Secret Crisafulli government polling won’t be released: ministers

The Crisafulli government will not release the results of taxpayer-funded market research polling, which Queensland ministers have argued was only for advertising campaigns.

Youth Justice and Corrective Services Minister Laura Gerber, above, says the more than $650,000 spent on polling by four companies over the past five months was primarily used to craft messaging. Picture, John Gass

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The Crisafulli government will not release the results of taxpayer-funded market research polling, which Queensland ministers have argued was commissioned to create advertising campaigns.

Youth Justice and Corrective Services Minister Laura Gerber said the more than $650,000 spent on polling by four companies over the past five months was primarily used to craft messaging to attract new nurses, encourage foster care and adoption, and create anti-bullying campaigns.

She said it was different to the $528,000 “political polling” conducted by former Labor premier Annastacia Palaszczuk before the 2020 state election, which was revealed to have gauged the public’s temperature on youth crime, the Brisbane 2032 Olympics, the Indigenous voice to parliament and pandemic border closures when the findings were eventually released in 2024.

“There is a real difference between political polling and market research in order to deliver a communication message around a government policy,” Ms Gerber said.

She suggested the results had already been released to the public in the form of television advertisements, and said releasing the research would “confuse” Queenslanders.

“It would be really counterintuitive if you were to release the communications that didn’t land because you’d muddy the waters,” she said.

“It’s critically important that both those communication messages are done in a researched way, but also that’s why governments don’t release them.”

Health Minister Tim Nicholls said it was “important that Queenslanders are aware of and understand what their government is doing if they elected us”.