Victorian Labor used taxpayer cash to buy election-eve political guidance

As Daniel Andrews prepared for the 2022 election, his $2m political intelligence strategist was working hard to find out what Victorians were thinking.

QDOS chief John Armitage. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Daniel Andrews’ taxpayer-funded political intelligence strategist grilled voters about the government’s performance on the economy, jobs, police numbers, crime, family violence, local roads, freeways, public transport, hospitals, ambulance waiting times, schools and political leadership just six weeks before the November 2022 state election.

Documents and emails show that the then Victorian premier’s cabinet ministers received confidential briefings – which the Department of Premier and Cabinet is now refusing to make public – on waves of secretive election-eve surveys as late as October.

The documents and emails marked “cabinet in confidence” confirm QDOS Research conducted three waves of voter surveys testing perceptions of the government’s performance across core services in the six months before the election on November 26.

QDOS had been running similar “Community Attitude Surveys” for several years for the Andrews government, and the newly released documents confirm the program continued right through to just days before the government went into caretaker mode on November 1.

Obtained by The Australian under Freedom of Information laws, the documents show QDOS – a Labor-aligned consultancy paid more than $2m by the Andrews government – polled voters in July, August and October.

Voters, the documents reveal, were asked to score the government’s performance out of 10 across core services.

About 160 pages of emails and documents, many heavily redacted, exchanged between the DPC and QDOS from June to October 2022 detailing the online surveys and focus groups have been released. The revelations have sparked criticism from the opposition, which has accused the Andrews government of misusing taxpayer funds to help shape its winning election campaign.

“QDOS is a Labor fellow traveller, a firm that is specialised in providing Victorian Labor with political polling,” senior Liberal frontbencher David Davis said.

“The evidence is now clear its ‘community surveys’ on jobs, police, crime and hospitals was special political intelligence designed to help Labor win the 2022 election.”

QDOS is owned by veteran Labor political strategist and ­pollster John Armitage, who boasts about his firm’s ability to “squeeze, pump and stir” public opinion and ­formulate persuasive language for clients.

“In the end we’ll find the language and ideas you can evoke to activate the right frames so you can shape public opinion,” the company states on its website.

Mr Armitage did not respond to questions from The Australian on Thursday.

Premier Jacinta Allan’s office defended the previous Labor government’s use of QDOS. “It is a common practice for governments, both in Australia and globally, to use data insights to inform policy development, effective decision-making and efficient service delivery,” a government spokesperson said.

The Premier’s office did not respond when asked if the Allan government had signed a new taxpayer-funded deal with QDOS.

The Australian, in multiple reports over more than three years, has revealed the secretive role QDOS played for the former premier and his government, including monitoring Victorians during the pandemic. The QDOS behavioural research program was controlled by the Premier’s Private Office, previously released documents have revealed.

A draft copy of the online survey, conducted between October 5 and 11, 2022, reveals voters were surveyed not just on broad areas of core services, but specific aspects of service delivery.

The public transport section asked voters to rate the government on availability of public transport, punctuality and reliability, safety and making public transport a practical option.

On health, voters were asked to rate the government on delivering facilities and equipment in public hospitals, elective surgery waiting lists, quality of care, emergency waiting times and ambulance waiting times.

On education, voters were surveyed on quality of school buildings and equipment, quality of teachers and whether all children received individual attention.

The documents reveal that the Andrews cabinet was briefed on the survey results in the lead-up to the election. The DPC is refusing to release the survey results to The Australian, citing “cabinet in confidence” secrecy provisions.

The documents reveal a DPC manager sent an email on September 29 – under the subject line of “Cabinet in confidence: Community attitudes research – survey changes” – to QDOS stating: “Please find attached DPC changes proposed for the October round.”

An October 10 email sent by the DPC manager reveals the Andrews cabinet – just weeks before it went into caretaker mode on November 1 – was briefed on the survey data. A secret attachment to the email was headed “draft content for intro slides for Oct cabinet meeting.doc”.

Later, on October 17, a DPC manager sent an email headed “Cabinet in confidence: Comment on draft qual report” with an attachment containing the results of the surveys. That attachment has also been kept secret. Other emails with QDOS attachments sent in the months before the election also refer to “community attitudes research ppt for cabinet”.

The Australian reported in March last year that QDOS was used to monitor Victorians’ views about Mr Andrews’ personal ­performance during Melbourne’s 112-day pandemic lockdown.

“The government, and the premier in particular, are seen as doing the right things to get on top of this spike,” Mr Armitage wrote in one of his briefings to cabinet.

In another, research showed there was “strong support for Dan Andrews and a broad acknowledgment of the good job he and the government are doing in very difficult circumstances”.

A QDOS “cabinet in confidence” briefing note from August 5, 2020, stated: “Dan Andrews. Sentiment in these groups was similar to earlier rounds and these people were considerably more like to jump to the defence of the government and Dan Andrews.”

QDOS was paid $786,500 by the DPC between 2016-18, and in December 2019 was handed a $1.1m contract without a competitive tender process. In March 2022, it was handed a $240,000 top-up payment by the DPC.