I disagree about Chatsworth. In 2006 there was a Liberal incumbent and the Libs devoted a lot of resources to save Michael Caltabiano. Which meant that the Liberal vote in 2006 was artificially high (at least relative to other seats). It's therefore not surprising that the swing in 2009 was lower there than in other seats.

You could be right David. It's also possible that choosing the previous candidate's wife wasn't a good idea. May have looked like they were getting her because his ambition had run on.

I think that after the prepolls are counted tomorrow, we may see a better result for the LNP with them gaining doubtfuls like Gaven, Redlands, Cleveland, retaining Mirani against the odds (redistribution) and a chance still in Chatsworth and Everton. Also, the margins in a lot of the Brisbane / Gold Coast seats have been shaved to 'winnable' levels. The LNP did seem to run the show a bit and local candidates did seem to be muzzled by 'head office'. I can understand why the LNP management did that - they needed to avoid mixed messages especially given the 'newness' of the brand, however that may have been a factor in the uneven swings. Overall though, the LNP is currently on about 20,000 less votes than the ALP which is a pretty good achievement and are certainly in a position to win next time.

It would be interesting to see what the female vote did in this election. Bligh has been subjected in Sunshine Coast media to an unrelenting barrage of vitriol - really nasty comments when editors in the SC press appear to have not discouraged. There is no doubt in my mind that much of that had misogynistic undertones - sometimes it was overt, epitomised by the character on one of the TV reports on Saturday when one middle aged male said to the Opposition leader. "I hope you get rid of THAT WOMAN".

"That woman", indeed, appears to be regarded by most Queenslanders as doing a good job as the preferred Premier polls suggested. The problem, as someone said, is with the rest of the people on her benches. The same could be said for Springborg.

The depth of talent on either side of the house reflects the failure of the political system to attract not only people who are [at least in the beginning] idealistic but who are talented enough to assume ministerial responsibilities on account of their skills rather than their support in the party.

Labour had such a big lead it was almost inconceivable the LNP could win government.

You say the global economic crisis seemed to disappear. I say, disappeared from view, maybe but The Prime Minister was pretty clear about his level of confidence in the LNP. He virtually said he wouldn't give the LNP any money if they formed government. Don't you think this might have influenced people?

Perhaps the pollsters were influenced by their own prejudices.....

Most of us weren't serious. We were fantasising. "The mistress factor".

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/articles/2009/03/22/1237656766766.html

Can't trust voters - alone in the booth many of us paniced and voted ALP after all. Pissed off with Labor but still thinking of Joh and the Nationals. Despite the parlous state of health, infrastructure, education, law and order etc.

Public servants suffering under Anna big time - but maybe sacked under Springborg.

But don't blame me. I wanted a hung parliament - force the bastards to negotiate - and voted green (no prefs).

Just think next election - maybe recession receding (??), shitloads of urban infrastructure opened, maybe health dept reamed out

- but of course we did dump Howard in a good economic position.

"the change is most probably the result of a shift of mind by voters"

I think, rather, it was that sufficient numbers of voters did NOT change their mind from last time. And as someone pointed out, you can't draw too many conclusions and predictions from a self-selected sample.

And, I don't think this was a last minute thing. The demeanour and pronouncements of both Anna Bligh and Laurence Springborg on Friday and Saturday suggested to me that their respective party polls were telling them something along the lines of what actually occurred on election day. I said so to my wife as we watched the news.

For the first time ever, I don't feel comfortable with an overall election result.
Not that the LNP didn't win, elections are like that, but there was no swing back to Labor amongst people I know who had decided to vote LNP in this election and did!
I have this niggling doubt occasioned by the fact that the person found guilty of electoral misconduct in Queensland was the head of Anna Bligh’s campaign. Possibly strange and unjustified paranoia on my part, but I am writing to the Electoral Commission to satisfy myself that the number of votes counted is as, or less than the number of electors on the roll and that checks have been done to ensure that deceased persons have been removed from the roll.
I’m remembering the old dictum of “vote early and vote often” and also the startling outcome when Cheryl Kernot’s bid totally overturned the election result with those miraculous postal votes.
We lose all if we lose faith in the process.

Have a bit more of a look at Chatsworth. It is interesting to note that the Greens candidate was nowhere to be seen on the day, nor was Greens 'How to Vote' cards. In fact the 'How to Vote' cards were printed by the LNP, with preferencing to the LNP candidate. I thought the Greens did that whole deal with the ALP to get Ronan in, and no other. Guess they did do at least one other deal - behind closed doors! You will also find the independant (in guise for the DLP) was also preferencing the LNP, even though what the DLP stand for is so anti the LNP and ALP. So don't be surprised if the LNP candidate gets over the line on preferences.

Hi Graham,

Just a comment regarding the poling for the election. I have more then a slight interest
in politics having stood for local elections a number of times.

I also helped out a friend from the Greens in Thuringowa so i observed a bit there as well.Who
i did not vote for i might add.

But here is what i observed and felt...

As the pole got closer, specifically in the last two days i felt that we needed a stable government
with experience, rightly or wrongly.

We know the Labor government had over a period of time stuffed some things, hospitals etc,
but elections are the best time to get the message across that "were not happy jan". I think this happened
and we have started to see the results today. We need people of experience now , we haven't got time
to allow them to learn the ropes as the world financial crises is on us.

On the booths i saw that the larger group of people came to vote having made up their mind, no indecision
no paper work required.Done deal.

Obviously the people doing the pre poling need to understand that it is only in the last few hours do people
make up their minds the rest of the time they say/write the first emotional thing that comes to mind.No logic involved.
Just may be that is the question you need to ask, are more along the emotion vers logic line to help work
out what they actually mean when answering the survey questions.

Also people get tied of pre polling..phone calls etc so they just say emotional things to get the process over
with quickly.

To me over all i believed that at the end it was a choice between "Dum and Dummer". The "Dum" person had
the experience to lead and that was all that was required.

Remember the 1975 federal election, when early polls suggested that the "Shame Fraser Shame" factor was working in Gough's favour - a perception of unfair tactics by the coalition; but in the last week, things changed? People finally focused on the fact that they were not voting on the past - whether recent or further back - but on the future. The question was who would better govern the country in the NEXT three years.

I think that in the Queensland election just now, many people were disenchanted with the State Government's performance on health, and some were (a bit unfairly) disenchanted on water (I say unfairly because the drought we went through was the most severe ever, way outside the past experience of policy makers). There was the Traveston Dam issue, but this "bit" mainly in the local area (what I call ungraciously the NIMBY factor), and among Greens and (defunct) Democrats - criticise, criticise, pull down every attempt to actually supply water, but suggest nothing constructive in the Dam's place, except the irritating and condescending "correct pricing". (That's only a PART of the solution, but 40,000 people a year increase in the population of Greater Brisbane absolutely must have more supply.)

I am in the Indooroopilly electorate and I note that if Ronan Lee had not defected to the Greens last October but had stood again as an ALP member (with no Green opponent and with Green support), he would have HELD the seat: the combined ALP + Lee primary vote in this election was nearly 53%. I voted ALP because I did not support his opposition to the Traveston Dam.

In my opinion, the campaign did matter, despite the failure of the polls to budge for the first two weeks or more. I always thought that the electoral boundaries gave Labor a buffer of about 1% (which is pretty normal in most Australian jurisdictions - either way). But the failure of the polls to show continuing momentum towards the LNP was a pointer to the fact that while there was disenchantment, it didn't amount to a growing riot with baseball bats.

Talkback radio (ABC 612) on the Thursday before the election showed a fairly strong anti-ALP bias - I could have said trend, but it's really hard to tell what is a trend and what is a campaign of party "plants"; also, self-selected surveys are notoriously unreliable as indicators of where the wider electorate is really at. The same, of course, goes for these Online Opinion surveys themselves!

Now, to get back to the fact that people eventually focused on who was best placed to govern the State for the NEXT three years. The campaign was remarkable for the consistent contrast between, on the one hand, Springborg in effect blaming the government for 1. the recession, 2. the sudden worsening of the State's finances and 3. loss of AAA credit rating, and THEN promising to cut jobs and expenditure at a time when many people were feeling very apprehensive about jobs. On the other side was Anna Bligh, who stayed on message very tightly, enunciating a sober but CREDIBLE assessment of the international financial environment and promising to PROTECT jobs.

Both campaigns were Presidential, with very little exposure of other Ministers or Shadow Ministers. Anna projected strength, vision and commitment to protect people's security AND to do better in areas where she acknowledged performance had been not up to scratch. (Hmm, she could have done a Beattie here and made a more fulsome apology ... That strategy has been disarming in the past, and I am not so cynical as to believe that Beattie was totally insincere.)

Springborg came across as not up to the job, a definite risk in worrisome times.

In a previous posting on this blog I said I believed the ALP would win. I said that because the LNP, while identifying some sources of irritation in the electorate, did NOT clearly spell out in policy development a coherent and credible strategy for dealing with current circumstances. If elected to government, they would have been a team almost devoid of experience in running a government, with the few among them of any talent having little experience in Parliament to draw on; AND they would have had to confront exceptionally difficult circumstances requiring competence, courage and unity.

At the end of the day, people looked at the inexperienced alternative, looked back at the devil they knew, maybe snorted with a little annoyance at the poor choice the Opposition constituted - and decided to put the Government back in.

RIGHT DECISION, Queensland. A much deserved congratulations to Anna Bligh.

The LNP need me for their Campaign Manager! Why didn't they go on the offensive and remind the voters of those awful "Ministers" like Nuttall and (sadly, my namesake) Purcell? Why didn't they nail the useless baskets on their failure to act on the oil spill on Day 1, instead of Day 3!? Queen Anna assured us she was managing it and wannabe Lawrence didn't need to be involved. Well, she stuffed it up, and Wannabe didn't point it out to everyone.


Yep- the LNP lack experience, depth, image etc ad nauseam, but they couldn't do any worse than Capt Bligh.


Oh yes, I helped turn around Aspley. Yea!!

David Truman is obviously a card-carrying ALP supporter. I refer to the following of his statements:
1. "Springborg in effect blaming the government for 1. the recession, 2. the sudden worsening of the State's finances and 3. loss of AAA credit rating..."
A. Well, on the 7:30 Report tonight Anna Bligh was interviewed by Kerry O'Brien and she readily admitted the AAA rating downgrade was because of her majorly expensive infrastructure plans, the $17Billion continuation which is not considered wise but which she will not be swayed from.
So yes, the rating downgrade is very much as a result of the current and past ALP governments.
2. "Anna projected strength, vision and commitment to protect people's security.."
A. In the run-up to the election, Anna appeared to me to be flustered, flagging and making mistakes. Analysts on both sides of politics agreed that the ALP campaign was not as competent, coherent and on-message as the LNP campaign.
3. "At the end of the day, people looked at the inexperienced alternative, looked back at the devil they knew, maybe snorted with a little annoyance at the poor choice the Opposition constituted - and decided to put the Government back in"
A. People I have spoken to who voted ALP did so for one reason and one reason only - they believed they had a better chance of either getting or holding on to their job under ALP's jobs promise than the LNP's promise to improve efficiency of government. It had nothing to do with experience or leadership gender or accountability or past performance. At the end of the day, the blanket media scare-campaign worked hitting the primary fear of many voters. Afterall, not many use a hospital very often, but everyone of voting age who isn't retired is dependent on being paid for work everyday.

By the way. I was overseas in the USA late last year and visited the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. The oldest animal in their vast world-class collection is a Mary River Lungfish that is over 80 years old and there is a substantial scientific and environmental display there about this animal, its habitat and the fact that its only natural habitat is in a perilous state due to the planned dam at Traveston by the Queensland government. It seems that on the world stage, there is only one thing that will be making us a laughing stock, and that is building that dam. Ronan Lee got it right, on that score.

Oh joy.... not for Anna so much as 'not' for Springbonkers.

Really, had the LNP got in with their total lack of policies, apart from making jobs de-neccessary, and spending a billion dollars while balancing the budget.... come on.

This LNP animal is worse than the camel-by-committee beast with a small old style Liberal contingent that could improve its image and win seats in Brisbane, and the auld Queensland rump, stuck in the past, creeping out of Pentecostal churches on Sundays, cleaning the rifle, and dreaming of getting 'the ute' dirty.... these people will never appeal to Brisbane voters.

And what about running all those clapped out Nationals, like Horan, Hobbs and Hooper?

It would have been reasonable, when creating a 'new' political party, to expect the old war horses to get out of the way and allow 'real' LNP new-starts to have a go.

And the ALP seemed to have had a fair go at that, with a lot of time-wasters stepping down beforehand to give a chance for renewal.

If Fiona Simpson gets the job as leader, just to face off against Anna Bligh, her attachment to 'fundie' life and 'fundie thinking' may well work against her in Brisbane.

One can but hope anyway.

All in all, given the standard of 'the other side', this election result is the best we could have got.

The LNP need to do a lot of work, ridding themselves of old deadwood and finding a leader that is not on the extreme right, as all the possibles seem to be so far.

One thing's for sure - either way the result went, Queensland is screwed for the next 3 years (well 2 1/2 now that Anna is elected)

Hi all. I can't possibly answer all the comments, but a few points. Our survey samples were generally between 600 and 700. They might be opt-in, but they have been pretty good in the past, and the same people tend to complete them.

I never suggest that the quants are perfect. The reason for doing the polls is the qualitative feedback, which is a lot better than collaring a few friends at work or a barbeque.

There definitely was a larger swing to the LNP happening, and this is confirmed by the quantitative polls conducted by Newspoll and Galaxy, as well as those conducted by the political parties. The LNP had champagne in their fridge for the tally room party, which gives you a good idea what they thought was happening.

People don't always do what they say they are going to, so polls are never absolutely accurate. If they were always accurate then there would be no point in having elections - we could just ring a representative sample and do what the results said.

I think what we do with these surveys is very worthwhile. It is much more in-depth than anything else available. And I don't see it as a problem that the political parties may use some of the intelligence. It is also available to those analysing and reporting on the politics, and informs the public debate. You can be sure that many mainstream journalists are reading this discussion because they read the commentary that I produce from your opinions. Political parties will use any information available to them, but that isn't an argument against providing information to the public.

Every now and then you get an election result that wasn't predictable. If I am going to be honest as a pollster I can only go on what I see in the polls. To try to project based on speculation is not polling, it's speculation. The reason you poll is to avoid speculation. This time around there was a significant shift at the last moment. There was nothing in the polling to suggest it would happen, although if you look at some of my commentary I suggested that it was a risk for the LNP that voters might move back if they thought they were going to win.

The labor win was against the odds, when you consider the incredible negative media comments from the Courier-Mail for the past 18 months. The CM journos have been the unofficial opposition because the coalition and LNP were so hopeless. 29 seats was a big ask to win government but given the support from the CM it was always possible, if you were to beleive the interviews conducted by the CM nobody was supporting the ALP. The Galaxy polls samples were too small and the Newspoll never came to light until the last days of the election. The LNP lost the unloseable election because the Qld voters thought they were the worst option of two bad choices. Bligh took a leaf out of Julia Gillards book and stuck to the script - jobs, jobs, and more jobs,in these uncertain times voters require certainty and Bligh stuck to the winning script.

If there was a good Independent or DLP candidate in my electorate, I would have voted for them. As it was I was stuck between dumb and dumber. There was NO choice between good and bad government...just bad and worse! There is NO real leadership potential on either side and the LNP did not win because they didn't make the effort, nor did they have the statesmen and women to run a government.
Don't get me wrong, neither has Captain Bligh, its just that she's gerrymandered the electorate so much that she can win by 17 seats with only 51% of the vote! Where is the media outcry over figures like that? Take a look at some of the seats. Charters Towers lumped in with the Atherton Tableland, now that wouldn't be to get rid of the only ON member and dump all those conservatives together to shore up all those adjoining seats...nah, I'm just being paranoid.

So much for good journalism, the pitiful state of our re-distributed electorates is an apalling example of corruption of democracy, but no one is talking...hmmm.

maybe the voters looked at what they would have in parliament if they voted nlp.

It was a disappointing election all round.

The LNP lost three good campaign opportunities: Anna Bligh's repeated denial that she would call an early election (clearly demonstrating her word cannot be trusted), government impropriety (Gordon Nuttall) - and the huge opposition to Floridization of the water supply. Had the LNP come out strongly on the floride issue alone it would probably been enough to get the party across the line, had Lawrence Springborg not shot himself in the foot over the uranium issue.
Also, what was it that caused the apparently irrational behavior of Peter Beattie in the last days before his resignation.

Prior to her election Anna Bligh gave us plenty of reasons to be worried about how she will behave now she actually can claim to have a mandate. The result shows we need a better opposition than the one we have to bring a more balanced government to Queensland.

I live in the city and I was undecided,I wanted to vote LNP as I believe the State Govrment did a poor job. What kept putting myself off the LNP was Springborg, I was tempted but at the end I just could not vote for him.

Hi Graham,
I am terribly disappointed at the result of the state election and I am very,very afraid for the future of food producers in this state. We have taken a terrible battering since Labour came to power and now family farmers may not be able to continue under the weight of more unreasonable green legislation. I would like to see you do a survey on family farmers who own a few properties and actually live and work on their properties,not big consortiums who are run from a capital city and hold many properties. The survey needs to ask the real effects of various legislation like tree clearing, wild rivers, water policies etc etc, and the monetary state of farmers in this day and age.
We grow cattle and they still bring a very similar price to what they were bringing 30 years ago. Then we could buy a Toyota tray back for 17 bullocks, now we spend 50 bullocks, but we are being constrained on producing more cattle by unreasonable tree clearing, fencing areas that then prevent cattle reaching higher ground to get away from flood water etc. If things continue in this vein food production in Australia will be compromised. Imported food doesn't have the same constraints on it that our exports are required to uphold, do you want to eat melanin or pork fed with something that killed many people in China recently? Does Australia want farming tourism? There will be none if they continue down the track they are on now. We need help with this and surveys of RURAL people may bring this to a head with your help.

I consider myself a small "l" Liberal so I find any harking back to the bad old Joh days an aberration.Anna Bligh has achieved some positives in her time which hardly even rate a mention...her introduction of the Prep Year which was sorely needed.The lack of that extra year at school still shows in the Literacy/Numeracy Tests which Qld children complete in May.They are still being disadvantaged until catch-up time is taken into account.Introduction of fluoridation has also been a plus.Anna,we do need Daylight Saving !

Ironically the polls didn’t get it wrong; it was what you made of it that was at fault.

As a pollster you believed your own take on the results – your own spin – instead of sticking to what we actually know about polls.

So what do we know? We know that polls simply tell us how electors are thinking of voting. Emphasis on “thinking of”. So you poll was probably accurate; people were thinking of voting for a change. But thinking of is not the same as actually doing it.

We also know that the most accurate polls are exit polls, as these poll what people have actually done; not what they might (or might not) do. But obviously this can’t be done until after the election.

So can we ever rely on pre-election polling? Yes – when the government is clearly on the nose and the opposition looks electable, polls turn out to be accurate. Just take a look at the last federal election – Howard’s government looked old and tired, there was the “it’s time factor” and crucially, Rudd looked electable. The polls gave Labor a wide victory margin, and while the final result was a bit closer, Labor romped it in.

In the Queensland election there was the “it’s time” factor, the government looked incompetent at everything it touched, but crucially, the opposition didn’t look particularly electable – the LNP should have been in front 55 – 45 (or more). So the thought of voting LNP was very weak and didn’t materialise into the fact of voting LNP.

Hence as a pollster, you believed your own press about the poll results looking like fact instead of intention and got it wrong.

Of course we all make mistakes, but this is one you shouldn’t have made. In the previous Queensland election, the Patel fiasco should have resulted in the government being turfed out on its ear like the old National Party government was after the Fitzgerald Inquiry. But Labor actually increased their majority because the Nat-Lib opposition imploded rendering them so unelectable that voters preferred the devil they knew.

Fast forward to last weekend and the writing was on the wall – voters didn’t like Labor, but the polls only put the LNP marginally in front - 51-49 or closer. While the LNP didn’t implode like last time, they still looked like economic dunderheads. If the polls said 60-40, then that’s so overwhelming that a late swing back to Labor wouldn’t have mattered. So you should have been on guard that even though the government was completely on the nose the tight poll results actually indicated the intention to vote for a change was so weak it was likely to break down at the ballot box.

And so it did.

Further to my comments re the prepolls being counted today, the result is looking better for the LNP. Currently less than 20K primary votes behind Labor and intriguingly, the LNP polled more than 50% of the primary vote in 20 electorates VS 19 seats for labor so an LNP 'win' of sorts. Additionally, looking at the results in Brisbane, many of the large margins that the ALP had have been halved to winnable levels. Gaven now looks like an LNP win. Everton will probably remain with the Government but winnable next time.
This is the best Conservative result in Brisbane since the Borbidge Government so clearly at least some reasonable size section of the metropolitan electorate warmed to Springborg. Even Flegg got a swing !!!