Queensland taxpayers fund Annastacia Palaszczuk’s political research

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: Dan Peled / NCA NewsWire

If Annastacia Palaszczuk wants to find out what Queenslanders are thinking a year out from the state election she need not waste $393,000 of taxpayers’ money paying Ipsos Public Affairs to gauge the views of focus groups of 1200 voters every six weeks. Her backbenchers, whose offices field calls from the public, could tell her what people are worried about – health, housing, energy and other living costs. So could participants in victims of crime meetings. Likewise the Queensland Resources Council, whose members keep the state budget afloat while struggling under the world’s highest mining taxes. Or Labor should pay for the polling.

Using secret taxpayer-funded polling to shape the government’s policies and pitch to voters in the lead-up to the election on October 26 next year is straight out of the Daniel Andrews playbook in Victoria. The Australian prised out the details under Right to Information laws, with heavily redacted documents showing the polling will run for 66 weeks. It was ordered on May 9, after published polls showed the Liberal National Party had overtaken Labor on a statewide two-party-preferred basis for the first time since June 2020. The contract, Lydia Lynch and Michael McKenna reported, was signed off by two senior bureaucrats from the Department of Premier and Cabinet. One of them, assistant director-general Michelle Wellington, was formerly Ms Palaszczuk’s media adviser. The government spent more than $500,000 on a similar exercise before the 2020 election.

While paying for the polling, the public is being kept in the dark about the results. Five reports, compiled between May and October, have gone to cabinet and are bound by strict confidentiality. Business as usual will not allay voters’ frustrations.