Crisafulli gains more ground with voters as Labor support slides again

The news

Primary vote support for Queensland Labor has fallen to more than 20 percentage points below the LNP ahead of October’s state election, new polling for this masthead shows.

The three-month snapshot by Resolve Strategic for Brisbane Times also shows LNP leader David Crisafulli’s positive personal rating rising further against voters’ still-negative view of Premier Steven Miles.

David Crisafulli’s LNP opposition will enter the formal election campaign period with significantly more support among surveyed voters than Premier Steven Miles’ Labor government.Credit: NORDACIOUS (AKA JAMES HILLIER)

Crisafulli remains steady some 13 percentage points clear of Miles as preferred premier, with 33 per cent of respondents reached between June and early this month undecided at the time of surveying.

Asked to number boxes as if on a formal ballot, just 23 per cent gave Labor their primary support compared with the LNP’s 44 per cent – a gap 4 percentage points wider than the last snapshot.

Why it matters

The period covered by the polling follows a Labor budget heavy with cost-of-living relief and the ramping up of campaign messaging from both major parties.

Miles has said he has been using his time as premier to govern as he would if re-elected, while attacking the LNP for a lack of detailed plans and its Newman-era record, and questioning Crisafulli’s past business dealings and the federal Coalition’s nuclear push.

The LNP has sharpened attacks against the third-term government on the youth crime, housing, cost-of-living and health “crises”, largely in that order, with some extra detail offered on plans to address crime and boost housing supply.

While the change was within the poll’s margin of error, Miles’ net likeability – the balance of favourable and unfavourable views – has risen to sit above former premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s from mid-2023.

What they said

Resolve director Jim Reed said the results followed other recent polls suggesting a potential change of government.

“Labor’s primary vote is collapsing here,” Reed said, adding the outcome was “increasingly looking like a drubbing” of the sort handed to the third-term Northern Territory Labor government last month.

“A double-digit swing is probably no coincidence as the same issues of crime, the economy and the cost of living are at play here, and there has also been leadership change this term.”

Where to from here

Queensland’s 93 state MPs will descend on parliament for the final three-day sitting from Tuesday, with 11 introduced government bills still yet to be passed.

While the parliamentary term will not formally end until the issue of writ on October 1, party and candidate campaigning will ramp up significantly from next week.

The state electoral commission will then open candidate nominations from October 2 before early voting begins on October 14 – the same day postal vote applications close.

Behind our reporting

Resolve Strategic, which conducts polls for Brisbane Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and WAtoday, surveyed registered Queensland voters at several points between mid-June and the end of last week, before giving us their findings.