Queensland election: Annastacia Palaszczuk keeps Covid polling secret

Annastacia Palaszczuk is keeping secret details of $528,000 in taxpayer-funded polling into Queenslanders’ attitudes towards COVID-19.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk visits Fitzroy Island on Thursday. Picture: Dan Peled

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is keeping secret details of $528,000 in taxpayer-funded polling into Queenslanders’ attitudes towards COVID-19, just days before she asks voters to back her handling of the crisis.

A Right to Information request from The Australian to the Department of Premier and Cabinet — applying for the release of the scope and terms of reference of the Ipsos Public Affairs focus group research — was rejected because the contracts are “confidential”.

Ms Palaszczuk on Thursday again refused to release details of the “sentiment testing” contained in Ipsos’s “COVID-19 Key Insights Project”, for which her ­department paid $138,077 in May and $390,380 on June 19.

“There’s no secrecy,” Ms Palaszczuk said, while campaigning on Fitzroy Island on the Great Barrier Reef.

“Every other state has done sentiment studies and the federal government has done them.”

She has previously said she would only release the polling if the other states and the Morrison government published their research first.

Asked on Thursday whether the research contained anything controversial, Ms Palaszczuk said: “No, there’s nothing.”

Before The Australian broke the story of the Ipsos polling last month, Ms Palaszczuk’s office had denied the government had done any polling on how Queenslanders felt about the coronavirus-forced border closures.

Although the Department of Premier and Cabinet’s own contracts disclosure log said there was “no use of confidentiality clause” for either of the Ipsos contracts, The Australian’s Right to Information request was refused on confidentiality grounds.

“Unfortunately, the conditions of the contracts make the entire documents in question technically confidential information, which in turn … triggers an obligation to consult with Ipsos about the release of any part of the contracts,” the department’s letter reads.

The Australian will lodge a fresh Right to Information request for Ipsos to be consulted, but a decision will not be made until after the election on October 31. Last month, a Department of Premier and Cabinet spokeswoman said Ipsos was “engaged to conduct market research and sentiment testing to ensure the government’s COVID-19 public information and behaviour-change campaigns were effective, achieved value for money and were evaluated”. She added: “This is a requirement under the Government Advertising Communication Committee process.”

The market research was commissioned as the border debate heated up and just before Ms Palaszczuk announced the first stage of restrictions to be eased. The second tranche of market research was ordered shortly after the government had given the green light to intrastate travel.

Queensland is currently considering whether to reopen its borders to NSW on November 1. Ms Palaszczuk will be briefed by her Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young on Friday ahead of national cabinet about whether NSW has sufficiently managed community transmission for the reopening to go ahead.

“People were yelling and screaming at me to open those borders,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“I stood firm for the people of this state, and I’ll continue to stand firm for the people of this state, and if that’s about standing up to Canberra, you bet I’ll stand up to Canberra.”

In Queensland’s recently filed submission opposing Clive Palmer’s High Court case to open the WA borders, lawyers for Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath said the state must be given the “latitude to act prophylactically, without the benefit of hindsight”.

“Epidemiologists agree that it is appropriate to apply the precautionary principle in precisely circumstances such as these.”