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30 August 2006

Queensland election week 2

These are my notes for this morning's discussion with Madonna King on ABC Radio Brisbane's Morning Program.

  1. Flegg has fallen in a hole but it doesn’t seem to have affected the Liberal Party vote. One reason for this is that despite two weeks of disasters he is doing no worse than Bob Quinn. In March Quinn was 11% favourable, 54% unfavourable. When Flegg took over he was 16% favourable, 44% unfavourable. Now he is 11% favourable, 53% unfavourable!
  2. Another reason for this. Focus group last night of Liberal voters. They are prepared to give him time. Blame Beattie for calling the election early. Liberal vote is at bedrock – not too many voters left to lose.
  3. In the same period Beattie has improved his standing while Springborg has also gone backwards like Flegg.
  4. Beattie is seen by our swingers as being the least incompetent. That is vis-à-vis the Opposition as well as his own team.
  5. Springborg is seen as being young, immature, negative, whinging, inexperienced and incapable, ruling over a rabble – his own party and the coalition.
  6. Flegg is unknown to many. To those who do know something he comes across as smug, relying on his professional qualifications for standing, inexperienced and only playing one tune. There is also concern about him knifing Quinn, and about those like Caltabiano, who might knife him.
  7. The National Party vote has decreased in our samples. This is where the increase in Beattie’s vote is mostly coming from. Not sure whether this is because they have become disheartened and are not filling the surveys in, whether with the election closer they realise they only have a Liberal running in their seat, or whether it is the blue-collar conservative vote going back to Beattie. No doubt John would have a theory about his “smart-state voters”. I suspect these are the Howard Liberals deciding to stay with Beattie.


Beattie verbatims:

“His statements - we got it wrong but we will fix it. If there was a viable alternative I would vote for it.” Liberal going Labor, 51-60, male, 4305

“The apparently incompetent ministers he has around him who keep stuffing up & making him carry the can.” Liberal going Labor, 41-50, male, 4011

“That things that are in the pipeline, previously anounced are taking so long to get started eg The gate way duplication,our local ambulance anounced over a year ago and not a sod of dirt turned on site.” Liberal going Labor, 41-50, male 4152

“Beattie has been in power for nearly 10 years and had caused all the problems Qld faces, and now claims he has the answers. If he has the answers, how did it get so bad in the first place?” Labor going Liberal, 31-40. male, 4012

Springborg verbatims:

“Even worse than Labor” Swinger going Labor, 41-50, male, 4110

“He leads a rabble in Parliament one or two it seems are always tossed out each sitting for one infringment or another. If they act like hoons in opposition what would they be like as government. As well the shadow of the old corrupt national party is always hovering - whether fair or not for me it is scary.” Swinger going Labor, 61+, male, 4272

“He's a young man, who's trying to preach and sound like an old feral dog. It doesn't appeal to me at all, and his voice is so boring to listen to, or hear.” Greens going Labor, 61+, male, 4068.

“The lack of cohesion between the coalition. If they can't get on together now, how could they possible rule together.” Labor going Liberal, 41-50, Female, 4225.

Flegg verbatims:

“Total unknown. Calls himself Doctor in the hope that people will feel more confident about him and that it will give him more creedence in the Hospital issues” Liberal going Labor, 51-60, female, 4074

“An elitist unknown who has no political experience.” Swinger going Labor, 61+, Male, 4170

“flegg comes across as arrogant and smug. he would not get my vote if he was the only candidate on the ballot. when he sat next to that working class chap trying to eat his lunch i felt like throwing something at the tv (this happened at a shopping center last week).” Swinger going Labor, 41-50, male, 4151.

“I really know nothing about him. All I've heard is that he's made a few blunders in the early days of the election, but I think the same media factors come into play as with Springborg.” Labor going National, 18-30, female, 4151.

“They provide no viable alternative to Team Beattie. I heard the comment today that Flegg has been going around the state 'drumming up apathy'.” – Focus group participant, Labor going Liberal, 31-40, male, 4012.

For the tables you will need to download the full document from here

Posted by Graham at 01:13 PM | Comments (0)

23 August 2006

Queensland Election 2006 - Week 1

These are the notes used for Madonna King's Progam this morning. We compared the poll that we have just undertaken with the one that we did back in March asking the same questions. This was to try and pick up trend movements. There were some interesting contrasts.

Comparisons between Benchmark Polls

Qual on whether the state is heading in the right direction

This is taken just from swinging voters, defined as those who change their votes between elections, or who vote against their traditional preference.

There is a very strong sense, even from those who agree that the state is heading in the right direction, that there hasn’t been enough planning. Those who think we are heading in the right direction tend to excuse the government and see their failure as being shared with previous governments. Others are not so forgiving.

One respondent, who emailed rather than filling in the questionnaire probably summed up the mood of those who might change the government when he said:

“I am going to give my vote to the Coalition. I have doubts about them, especially the unity of the Liberals, but have totally lost faith in Peter Beattie. He has had 8 years to do whatever he had planned but has failed to deliver anything of substantial value. At the last election he asked for a mandate to fix child safety. It has not been fixed. Health has gone from bad to worse, water and infrastructure planning is a disaster despite the obvious population growth, electricity supply is on a knife edge and not even the Tugun Bypass could get kicked along.

In my opinion Peter Beattie has had his chance and blown it. I don’t think the Coalition could do any worse so I’ll give them a chance. (My emphases)”

Verbatims agree:

“While there are problems with health and water, these are long-standing problems that sit on decades of inadequate planning for the future.  What planning there was was inadequate to the task of dealing with the State's rapid population growth.” Male, 61+, Ind

“unemployment is low, taxes (state) low, crime low compared to other states” Male, 41-50, Liberal going Labor.

“We are getting so many people into QLD each week that it must be hard to keep up with all the infrastructure.  Peter Beattie is doing his best with a difficult job.  If i didn't think he was I would go back to NSW.  My husband has never had so much work in all his life.” Female, 61+, Liberal going Labor

Verbatims disagree:

“The Beattie Government has not acted unless it has been forced to by a crisis. Despite much evidence that the State's population is growing rapidly there has been no timely planning to provide the increased inftastructure, water or power required.” Male, 41-50, Labor going Liberal.

“Too many backflips, too many commissions, too little action” Female, 61+, Labor going Ind

“There seems to be arrogance in decisions without listening to the local people that these decisions will directly impact. P.S. This will be the FIRST TIME in my 20 year voting history that I will NOT vote Labour, and NEVER did I ever expect to vote National (i.e. my father worked at Swanbank Power Station in the Jo era - but that's another story).  The Spit development issue will directly affect me and my family, we frequent Doug Jennings Park and the spit a minimum 5 times per week.” Female, 31-40, Labor going National.

“We have to call a halt.Political spin doctoring does not run a business or a State as exhibited by the current Premier Cunning posturing,cosying-up to a compliant media,failing to follow up on promises,and outright lying cannot hide practical incompetence of the man and his followers.” Female, 61+, Labor going National

To see the tables you will need to download the word document by clicking here
.

Posted by Graham at 11:53 AM | Comments (6)

9 August 2006

Recycling sewage

We discussed recycling sewage for drinking water this morning on the basis of what you told us. I've reproduced the notes below, and if you want notes plus tables, you can click here to download my original word document.

Should mention that one of our partners, the Local Government Association of Queensland specifically asked us to do this poll. They did a quantitative poll last week (press release can be downloaded here
). But quants only tell you so much, and they had a specific interest in knowing the "why" of the issue. This information will presumably be taken into consideration in whatever action the south east Queensland mayors take.

  1. Huge turn-around in support since our last poll which was held in October last year.
  2. This time 76% support and only 17% oppose. Last time 47% supported and 35% disapproved. Political complexion of two polls roughly similar, apart from Greens, who are about 10% higher.
  3. Higher level of support than represented in the other available polls – LGAQ 60.9% in favour in SE, 27.6% against. CM poll 66 percent support, 18 percent opposed. I did a sub-sample balanced by voting intention against Newspoll’s results, which gave 73% support, 19% opposed. Reasonably close, but outside the error margin.
  4. Reason for move in support probably lies in the Toowoomba poll. It has educated us about the issue, and it has also set-up a dynamic where the rest of the state doesn’t want to be dictated to by a small, unrepresentative, rural vote.
  5. Greens are most heavily supportive (89%), and Nationals the least (51% support).
  6. Whether respondents thought Toowoomba’s result ought to affect the rest of the state rested pretty heavily on whether they supported the recycling proposal or not.
  7. More people opposed Beattie’s referendum than supported it. Only Labor voters were in support, but only to 51%. 
  8. Reasons for opposing the proposal
    1. Not enough knowledge
    2. “Yuk” factor
    3. Rationing, fix waste
    4. Safety of recycled water (including hormones)
    5. Other alternatives, like tanks, desalination
    6. Shouldn’t have to pay the price for other people’s bad planning
    7. Potential for system breakdown
  9. Reasons for supporting the proposal
    1. Much drinking water already originally contains sewage
    2. Less damage to the environment than alternatives
    3. Safe
    4. No alternative
    5. Recycling is good
  10. What would make you change your mind?
    1. More information
    2. Armageddon
    3. Trialed successfully
    4. Only used for industry and agriculture
    5. Full dams
    6. If it was proven to be unsafe
  11. Should the Toowoomba result affect the rest of the state
    1. Should be indicative of the state of Queensland
    2. Every area should decide for itself
    3. Rednecks
    4. Politicians should make decisions
    5. Need better education
    6. Abandoned by state and federal politicians, not enough resources for “Yes” case.
    7. One small group shouldn’t dictate to the rest of the state
    8. Incompetent “Yes” campaign.

Verbatims (please note that all quotes are reproduced exactly as they were typed into our system, including typos and grammatical errors):

“I think Recycled sewerage water could be used as a source of water for other areas of the household preferrably not for drinking however I have heard scientifically that the water after treatment is safer than most water - it is the concept that is difficult to overcome.” Female, 31-40, Greens.

“The debate has been too emotive on both sides. The Greens make recycling sound like the Messiah whilst for Labor it is the Armageddon” Male, 31-40, Nationals

“If every home collected rain water suffient for the household useage, there wouldn't be any need for recycling. We have lost our home to Mr Battie's Wet Dream (the Traveston Dam) and although we oppose the building of dams in unsuitable places, we still stongly oppose recyling sewage water. We live in a very dry area and have three rainwater tanks and an Ozziecycle to protect the environment. This water is supposed to be pure enough to drink. If this is so, why can't people living in the Buffer Zone around the proposed dams stay where they are and continue using the recycling method? No. The State want all septics systems and personal recycling systems no closser than 200m....why if the water is supposed to so pure?” Female, 51-60, Greens

“in some town in germany they did try it, after sometime the company wanted to cut costs and took out about 1/4 of the scrubbing process (part of the filtering) and within 3 months most of the town was sick with stomach problems. The garbage collections company is already talking about cutting costs and yet the want to privatise the water we drink as well !?” Male, 18-30, Labor

“Our water supply is not endless - we MUST get smarter about using it and valuing it. AND anyone who thinks our water supply already doesn't have heaps of sewage, animal droppings, dead animals, rubbish etc - has never gone rowing on Brisbane River!” Female, 31-40, Greens

“It helps to improve water quality in out rivers, saves buidling dams, is cheaper, more sustainble (dams are letting us down), solves the water supply problem, and uses less energy than desalination.” Female, 61+, Greens

“The only objection I've seen is of the "I don't want to drink sewerage" variety - hardly an argument and not what's being proposed. All wate is recycled and the proposal is to speed up/complement the natural cycle by pumping the recycled water into dams from where it will be treated like all the water there. What's not to like about that? They could recycle it to potable water standard and pipe it straight to my tap for all the problems I see with it. It's more energy efficient than desalination and apart from some pipes and pumps to move it from the recyling plants to the dams the infrastructure is largely already in place. Who cares where the water starts as long as what comes out of the tap is to the required standard? This pandering to the fearful and ignorant and calling it democracy is a cowardly abdication of government's responsibility to provide such a basic service.” Male, 41-50, Labor (Liberal last election)

“nothing. i am a microbiologist. i know the truth.” Male, 31-40, Labor

“If the same clowns as have ruined Qld Health and the electricity grid are in charge of purefying the water.” Male, 51-60, Independent

“Because I think we need a vigorous public education campaign to make sure people actually know the facts about water recycling. As far as I'm concerned there is no "No" case they have no facts whatsoever behind them. An small, ill-informed electorate (Toowoomba) should not decide for the wider community something of this importance.” Male, 18-30, Greens.

“N/A If you look at the demographics of the people in Toowoomba it is obviopus that they would not support recycling. they are of that generation. I know my sister lives there and she voted no yet she is quite hgappy to drink my tank water which is probably polluted by bird shit and dead lizards” Male, 61+, Labor

“The toowoomba residents now have bee nrightly portraid as ignorant hics” Male, 31-40, Greens

“The Toowoomba vote was not handled well by the 'yes' proponents in that they appeared arrogant and the perception to the community was 'we know best, take it or leave it'. The community did not like it being shoved down their throats.” Male, 41-50, Liberal

“The residents of Toowoomba were undoubtedly influenced by the prior political rhetoric of Premier Beattie. His government is on record as recently as late 2004 stating the Toowoomba has reserves that would last to at least 2015. A few weeks ago using recycled water in Wivenhoe would only be an "armageddon" solution. Is it any wonder that residents of Toowoomba were lead to believe that use of recyled water was unnecessary!!” Male, 41-50, Liberal

Posted by Graham at 11:53 AM | Comments (30)