This was a time for a change election. Generally, when the word “change” is present in responses in our surveys it is closely twinned with “climate”. This was still the case in questions about direction and general issues and election issues, but when we asked about final voting intentions “change” was most closely linked to “time”. David Crisafulli’s small target strategy was all about trying to cement this feeling in voters’ minds while minimising opportunities for the government to focus on his policies.
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We now know that the LNP won the state election with a two-party preferred vote of 54% and a swing to it of 7% (pending the final counts from the Queensland Electoral Commission). External polls from September showed a slightly higher LNP result, which declined as the election approached, but, with the exception of a Courier Mail exit poll on October 15, which put the result at 58% to the LNP, the rest were within the margin of error of the actual result.
We rely on these polls to weight our samples, so our polls can’t predict the gross figures, but they do give a quantitative as well as a qualitative insight into what happened along the way.
For example, our normalised samples show David Crisafulli losing ground during the campaign, as reflected in his personal vote, but this barely affected the election outcome. His approval dropped from a net -1% to -10% amongst our sample while Steven Miles improved his net approval from -23% to -16%. Despite the relative shift in their approvals, Crisafulli was still more popular at the end of the election, which helped achieve the win.
In some ways this election was a two-horse race where the fight was for who would come second last, with both being viewed negatively on balance on key measures. The former government moved from a net -32% who thought they deserved to be re-elected to net -24% – an 8 percentage point turnaround, but still behind the then opposition who started with net -6% and ended with net -7%. Yes, the LNP was ahead, but they were still underwater.
During the course of the campaign the range of issues engaging voters shrank. Energy and water, for example, were central issues in the first poll, but had disappeared in the second. The economy and debt were also less important towards the end, although these are key LNP and Nationalist concerns. Crime became the dominant reason to vote LNP, but it seemed to symbolise a cluster of issues like cost of living and infrastructure. Even if they weren’t mentioned by all respondents there were sufficient respondents lumping them together to suggest they were psychologically connected.
The most interesting issue was abortion. It was present in the first poll, but almost entirely from the right-to-life perspective, and was mentioned by only 9 people or 5%. In our adjusted second sample it was mentioned 14 times by 13 people, or around 20% of the sample.
However, most of those who mentioned it were voting as they normally do, while there were two voters who claimed to be swinging voters who each went in different directions, and one who moved from Greens to LNP. What this means is that the issue tended to intensify pre-existing voting intentions rather than changing them.
Of course we do not have a lot of younger female respondents, and it may have had an effect there, and might explain the smaller swings away from the government in the suburban seats.
Where the issue did make a difference was in perceptions of David Crisafulli. His answers to the abortion question appeared to be evasive, even to his own supporters, and this might partly explain the deterioration in his personal standing.
David Crisafulli is now the premier, but according to our voting panels he is on P plates. He needs to prove to voters, particularly the minor party Nationalists who seem to have swung their support hardest behind him, that he is honourable and will return a sense of control to the state.
1. Perceptions of the direction of the state were virtually unchanged, although sentiment was marginally less strongly negative with the percentage of those who “strongly agreed” halving, but largely shifting to the “agree” category to give a net agree of -28% versus -27% previously
2. Steven Miles improved his approval over the course of the campaign from a net approval of -23% to -16%. There was a small improvement in his approval from 33% to 35%, with total disapproval down from 56% to 51%
3. David Crisafulli’s approval dropped over the course of the campaign from net -1% to -10%. This was an effect of a decrease in his approval which went to the neutral “Neither approve nor disapprove” category. Disapproval only increased one point from 39% to 40%, although there were proportionately more “strongly disapprove” compared to “approve”.
4. Preferred premier also moved slightly against Crisafulli with those preferring him decreasing from 55% to 52%, but all of these moved to “Unsure” rather than across to Miles.
5. There was also a change in the degree to which respondents thought the government deserved to be re-elected from -32% net to -24%. This was driven by fewer people disagreeing while those who were neutral “Neither agree nor disagree” doubled from 8% to 16%.
6. The desire to elect the opposition was almost unchanged over the course of the campaign. It started with a net -6% and ended with -7% net. Total agree was down 3 percentage points from 39% to 36% and total disagree by 2 percentage point from 45% to 43% with neutral and unsure both increasing.
7. The issues that voters saw having importance narrowed between the first and second poll. Energy and water were both issues in the first poll that had almost completely disappeared in the second. The same applies to housing.
8. Issues were more strongly associated with the groups that were reacting to them. So, while cost of living started off as a contested concern between Labor and LNP, by the election it was much more strongly associated with LNP. Crime remained a central issue.
9. General issues facing the state also moved closer to election issues in the second poll so that the Leximancer visualisation was virtually identical for both, suggesting that voters were allowing the campaigns to modify their preferences.
10. One issue grew in importance – abortion. In our first sample there were 7 mentions, generally from pro-life respondents. In the second sample there were 47 mentions in the entire sample, and 14 in the sample adjusted for political intentions. Many of these mentions were by the same people, so they don’t amount to a statistically significant sample. However, only a couple appeared to have changed their usual voting habits as a result. For LNP voters it was often a case of thinking David Crisafulli could have better handled the issue when it was mentioned. Our samples are low in young women, so the effect of the issue may be understated in our research, but then young women are also the least likely to vote LNP so it may in the end have made little difference even with a more complete sample.
11. This was the first election for a long time when climate change was not a significant issue, apart from for Greens voters.
12. While the general economy was an issue at the beginning of the election this had decreased in significance by the end and was most heavily associated with LNP voters.
13. Health also drifted more into the LNP part of the graph, but infrastructure remained as a generally shared concern.
14. Crime remained a central issue and was connected to cost of living, and through that to debt, and a concern that Labor had lost control. It was also connected to infrastructure. It may be that the LNP’s almost complete concentration on crime meant that it served as a proxy in the minds of voters for a cluster of issues which were still concerns, just not being fought over as headline issues.