Annastacia Palaszczuk spends more than $528,000 on COVID-19 polling ahead of state election
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has spent more than $500,000 in the past few months on pollsters to gauge how voters feel about her government’s controversial COVID-19 restrictions in the lead up to the state election. But the Premier’s response was for everyone to ‘have a cold shower’.
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Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has spent more than $500,000 on coronavirus polling, despite repeated claims she relies solely on the Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young’s advice.
The Premier’s department has been hiring pollsters to gauge Queenslander’s perspective on the restrictions her government has enforced, according to The Australian, but the Premier on Wednesday morning responded, saying the polling won’t help Labor win the election.
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Over the past few months leading up to the October 31 state election, more than $528,000 has been spent on coronavirus polling.
With border restrictions constantly dividing Queensland residents since their initial closure in March, Ms Palaszczuk’s office hired political strategist Mike Kaiser to help create Queensland’s economic recovery plan.
The Australian reports that government disclosures have revealed consultancy firm KPMG, where Mr Kaiser works as Brisbane’s corporate affairs advisory partner, was awarded $275,000 in confidence to provide “advice to (the Department of Premier and Cabinet) on the development of an economic recovery road map” in May.
Telling everyone to have a “cold shower” about the issue, the Premier said every state undertook polling and that it had helped the Government determine where funding should be allocated, citing mental health.
And she claimed she didn’t know who political strategist Mike Kaiser was, despite her office having hired him to help create Queensland’s economic recovery plan.
“It’s about how people are responding to the economic recovery,” she said.
“We had to put together a comprehensive roadmap to ease people out of those restrictions and look how we’re going.
“We’ve got a strong economic response because of our strong health response.”
She refused to say whether pollsters had asked Queenslanders about the state’s harsh border restrictions, instead saying they asked numerous questions about a range of issues.
“Everyone needs to have a cold shower when it comes to this,” she said.
Asked whether she could give an update on what Mr Kaiser had been doing for the Government and whether she spoke with him much, the Premier said, “I don’t know who you’re talking about sorry.”
Deputy Premier Steven Miles has defended the Government’s spending of taxpayers’ dollars on coronavirus polling, insisting it was important there was clear messaging throughout the pandemic.
Mr Miles said Government departments were constantly researching how they could communicate with the public.
“It has been incredibly important throughout this pandemic that we have clear, consistent messaging, particularly about social distancing,” he said.
“Just think about how we have changed the practices, the actions of our entire society.
“We’ve all changed the way we go about our day-to-day life and we’ve done that because we have been able to communicate to the public what those changes are.”
The Deputy Premier said it was a relatively small investment to make sure Queensland got it right.
It comes after Australia’s most powerful business lobby groups banded together to increase pressure on state leaders over border closures.
Lobby groups, including the Business Council of Australia and Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland have slammed the border rules, claiming they have caused unintended consequences and exposed Australians to unnecessary risk.
Pressure has also come from Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who called on the Premier to open Queensland borders, with claims the restrictions are “keeping us from living.”
He said there were multiple ways the virus was being prevented from moving among the population, including contact tracing, containment and “COVID-safe behaviours”.
“During this pandemic … we continue to do better than almost every other developed country in the world when it comes to protecting lives and livelihoods,” he said.
“But as long as we are closed, we cannot claim success, as a country. If we are shut, we are not living alongside the virus, the virus is actually keeping us from living.”
But Ms Palaszczuk has stood firm on her restrictions, saying there needs to be 28 days of no community transmission in NSW before opening to them or the ACT.
On Tuesday South Australia announced their border would reopen to the ACT, while it waits for NSW to record 14 days without community transmission before further restrictions easing.
The Northern Territory will open to Greater Sydney from October 9 if cases do not spike.