Crisafulli flies high, while Miles – and Dutton – lag

Queenslanders have given Premier David Crisafulli their tick of approval, with new polling showing he has a commanding lead over opponent and predecessor Steven Miles, five months into the LNP’s four-year term.

The same Resolve Political Monitor poll also shows Crisafulli easily outperforming Peter Dutton in Queensland, with the state LNP well ahead of its federal equivalent less than two weeks before the national election on May 3.

Crisafulli maintained a 22-point lead over Miles as preferred premier – 44 to 22 per cent – while 34 per cent remained undecided.

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli and his predecessor, Steven Miles.Credit: Joe Ruckli

It was a stunning 15-point collapse in support for the Labor leader, who only trailed Crisafulli by two points – 39 to 37 – in Resolve’s pre-election poll last October.

Miles was re-elected to the leadership after Labor’s November election loss following an unexpectedly strong showing during the state campaign, making him the first former premier to serve as opposition leader since Rob Borbidge in 1998.

Miles would hope to fare better than Borbidge, who led the then-National and Liberal coalition to the 2001 election, in which it lost almost half its seats – from 23 to 12 – in a Peter Beattie-led Labor landslide victory.

Resolve also shows Crisafulli’s party performing well, with the LNP increasing its primary vote to 45 per cent, up from 41.5 per cent on election day. At the same time, Labor’s primary vote has plummeted more than 10 percentage points, from 32.6 to just 22 per cent.

Resolve director Jim Reed said it was the worst result for a Queensland opposition party since it began tracking the state in 2022.

“The LNP is having a bit of a honeymoon with its 45 per cent primary vote,” he said.

“Perhaps more beneficial to them is the collapse of Labor’s vote post-election.”

But in a warning sign for the LNP, the Crisafulli government’s popularity was not translating to the Dutton-led federal opposition.

Reed said the same polling sample that delivered the state government 45 per cent of first preference votes only gave the federal opposition 40 per cent of its first preference votes.

Crisafulli’s personal approval of 44 per cent for preferred premier also outperformed Dutton’s preferred prime minister figure of 39 per cent, though the federal leader still had the edge over Labor prime minister Anthony Albanese’s level of 34 per cent.

“Dutton is more popular in Queensland than the rest of the country, which makes sense,” Reed said.

Labor has bled votes to the left, with the Greens’ vote share rising from 9.9 per cent on election day to 12 per cent. At the same time, support for independents rose from 1.7 per cent on election day to 7 per cent.

“Labor have lost votes to the LNP, but also to the Greens and generic independent options,” Reed said.

“These are typically people who are disgruntled with Labor but cannot bring themselves to switch completely so are parking their vote.”

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