Marginal seat focus of Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s office polling

Annastacia Palaszczuk’s office conducted taxpayer-funded polling on Covid-19 strategy across a regional, Labor-held marginal seat.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in Brisbane on Tuesday. Picture: Dan Peled

Annastacia Palaszczuk’s office conducted taxpayer-funded polling into the government’s Covid-19 strategy across a regional, Labor-held marginal seat targeted by the opposition ahead of last year’s state election.

Intensive “qualitative” interviews were commissioned with hundreds of residents of the Livingstone Shire – almost exclusively in Labor’s seat of Keppel – just days after a newspaper poll showed it was in danger of falling to the Liberal National Party.

The shire, which also includes a small stretch of the One Nation-held seat of Mirani, was the only region set aside for special attention in a series of monthly “waves” of statewide polling ordered by Ms Palaszczuk’s department into Covid-19 restrictions and her government’s handling of the outbreak.

On Tuesday, Ms Palaszczuk again refused to release any of the ongoing research – which has so far cost taxpayers’ $528,000 – as ALP insiders said it was used to help shape the government’s re-election strategy. Several senior Labor sources told The Australian the research – including questions on what people believed should “trigger” any easing of restrictions and border closures – had been shared with campaign staff.

“At the beginning of last year, the government was in real danger and Covid got them out of trouble,’’ one senior Labor insider said.

“They shaped their decisions on Covid around what people wanted from research like this, and it showed in that they won LNP seats for the first time with large numbers of older residents.’’

Labor also held Keppel, with the Premier’s office later briefing journalists that it was “Palaszczuk’s pensioners” who had saved the government with its hardline Covid restrictions.

Last year it was revealed two of the state’s most popular lobbyists, Cameron Milner and Evan Moorhead – former ALP state secretaries – had worked out of Ms Palaszczuk’s 40th-floor office running Labor’s campaign ahead of the October 31 election. They did not return calls.

Documents, obtained under a revised Right to Information request, showed Ms Palaszczuk’s office had ordered polling that included questions on “whether the state government should try lifting restrictions on a “region-by-region, or sector-by-sector versus all-of-Queensland basis”. “This research will help guide the decision making and communication approach around the lifting of restrictions,’’ the government contract with pollster Ipsos said.

According to the documents, there have been 17 “waves of research” – initially every two weeks, then monthly – on the government, its restrictions and economic measures related to Covid.

Ms Palaszczuk began receiving the polling in May last year At a press conference on Tuesday, she said the polling was intended to only inform the government’s advertising strategy. The research was extended last month.

Since the start of the pandemic, she has consistently said all her decisions were based solely on health advice. Contract documents show the office of Ms Palaszczuk – who said she said seen “some … but not all” polling and focus group analysis – had received at least eight reports ahead of the election.

Ms Palaszczuk said she “rejected” the wording of the contract, authored by longtime former media adviser Michelle Wellington on behalf of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, that the polling would help guide the Covid decision-making. “Well, that’s not correct, I reject that,’’ she said, while refusing to release any of the monthly polling reports.

A spokesman for Ms Palaszczuk said suggestions the research was shared with Mr Moorhead and Mr Milner “are completely and utterly false”.