stakes.
On balance, as much as I despise Rann and Co., Hamilton-Smith does not deserve the job of Premier.
Also, Rann suffers from the dreaded Pollie Disease – the Edifice Complex… he is mad keen to have his name on as many plaques on as many buildings as he can – particularly a new hospital named after a sportsperson who wasn’t born in and doesn’t live in SA, and has no connection with medicine.