Dot points

1. Sample leans to the left but is reasonably balanced by gender and age.
2. Labor on 26%, Liberal 13%, National 22% and Greens 18%.
3. Shows two-party preferred win to Labor 51% to 49%. Given sample bias this is a loss.
4. Only 20% of sample said they would not preference.
5. Strength of Coalition vote outside the South-East. In Brisbane sample shows 60% vote to Labor after prefs.
6. Swing appears to be about 9% to 11% away from Labor on first prefs.
7. Only 29% of voters think the state is heading in the right direction and 56% percent think it is heading in the wrong direction.
8. Of those who think it is heading in the right direction, their answers are most frequently in the "Yes, but..." format. Significant issues for them are Health, Economy, Growth, Population, Infrastructure, Education.
9. For those who think it is heading in the wrong direction, their issues are Health, Education, Water, Infrastructure, Planning, Environment, Growth, Population.
10. Beattie is viewed unfavourably by 30%, unfavourably by 57%. Springborg is 33%, 40% and Quinn 11%, 54%.
11. ALP voters narrowly prefer Beattie of Bligh 26% to 25%, Springborg easily beats Seeney 36% to 3%, but 44% don’t want any. Quinn comes in last 7% after Flegg 18% and Caltabiano 14%, but 43% want none of them.
12. A huge hesitation negative for Labor is Beattie 116 responses, while Springborg is a negative for Nats 53 and Quinn for Libs 76 responses.
13. The Coalition and their partners are significant negatives for National Party and Liberal Party.

Voting intention this election

2PP

Approval of direction of the state

Posted for Bill Gale

I do not know if what I am suggesting is your line of enquiry but here goes.

Some years ago the ABC interviewed an Occupational Therapist from Western Australia who had gone to great lengths to live and then study aboriginal children comprehension.

it was a simple test. I am 75 and when a scout it was called Kim's game. I wonder if it still a test. about 25 items were set out in square say 2 ft sq. they were simple things like a peg, a pen top a rubber =, a paper clip and so on -- any small thing. The O T did the same and gave the aboriginal children a minute or two to study the items they were covered and the children asked to recall the items and a score kept. she did same for Caucasian children at another time.

the findings were aboriginal children scored poorly compared with the Caucasians. BUT when she changed the question and asked Aboriginal children What was next to the rubber their recall was far ahead of Caucasian.

she then tried with Caucasian children who had low attention span in school and had not scored well in the "recall" test by asking them "What was next to the rubber etc?" she found they performed as well as the aboriginal children.

her conclusion was that Aboriginal children need a different form of schooling and why has it fascinated me? I have a son and grandson who are very bright but fit clearly into the ones who's attention is poor and school results to match.

I have tried to get the original research because it could be fundamental to a different approach to the education of the average aboriginal child. As I said I guess this is outside your realm of enquiry but I have been busting to tell someone.

Queenslanders are not happy with their public hospital system, and they're not happy with Premier Peter Beattie, but that doesn't mean they are satisfied with the Opposition either. While our research suggests that Beattie would lose an election held next weekend, he is improving his position and no-one should assume that he will lose an election held in a year's time. 62% think the hospital system is heading in the wrong direction. This makes 57% of voters less likely to vote for Peter Beattie. But at the same time 42% of them are less likely to vote Liberal and 36% less likely to vote National. The reason for this reaction against all three parties, but particularly Labor and Liberal, appears to be that voters blame the state and federal governments more or less equally for the mess. The National Party attract less criticism. Perhaps Barnaby Joyce has helped them distance themselves from the Liberals. The main points that we made in our on-air analysis are:

• Peter Beattie is in trouble in this area, but it is not necessarily terminal because of weaknesses on the issue from the Federal Liberal Party.
• If an election were to be held next weekend Beattie would be cactus with a first preference vote of 29% versus a combined Coalition vote of 39%.
• Beattie has lost one-third of those who voted for him last time, although the Labor vote has not slumped that much because other voters have come to him, particularly from the Greens and Liberals.
• The National Party is picking up votes from the Liberals. This is probably part of the Queensland effect, where the National Party always does better at state elections than most polls suggest. The other thing that is happening - see later - is that much of the blame for the health problem is being given to the Liberals, courtesy of John Howard. There is possibly a Barnaby Joyce effect here as well, allowing the Nats to distance themselves from the Libs.
• An overwhelming percentage of voters think that health is heading in the wrong direction. 62% agree with the proposition, and only 26% disagree, a net -37%. Only group that thinks that things are OK on balance are Labor voters, but even then the result is a net 4%.
• The issue is damaging Beattie. 57% of voters are less likely to vote for him as a result of this.
• But, it isn't necessarily positive for the other parties. 36% are less likely to vote National, and 42% less likely to vote Liberal.
• Beattie's ten-point plan is a small positive. 24% think it will help while 49% disagree, but this is better than the position on health where 26% think health is heading in the right direction, but 62% disagree. He'll need a lot more to fix the issue.
• Voters who have changed from Labor to Coalition cite the lack of funding, mismanagement, lack of planning and too much bureaucratic control as the reasons the system is in trouble.
• Quotes on why the system is in trouble are:

  "The problem is not being addressed - simply creating distractions from the main game and not having the gumption to roll some heads in the department." "The hospitals in Qld are getting worse, not better. Beattie obviously hasn't got the money to fix it, and doesn't trust his Minister either, who looks a bit of a buffoon. And Beattie and co are insulting us with that awful faux pas of yellow ribbon-wearing." "It used to provide a response to people in need .. now it is run to suit politicians (ie reducing costs and public relations when suddenly there is a need created to spend more). Doctors have almost no say and patients and the public no say at all. Bring in/back the local health committee (and similar in schools and road safety) so that the politicians and bureaucrats actions can be discovered and critiqued in the public realm.N/A"

• When it comes to who is to blame, Peter Beattie gets the personal blame, but the Federal Government probably gets more of the blame than the State Government, explaining why the Liberals aren't doing better out of this issue.

Generally the month to month fluctuations in political polls are meaningless because they are within the margins of sampling error. Yesterday's release of the latest Morgan polling shows a 4% increase in the ALP's vote. This was on a sample of 1,033 and was greater than the potential margin of error. After distribution of preferences this would have given an election held on Saturday 4th February to the ALP 52.5% to 47.5%. Morgan credited the Australian Wheat Board scandal with the shift. He can't be sure of this as the questions don't mention the Wheat Board, although a poll to be published tomorrow by Morgan shows that most Australians don't think the federal government has acted ethically over the matter.

Our health survey is soaring away - 467 responses so far and climbing. The more responses we get, the more attention decision makers will pay. Can't tell you any of the results - it might skew the responses you give us - but there are some great insights there. Thanks to those who've responded so far, and if you know any Queenslanders with an opinion, tell them to go to http://whatthepeoplewant.net/questionnaire-012-public-hospitals.asp and complete the questionnaire. We've also had to reschedule our session until next week. That means that we've extended our deadline until this Friday.