Campbell Newman has not taken a hit in the polls despite the best efforts of the ALP and their MSM running dogs to make capital out of cuts in the public service.
Tellingly, Mr Newman’s personal approval with voters remains rock solid on 47 per cent — the same as it was going into the state poll on March 24.
Dissatisfaction with his performance has actually eased slightly since he took office, from 40 per cent immediately before the election to 38 per cent over the three-month polling period from July to September.
When preferences are factored in, the LNP is 20 points clear of state Labor, 60-40 per cent, two-party-preferred. This is broadly in line with the election result that delivered 78 of the 89 state seats in Queensland to the LNP on a two-party-preferred vote of 62.8 per cent, against Labor’s 37.2 per cent.
This brings to mind John Hyde’s famous Dry interjection in the party room when the Liberals met in despair after losing Victoria in 1982: “Why not try good government, Malcolm [Fraser] —it might be popular.”
More on John Hyde, an admirable quiet achiever. And don’t forget his mentor, Bert Kelly.
And all this despite the biggest beat up in the media ever!
The Courier-Mail has basically hated him ever since he became Lord Mayor. He ripped into their council reporters for bias (and basically never gave them an interview) and it has never let up since.
The local ALPBC has of course also weighed in with massive effort, giving huge time slots to interviews with union leaders and the poor workers. They were literally begging for sacked workers to call in and have a cry at how cruel Campbell was.
A shining light has been Springborg. He really has done well in interviews on ABC and they never lay a glove on him.
Campbell has made some errors, but overall he is trying to get on top of a whole new level of government from being outside Parliament, herd a bunch of cats, a merged party and a huge State. He has faced unending battles, even from the public service mandarins he appointed.
He’s done well to remain sane!
pete m
1 Oct 12 at 8:36 am
Early days yet. It will gradually dawn on people what a disaster he is fore Queensland the pools will collapse. Queensland is a State of extremes in voting. He will be defeated at the next state election 42-58 2PP.
The next Federal election will be a litmus test. Labor will make a surging comeback and the landslide to it in Queensland will seal the overall result for Gillard.
Watch tomorrow’s federal Newspoll.
hammygar
1 Oct 12 at 8:49 am
“… Queensland the pools will collapse.”
Indeed, it will be very sad up here if our pools collapse, with summer upon us.
candy
1 Oct 12 at 8:58 am
LOL. I needed a good laugh this morning.
dianeh
1 Oct 12 at 9:00 am
While I am not surprised at the poll, I think it is a long bow to say it is because of demonstrated good government. It’s a good thing to get expenditure under control. It’s a good thing to reduce overbearing bureaucracy. It is a good thing to root out the ALP hacks that have infested the QPS.
It is not a good thing to not pay enough attention to which parts of the bureaucracy are pruned. If left to some elements of the SES, they might protect their turf at the expense of very useful people or worse, use it as an opportunity to get rid of a service the did not agree with, or merely to make things difficult, resulting in blow back to the LNP. * It is not a good thing to sack a public servant only on the basis of a complaint from a constituent who may have a (very blunt) axe to grind, without looking at both sides of the story.** And it is not good government to replace the ALP hacks with LNP cronies and fill high paying QPS positions that require a lot of experience with Ministers’ children and other relatives.
How the LNP now reboot the QPS after these cuts will determine whether or not they are a good government. Some ministers are demonstrating their worth (eg Andrew Cripps, natural resources and mines is clearly on the ball ), others seem to be hopeless trouble magnets (eg Ros Bates, arts and other stuff).
* an example would be an area health service run by the nursing sisterhood deliberately targeting a few A&E nurses to create problems for be government and reduce the will to cut health more generally in areas that would hurt the sisterhood, or ultimately, a general ban on laying off anyone with a nursing qual, even if they never administer medications or wipe anyone’s bottom.
**an obvious example was someone took at face value a complaint from a volunteer firey that they were overburdened with useless uniforms retired from the non volunteer side who swank around in flash 4WDs and demand endless paperwork. So the LNP announed they would halve the number of managers in the bush fire service. The media portrayed this as reducing fire service capability and the blow back has forced the government to not cut them back altogether.
entropy
1 Oct 12 at 9:01 am
By the way, the best bit, is that the KAP is reduced to one percent. proof that the FNQ don’t really care what happens, as long as someone gets it up ‘em in SEQ or Canberra.
entropy
1 Oct 12 at 9:11 am
Points taken entropy, I don’t need to claim that Newman is actually delivering good governmenet, the point is that the scare campaign has not worked – yet.
If the Newman administration can kick some goals and explain the rationale then they may never collapse in the pools (sic) even though they can’t expect to maintain such a large lead for ever.
Bad performers will be a problem for them, and even more so the entrenched powers that you described. I am not sure if any place in the world has managed to wind back Big Government yet, certainly not Thatcher or Reagan, they just slowed the growth.
Poor Old Rafe
1 Oct 12 at 9:13 am
In a democracy 50% +1 can decide they wish to live on other people’s money via the ballot box ….for a while. Newman is ending the ‘while’, with any luck.
Alfonso
1 Oct 12 at 9:17 am
Go Campbell!
Even Andrew Bolt went off him, that’s how weak-willed we’ve become at reducing the size of government…
papachango
1 Oct 12 at 9:28 am
Is this ‘October Fools Day’?
Aqualung
1 Oct 12 at 9:33 am
So much for the so-called Campbell Newman effect. And since the cuts are all pretty much done, he’s copped all the damage he’s going to cop for this, which is approximately…. nothing. By the next election, Queensland will have forgotten all about it anyway.
This may embolden him to take on other reforms, not just ‘number of public servants’ reform.
dd
1 Oct 12 at 9:34 am
It is passing strange (and interesting) that this poll (sorry, pool), produced by Newspool for The Australian has yet to grace the website of the sister Murdokkk paper The Courier Mail.
entropy
1 Oct 12 at 9:36 am
Oh I think the surge will be so great they may even need two leaders just to manage the mass of Labor MP’s. Radical I know but this one is gonna be huge Hammy.
Chris M
1 Oct 12 at 9:39 am
It is passing strange (and interesting) that this poll (sorry, pool), produced by Newspool for The Australian has yet to grace the website of the sister Murdokkk paper The Courier Mail.
If it’s not on the front page of the CM, it just didn’t happen.
Gab
1 Oct 12 at 9:50 am
Newspool will be good for Ms Gillard though, that’s understandable, in light of personal events, and the trashing of Tony Abbott.
candy
1 Oct 12 at 9:56 am
An 11 fingered salute by our favourite space cadet.
.
1 Oct 12 at 10:03 am
LOL.
C.L.
1 Oct 12 at 10:11 am
Sorry, there is no such thing as ‘good government’. By definition, all a government can do is destroy. The only way to improve government is to eliminate it.
michael
1 Oct 12 at 10:13 am
If he fired another 50,000 moochers he’d be even more popular. Go Campbell! Do it!
Infidel Tiger
1 Oct 12 at 10:16 am
That’s right michael all the government is good at is killing and punishing people (usually for victimless crimes, unfortunately).
It ought to have a small role in smiting external threats and enforcing the peace and commercial security of the land, and punishing thieves and thugs.
Which means IT is right. QLDers shouldn’t be writing reports on coal and fish, they ought to be digging it up and catching them.
Ergo, the real threat to QLD prosperity right now is Tony Burke who’d rather you kicking photocopiers or collecting the dole than being gainfully employed.
What he is saying about the QLD coal industry and fisheries is hysterical nonsense with no environmental benefit but only economic loss.
.
1 Oct 12 at 10:31 am
It seems Greenpeace has written a report about the Gallilee basin. I’m now kind of sad I had to move out from Qld to NSW for work:
Looks like Greenpeace won’t be a fan of Mr Newman anytime soon.
Bruce of Newcastle
1 Oct 12 at 10:42 am
Well said IT.I’ve always found it difficult to find anyone,who’s had dealings with them,front line workers such as Ambos,Nurses,Police,Firies excepted, prepared to say a positive word about them.It’s a pity that O’Farrell hasn’t followed the Campbell line in NSW.The NSW Public Service is not only similarly bloated,it’s stacked with Labor whiteants working from within to undermine his Government and doing an effective job.
Lew
1 Oct 12 at 10:51 am
We can expect the same when Abbott forms his first government. There are people who don’t much care for Abbott personally that will still vote Liberal, but Abbott’s personal popularity will rise once he’s in office as people see that he’s a fine and decent man.
And this is the ALP’s greatest nightmare. Abbott will win back “Howard’s Battlers” who may initially be reluctant to vote Liberal, but once Abbott is in the PMs role, they will warm to him and continue to support his government.
My prediction, looking into old bloke’s crystal ball, Abbott will pass John Howard as Australia’s second longest serving PM.
old bloke
1 Oct 12 at 10:52 am
The ALPBC would have you think there was widespread hatred of Newman. However, every night they featured a union spokesman who was a fat, soft looking git who looks like he’s never done a hard day’s work in his life.
They can’t even do propaganda right. Useless bastards.
Eyrie
1 Oct 12 at 10:55 am
The poll shows the averaged out numbers of small sub-samples over 3 months, not the result of a single poll with a proper sample or even a series of normal polls. So it isn’t actually likely to show much movement in response to events over those 3 months and isn’t capable of proving or disproving any Newman effect.
badm0f0
1 Oct 12 at 11:00 am
The Courier-Mail isn’t running the story because it’s a massive beat-up based on dodgy figures. A political opinion poll conducted over three months in a highly unstable environment is a deliberate massage of the data. The LNP’s lead has actually dropped from a high of 68% in July to 55% now, with a personal net satisfaction rating drop for Newman from +23 to -6 from July to now. Possum details the Oz’s lies.
m0nty
1 Oct 12 at 11:03 am
The LNP’s 2PP, not lead. The lead is down from 27 to 10 points.
m0nty
1 Oct 12 at 11:05 am
That’s how the state polls are always done, but somehow this time, you reckon it doesn’t work. Yes, you’re right, it’s a three month average, but still would be likely to show some movement, if movement was happening.
O’Farrell and Newman were elected for the same reason, to do the same thing. Only one of them is doing it. I know lifelong Labor supporters who voted for O’Farrell. They took a risk and it was a huge personal decision for them. But by being a fat, lazy do-nothing premier, and by letting NSW bumble along just the way it used to, he has let those people down.
dd
1 Oct 12 at 11:12 am
oh boo hoo. Newspoll always do their state polls like this.
dd
1 Oct 12 at 11:13 am
Perhaps Mr Possum has simply forgotten this fact.
Gab
1 Oct 12 at 11:16 am
Thanks Poor Old Rafe, for reminding me of the communist slogan “capitalist running dogs” from the Cold War days.
The current MSM, (with a few exceptions) can be labelled as “socialist running dogs”. However, I would not expect them to understand the irony, when their indoctrination is taken into account.
jeffthe
1 Oct 12 at 11:19 am
Thanks Poor Old Rafe, for reminding me of the communist slogan “capitalist running dogs” from the Cold War days.
The current MSM, (with a few exceptions) can be labelled as “socialist running dogs”. However, I would not expect them to understand the irony, when their indoctrination is taken into account.
jeffthe
1 Oct 12 at 11:19 am
Possum sort of has a point except that he’s (she’s?) comparing Newspoll, which is a 3-month average, to ReachTel which has a time series. But the Reachtel data itself only has four data points, which isn’t enough to extract any kind of meaningful trend.
dd
1 Oct 12 at 11:24 am
Not by ReachTEL. When you have better information, it is a lie by omission not to acknowledge the reality of the situation.
Newman has no conceptualisation of how to reduce debt. He is going to further compound problems with the state’s budget position by funding boondoggles like a new executive building and paying off the racing industry. He’ll probably help deliver the next federal election for Gillard if he keeps going at this rate.
m0nty
1 Oct 12 at 11:27 am
aaah it’s been a while since we had an anarchist here. Welcome my more radical brother.
papachango
1 Oct 12 at 11:28 am
No it isn’t likely to show much movement. The overall sample was assembled from a series of very small sub-samples over the 3 month period. Given the relative starting points the possibility of any given sub-sample significantly moving the average is small. If there were 3 monthly samples which had the LNP 2pp at 70-30, then 60-40, then 50-50 the average would still show at 60-40 over the 3 months. These types of poll results aren’t useful for showing movement on their own over the period in which they were taken.
badm0f0
1 Oct 12 at 11:28 am
Go Newmie. You go boy. And keep firing. The guys at the cat will tell you when we’re done.
Another 15,000 next month brother
Jc
1 Oct 12 at 11:46 am
I had a dig around on the ReachTel website, and I learned a very interesting fact about that chart that Possum is touting as disproving Newspoll. It appears at first glance to be a trend line of four polls, but it’s actually a trend line of three polls and one election result (the first data point), so it’s comparing apples and oranges. This wouldn’t matter so much if ReachTel had predicted that the ALP vote would be 26 percent but they didn’t predict that.
dd
1 Oct 12 at 11:50 am
That’s correct.
But if there was movement it would still put downward pressure on the result. The main argument against this poll seems to be “We know Newman’s become unpopular!”
dd
1 Oct 12 at 11:52 am
I’m not “arguing” against the poll results; I’m pointing out that on its own it is incapable of either disproving or proving the thesis of a “Newman effect” on voting intention over the period in which it was taken.
badm0f0
1 Oct 12 at 12:00 pm
Wrongologist Monty was a big advocate of the ‘Newman effect.’
See also his prediction of Slipper’s triumphant return to the speakership.
C.L.
1 Oct 12 at 12:00 pm
Sure, I’m with you on that, but I’m dubious that it’s an issue for this poll at all. The campaign against Newman’s public sector cuts started before the polling period. If that campaign was effective it should show up in the poll.
dd
1 Oct 12 at 12:03 pm
According to Wiki he .. ‘advocated economic rectitude and soundness in public finances and rejected short-term populism.’ And .. ‘He and his wife Helen are notable growers of roses.’
Nice balance.
Ellen of Tasmania
1 Oct 12 at 12:14 pm
Anyone else having trouble getting into the Open thread? Sidebar links don’t work.
Nanuestalker
1 Oct 12 at 1:15 pm
Nanu, the whole site is playing up for me today.
dd
1 Oct 12 at 1:23 pm
I see that the foul white supremacist dirtbag hammyracist has raised his fine aryan head again.
Hey, hammyracist, how do you feel about joooooooooooooos?
We know you hate ‘uppity’ Aborigines and all other black people (and brown people, and well anyone lacking your skin-tone), are you anti-semitic as well?
Mk50 of Brisbane
1 Oct 12 at 1:27 pm
The new executive building will be built and owned by a private contractor and rented to the government.
Contrast to Anna Bligh who was borrowing money to ‘create jobs’ by expanding the public service. Who built a billion dollar desalination plan which, to this day, is yet to provide anyone with a cup of water to drink. Critics of the cutbacks have yet to formulate a plan – any plan – which didn’t involve the state borrowing to pay wages. Perhaps any critic would like to frame a strategy, or merely perhaps to suggest that running a state on borrowed money in a cooling economy is a grand idea?
Or perhaps we would like to talk about the Traveston crossing dam – another Bligh project – spent hundreds of millions buying up properties and starting roadworks and site preparation before getting the signoff from the Federal environment minister, which never came, despite being on the same team. So now the state governemnt is stuck with a pile of properties it has to sell, but the properties were bought at the top of the market by a stupid state government, and now they have to be dumped back onto the market before they deteriorate any further.
Then there’s the water grid. A boondoggle of the highest order – connecting small outlying regional dams with the main brisbane supply at a cost of billions. Why, they can drain the sunshine coast and gold coast of all of their water supplies, and provide all of Brisbane and Ipswich with another two days of drinking water. What a fine, grand idea. Don’t forget, they continued to build the water grid up to the traveston crossing dam even after it was cancelled – contracts, don’t you know – so now there is a pipe to nowhere.
Really, let’s have a talk about state fiscal responsibility and boondoggles. That will be fun. Labor has such a rich seam of examples to drill.
brc
1 Oct 12 at 1:31 pm
Pools or polls – there seems to be some difficulties (at least in the U.S.):
“One of the most amazing — and significant — statistics of this election season has gone almost completely unnoticed:
Only 9% of sampled households gave an answer to pollsters in 2012:
It has become increasingly difficult to contact potential respondents and to persuade them to participate. .. At Pew Research, the response rate of a typical telephone survey was 36% in 1997 and is just 9% today.”
Ellen of Tasmania
1 Oct 12 at 1:40 pm
Monty thinks a phone poll by a pissant organisation like ReachTel has more credibility than Newspoll.
Mont, I’ve heard a rumour you’re going to start a new polling organisation called WankPoll where you guarantee anyone you can fulfill their fantasy about what the public is thinking on any subject at any time (in small print: margin of error ±100%). Sure to find a market, particularly in the zoo where your brain lives.
Tom
1 Oct 12 at 1:41 pm
The ALPBC would have you think there was widespread hatred of Newman. However, every night they featured a union spokesman who was a fat, soft looking git who looks like he’s never done a hard day’s work in his life.
Eyrie
1 Oct 12 at 10:55 am
Not only that Eyrie, he spoke as if he were auctioning cattle..couldn’t make head or tail of what he was gobbling
Denise
1 Oct 12 at 2:07 pm
Do the ALP trolls on the site have any suggestions for getting the states and the nation out of debt and into productive mode, living within our means?
What is the popular and painless way to do it, given where we are at present?
Poor Old Rafe
1 Oct 12 at 2:30 pm
Borrow more, spend more, Rafe. it’s the only string in their fiddle.
Gab
1 Oct 12 at 2:32 pm
Borrow more, spend more, and blame any problems on people who point out the flaws of this approach.
brc
1 Oct 12 at 2:35 pm
Judith Sloan has an enlightening article:
Of course the ALP trogs here will hate it as the article is replete with facts.
Gab
1 Oct 12 at 2:45 pm
Further to that, Gab, you will find that of the 65% of nurses, about 50% of them found soft admin seats to rest their bums on for 7.6 hours a day.
I kid you not. And I know that for a fact.
Winston Smith
1 Oct 12 at 2:54 pm
What is wrong with you people? It is obvious that the ALP trolls plan is to lose govt and let the Coallition get the country back from the edge of the fiscal cliff.
I think that Labor are in denial and think it is really the fiscal fairy who will fix it up. The fiscal fairy is the first cousin to the tooth fairy. Fiscal fairy will take a very small surplus (if they can ever get there) and magically pay off all the country’s debt with it.
We grown ups know that the fiscal fairy is really the Coallition, in the same way as big kids know that the tooth fairy is really their parents.
dianeh
1 Oct 12 at 2:59 pm
Quite so, the clipboard nursing brigade, ably supported by the sisterhood in management*, has achieved legendary growth over the last decade.
to use an unkind cliche: fat, short hair, dangly earrings with a mouth like a fish. Once were crap nurses and now run around trying to take their vengeance out on the doctors they once worshipped, as well as the prissy little upper middle class lasses in allied health who were always better looking,and hence appealing to said doctors, than them in the day.
The counterweight to the above cliche is to use another: an amazingly high proportion tend to play on the same side of the fence.
entropy
1 Oct 12 at 3:02 pm
Isnt it typical of commos,ignore the facts ,split a human hair into 64equal parts one of them might help your point.Must be alltose 50per cent pass”lawyers”,good at bullshit and Lying and setting up criminal “slush funds for Bribes.GET OUT LIEBOR,PISS OFF!
Borisgodunov
1 Oct 12 at 3:12 pm
Pleased to see that jeff picked up the joke about the MSM running dogs of the ALP. I was afraid that only people approaching 100 years of age would recall the delights of communist propaganda, like “running dogs of capitalism” etc.
Rafe
1 Oct 12 at 3:28 pm
Mao would’ve been more accurate saying the ‘blogging Cats of capitalism’.
Bruce
1 Oct 12 at 4:16 pm
Careful Rafe – some of us young blokes have a brainful of the old commo jokes.
“Why do the new Hungarian policemen go around in threes? One to put up the new orders, one to translate them from Russian, and one to keep an eye on the two intellectuals.” (After the failed Hungarian revolution.)
Winston Smith
1 Oct 12 at 4:17 pm
Good on you, Old Bloke. That is a Bold and Beautiful prediction. There is nothing like the instestinal fortitude of an old codger all dandered up.
Captain Mainwaring would be so proud. Go Corporal Jones: stick it up ‘em.
——————
Rafe – lots of happy running dogs bounding on the beach near me today.
Dianneh – the fiscal tooth fairy may be the Coalition but the leftist version of Santa Claus is a great big sack full of inheritance and super taxes.
Have a Green Christmas.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
1 Oct 12 at 5:11 pm
9% response rate? Hmmm. Ferget it.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
1 Oct 12 at 5:14 pm
he did: like Thatcher, Fraser stayed in power until Labor became sane again
Jim Rose
1 Oct 12 at 5:29 pm
It seems Greenpeace has written a report about the Gallilee basin. I’m now kind of sad I had to move out from Qld to NSW for work:
I’m relocating myself more thoroughly into Queensland (by relocating more of my affairs up from the southern states). Any government that is willing to have a go at chopping out the bloat deserves support. Queenslanders tend to not change their state governments to quickly, so if we’ve got this government in place for the next few terms I’m making Queensland my official home. I’d rather my vehicle rego and council rates etc went to a government I don’t despise.
John Mc
1 Oct 12 at 6:38 pm
Thanks for that link Gab, I saw it but did not have time to find it again for this post.
I hope you liked the running dogs in the google images that I posted:)
Poor Old Rafe
1 Oct 12 at 8:25 pm
Yes I did, Rafe. A very happy page!
Gab
1 Oct 12 at 8:31 pm
Rafe, that remark about trying good policy wasn’t one of Hyde’s, although I’m sure he wished he had said it.
I think it is generally credited to Ian Sainbury.
Johno
1 Oct 12 at 8:44 pm