Newspoll: One Nation collapse lifts main parties in Queensland
A week from polling day, Newspoll shows the Queensland election is up for grabs, with the implosion of the One Nation vote helping Labor and the LNP.
The implosion of the One Nation vote in Queensland has given both major parties a lift in key seats but the state election remains too close to call, Newspoll shows.
The survey of three litmus marginals puts the Liberal National Party a nose ahead in Labor-held Mundingburra in Townsville, but trailing in Mansfield on Brisbane’s southside and losing decisively to the ALP in Pumicestone on the capital’s northern outskirts.
A week out from polling day, Newspoll, conducted for The Australian and the Courier Mail, shows the election is still up for grabs, though the path to majority government for LNP Leader Deb Frecklington continues to narrow. The Hanson party has been hammered, with its vote plunging in all three electorates, according to Newspoll.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s “bookend” strategy to target LNP seats on the coast north of Brisbane and the Gold Coast appears to be paying off and Ms Frecklington will be disappointed to have lost so much ground in Pumicestone.
The seat is the second most marginal in the LNP column with a buffer of just 0.84 per cent, and the retirement of MP Simone Wilson after just one term increases its vulnerability to being snatched by the ALP.
Newspoll shows it will be won comfortably by Labor’s Ali King after the party’s primary vote surged from 35.6 per cent at the 2017 election to 45 per cent in the survey taken over three days this week. When preferences are allocated, Labor’s lead in Pumicestone blows out to eight points, 54-46 per cent two-party preferred.
This reflects a collapse in the One Nation vote from 23.3 per cent three years ago to barely nine per cent. Much of the Hanson vote appears to have marched across to Labor, though base support for the LNP is also up seven points to 37 per cent. The Greens are steady on six per cent.
The result in Mundingburra confirms that the battle for Townsville’s three Labor-held seats could be decisive to the election outcome. There, the ALP is disadvantaged by the retirement of two-term MP Coralee O’Rourke, the Minister for Communities, Disability Services and Seniors, on a margin of 1.13 per cent.
One Nation’s vote falls 5.7 points on 2017 to 11 per cent while support for Katter’s Australian Party is unchanged on 14 per cent. Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party barely rates on 2 per cent, while the Greens’ vote has nearly halved to 4 per cent.
The assumed preference flow puts the LNP’s man in Mundingburra, police inspector Glenn Doyle, just ahead, 50.5-49.5 per cent, of Labor candidate Les Walker, a former deputy mayor of Townsville. But as in 2017 the seat is poised to go down to the wire.
The suburban heartland electorate of Mansfield, based on the commuter-belt locales of Rochedale, Wishart and Burbank in Brisbane’s southeast, is considered must-win for both sides. A surprise Labor gain in 2017 on One Nation preferences, it sits beside Aspley on Brisbane’s northside and bayside Redlands as priorities for the LNP, which requires a net gain of nine seats to take majority government next Saturday.
The LNP’s primary vote has surged nearly five points to 45 per cent on the back of the One Nation slump, down seven points to just 2 per cent in Mansfield. But Labor has picked up too, and MP Corrine McMillan narrowly heads LNP candidate Janet Wishart 50.5-49.5 per cent two-party preferred.
Deb Gallon, 55, of Wishart, said the party best placed to manage COVID-19 would get her vote and she was leaning towards Labor even though she usually plumped for the LNP. “I am still undecided, still a bit confused. But I don’t think there’s a case for change just right now,” she said.
But Wishart butcher Michael Mancini, 62, said he had lodged an early vote for the LNP because he was disgusted by Ms Palaszczuk’s decision to ban Canberra nurse Sarah Caisip from attending her father’s funeral last month. “She should have a bit of compassion,” he said of the Premier.
The LNP is pursuing a strategy of winning through the regions, targeting the Townsville seats and those based on Cairns, Mackay, Rockhampton where Ms Frecklington has been conspicuous to date in the campaign. If neither party secures the required 47 seats for majority government the LNP could still be the hunt to strike a deal with KAP if it can finish close to Labor.
Ms Palaszczuk said on Friday the election remained close despite last weekend’s statewide Newspoll putting Labor in front, 52-48 per cent two-party preferred. “People can listen to commentators but let me tell the people of Queensland it is going to be a very tight contest,” she said.
A senior Labor insider said internal polling and focus group research showed no uniform statewide swing, with voter sentiment split between the regions and the southeast of the state. Labor, on 48 seats, can afford few losses.
“We are being smashed in the regions and doing really well in the southeast of the state,’’ the insider said.
“Labor is in real danger of losing at least one of the seats in Townsville, and we are also at risk in Cairns, with a seat like Barron River, or Keppel (near Rockhampton).
“But even with us doing well in the southeast, we don’t know if we can pick up enough seats to counter the losses in the region.
“The problem is that the swings in the Brisbane look like they are coming to us in seats we already hold or in LNP seats where the margin is too great to overcome.”
In addition to gunning for Pumicestone, the ALP was also focused on the seat of Currumbin on the Gold Coast, where the LNP’s margin was slashed to 1.2 per cent at a by-election in March this year.
Additional reporting: Mackenzie Scott, Sarah Elks
More Coverage
