Annastacia Palaszczuk reveals reason for not releasing secret market research

Annastacia Palaszczuk has again been grilled over secret $500,000 Covid-19 market research, sharing her reason she would not release it to the public.

Annastacia Palaszczuk has dodged questions about why she won’t release secret market research into the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Despite costing taxpayers more than $500,000, the Premier has again refused to release the findings of what she has described as “sentiment testing”.

“It was market research and sentiment testing and no it won’t be released,” said Ms Palaszczuk during her Wednesday morning press conference.

When reporters asked ‘why won’t it be released?’, she replied:

“Because every other state and the federal government has also done the exact same market research and sentiment testing.”

Pressed further she said: “Well go and ask all the state premiers and go and ask the Prime Minister.”

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has been grilled over market research into Queensland’s Covid-19 response. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

When reporters pointed out the question related to Queensland, she replied:

“That’s right and I’ve given my answer.”

Ms Palaszczuk flatly denied that the findings were shared with Labor campaign staff.

Quizzed about what parts of the research she had seen, Ms Palaszczuk insisted she had only seen “very limited amounts of it”.

“They were issues about impacts on tourism, impacts on business, people’s wellbeing,” she said.

“And most of it went to, like I said to you, went to that Covid taskforce that was looking at in terms of the health campaigns and the health messaging to the public.

“And just like they do ... whether it’s to do with transport ads or community service ads - it just helped with that.”

Ms Palaszczuk has previously suggested she had never been driven by popularity, and had only ever listened to the expert advice of the state’s chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young.

But Right to Information documents detailing monthly polling by Ipsos Public Affairs reveal some of the questioning went beyond those that would inform public health messaging.

They included what restrictions people believed were the most important, which activities or sectors should be prioritised in the lifting of restrictions, what should trigger the lifting of restrictions, and whether the restrictions should be lifted in regional Queensland before the South East.