As my distinguished colleague William Bowe noted this morning at Pineapple Party Time, Peter Van Onselen has reported in The Australian internal Labor tracking polling which shows the party in dire straits. Van Onselen states that swings of between 8 and 10% to the LNP are being picked up in South East Queensland electorates held by Labor on margins of 6 to 8%. He writes that LNP figures are “quietly confident” of an outright win on Saturday when Queensland goes to the polls.
This story, if accurate, confirms the strategic logic I suggested some time ago was evident in the selection of Labor seats for Greens preferences — that seats in the ALP’s Brisbane and Gold Coast redoubts regarded as safe were anything but, and actively in play. My analysis was met with some scepticism.
But that scepticism is the story of this election writ small. Expectations of a Labor win, despite the real possibility of an LNP victory being reported at Pineapple Party Time almost a fortnight ago, are so entrenched that the Borg has had something of a stealth ride to a position where he may be Premier on Monday.
However, some cautions regarding tracking polling are in order. Such polling is an aggregate of small samples taken across key seats. Its main purpose is determining how various themes are playing and the allocation of resources. While it can obviously pick up a trend, it’s not state-wide polling.
But in the current campaign, where any indication of measured public opinion in seats has been largely lacking, it tells a powerful story when set alongside the published polls.
While there is always a lot of chatter about internal polling, its actual distribution list is very tightly circumscribed. It’s a precious commodity, and never leaked without a reason. Often the reason relates to shaping expectations about the overall position of the parties. In this instance, if Van Onselen’s story is accurate, it’s Labor’s way of saying “we’re losing” in order to focus voters’ attention on the real possibility of Lawrence Springborg as Premier.
But those with long memories might recall Labor leaking polling from Cleveland just prior to the last state election showing a big swing to the Coalition. The swing was there — in that seat — but the inference ALP strategists wanted drawn about a general movement was a red herring.
Those points being made, the movements picked up in this poll do accord with what observers of the campaign have noticed. Saturday night is going to be very interesting indeed.
The most important thing to have come out of this election is that there is clear and present need to abolish the states and simply use a two-tired system of the kind that served the United Kingdom rather well for the best part of three centuries. After all, 20 million people don’t need three tiers of government! Competent government is such a rare thing at any level. Let’s just have one level of government with greater competition for places (so that hopefully we will get a few more competent federal politicians) and let the dregs of the system settle in local government where most of them are anyway.
So Neil Bishop, while you idle away our time planning to abolish the states, would you take one teensy moment to propose a process (within cooee of the Australian constitution) by which such an abolition could take place. A referendum? No hope. A revolution? Fat chance. A coup led by state premiers? Yeah right!
Abolition of the states is a proposal of the bored to do something useless for the boring. It’s a wank.
If (and that’s a BIG if) the polls are right, then it is looking like a change of government in “Bligh one day, Borg the next” state.
But as we know it’s not over until the fat lady sings and that may not be until the end of next week. Elections are funny things you know. Most voters will tell you that they can get really p****d off at election time because the pollies (or their support them) have this inane desire to shove paper in your face and monotoning the phrase “Vote One whoever” or what ever the catch phrase of the day happens to be.
Elections are probably the only time when sane rational people who wouldn’t say “boo” to a goose become maniacal, red faced, spitting and over the top choleric stereotypes. This is particularly predominant in the ALP camp because the unions are standing behind them telling them if the other side gets in they will definitely lose their job. Thinking of the mortgage and the other associated bills in the letter rack they go into maniac mode until they are relieved when with chameleon like swiftness they revert to their normal like selves, proving that to be a member of the ALP one must wear two hats to go with the two faces.
Saturday beareth down like a woman in Labour (pun intended) and as the electorate having suffered several weeks of the “first stage”, the “second stage” will commence when the booths open and build to the “waters breaking” (re: flood of voters) to the birth of either a new government or yet another stillborn effort as there has been for several births in the past.