Campbell Newman losing votes to Clive Palmer

CAMPBELL Newman is facing pressure from within cabinet to change his leadership style.

CAMPBELL Newman is facing pressure from within cabinet to change his leadership style after yesterday’s Newspoll showed his government is trailing Labor and Clive Palmer’s party is gaining support ahead of next year’s state election.

The latest Newspoll, showing the Liberal National Party trailing Labor 49 per cent to 51 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis, sent shock waves through the government, which has suffered a 14 per cent swing since scoring the biggest election win in Australian history in 2012.

While Mr Newman took a few days’ leave, Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney conceded the poll ­results were “sobering’’ and that the government’s agenda may have been “too much, too quick’’ for Queenslanders after almost two decades under Labor.

“We now face the challenge of catching up, in terms of ­explaining to the people of Queensland, what we did and why we did it and the benefits to them,’’ he said.

Mr Seeney said there was widespread support for Mr Newman, who is among the most ­unpopular Queensland premiers of the modern era with just a third of the electorate satisfied with is performance.

“I think Campbell Newman has been a great Premier, he has been a great leader, he’s certainly inspired all of us in the cabinet to pursue the changes that the people of Queensland voted for at the last election,” he said.

Several LNP MPs, from the frontbench and backbench, privately expressed anger at Mr Newman, whom they claim is “too combative’’ with opponents to the government agenda.

“This result shouldn’t come as a big shock, the government has been picking fights with people and not selling the successes of the government,’’ one MP said.

The Newspolls survey, conducted over three months to June, found voters who have turned off Labor and the LNP were looking for an alternative.

The poll showed that 24 per cent of the electorate were parking their vote with “others’’, sparking fears within the LNP that their support will bleed to the Palmer United Party, which won a Senate seat and the Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax for the businessman at last year’s federal election.

Newspoll’s Martin O’Shannessy said PUP had at least 3 per cent of the vote.

“About 16 per cent said they would vote for independents and about 7.8 per cent for another party,’’ he said. “But (of) those who nominated another party, only 3 or 4 per cent said they were considering PUP.’’

But recent ALP internal polling is understood to have found that support for PUP ranges from 4.4 per cent in Brisbane to 13 per cent in the outer suburbs of the city.

Mr Seeney said he looked forward to fighting an election against Mr Palmer, who is suing Mr Newman and the Deputy Premier for defamation.

“I am happy to go into an election campaign against Clive Palmer and the political party that he bought,” Mr Seeney said.