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Feb 7

Final Newspoll has 50 percent primary vote and 59 percent two party preferred for Labor.

From ABC site: listen to leaders' debate lunchtime yesterday.

RealMedia 28k+ | WinMedia 28k+

Here is ABC coverage page

Pasted this from Brisbane local radio's page:

Live coverage of election night in Real Media format or Windows media format - from 6pm AEST (0800 UTC/GMT) on Saturday February 7.

And the QEC will be updating regularly.

Feb 6

(Same) reader sends info on How to Vote cards

Courier Mail poll: 58 to 42. Final Newspoll in Oz tomorrow presumably

Feb 4

A reader sent this analysis, which includes a prediction of 47 seat majority - even bigger than last time.

And Poll Bludger predicts Labor winning 65 seats.

Feb 2

Courier Mail poll of 1200 Queenslanders in - at a glance - 4 seats, so with an average of 300 respondents per seat, add salt to their individual seat calls. 

Feb 1

Here's AFR column on Queensland election

Jan 31

In today's Financial Review [subscriber only; will post next week], on the Antony Green and John Cherry tete a tete at Crikey re all those exhausting preferences in Queensland in 2001.

A sub-editor confusingly changed this sentence: 

"Green writes that if Queensland used CPV, Beattie’s current majority would shrink by eight, and Springborg’s required swing would only be 6.8 percent" 

to 

"Green writes that if Queensland uses CPV, Beattie's majority will shrink by eight, and Springborg's required swing will only be 6.8per cent." [My italics]

It's the little things, but Queensland won't, of course, use CPV. Will fix it when posting here.

Jan 29

Antony Green responds to my prediction

Jan 28

This analysis [PDF} of 2001 election at the Qld Electoral Commission is a good read, especially on Optional Preferential Voting (OPV) stuff discussed by Cherry and Green at Crikey a couple of weeks ago. Am writing for this weekend AFR's "Lies and Statistics" on the topic.

PS. Still like my prediction.

Jan 24

Courier Mail poll says 59 to 41

Jan 23

Predictions: others' and mine

Yesterday's Newspoll (published in Oz) says 58 to 42. [PDF in new window]

Jan 21

I've put Malcolm Mackerras's Australian article together with his pendulum, so you can read them as they originally appeared in hard copy. Malcolm is mandatory before any election.

January 20

Courier Mail: double the number of Green candidates compared with 2001. Bad news for Labor.

January 17

Courier Mail poll says 55 to 45

January 16

Morgan's latest 61 to 39

Update: Antony Green buys into and elaborates on John Cherry at Crikey (see below). 

Qld Democrat Senator John Cherry over at Crikey explains why, in Queensland's optional preferential voting system (which it shares with NSW) the high leakage of conservative primary votes away from the Nationals to One Nation at the 2001 state election overstates Labor's apparent seat margins today - assuming the polls are right in showing collapsed ON support. In addition, a larger Green vote next month than three years ago will similarly disadvantage Labor.

Cherry has calculated more realistic margins.

But you could also look at it like this:

This was the election result in 2001

which, after preferences, was about 60: 40, with 66 seats to Labor, fifteen to the Coalition, 5 Independents and three One Nation. 

The latest Newspoll, from December 2003, says this:

For argument's sake, let's assume the election result comes in something like that.

The Coalition's primary vote has increased substantially, mainly at the expense of One Nation.

Now, two party preferred is a slightly dodgy figure in optional preferential voting, especially in Qld recently, with so many seats in which the final count wasn't straight Labor v Coalition. But it's still a useful tool.

Beattie's primary vote lead in 2001 rounded to 20 percent. That was also his two party preferred lead. Imagining the numbers come in something like that Newspoll above, his primary lead has been almost halved. 

But even allowing for more exhausting Green votes and fewer exhausting One Nation ones, the preferences of those minor party numbers are more favourable to Labor than the 2001 ones were.

The above primary votes might pan out to 56 to 44 two party preferred, a swing of four percent to the Coalition. Plot that the Malcolm pendulum [PDF!] and you get Beattie's majority cut to 25.

That sounds realistic. Actually, I reckon Beattie's primary vote is going to hold, and if I had to put money on it, I'd say something like a 31 seat majority for the Labor government.

A table!

Resurrected from a few months ago and touched up, this rather clumsily shows voting records for four Labor premiers who appear to be on similar electoral journeys - elected by the slimmest majority [blue sqares] and re-elected in landslides [pink squares].

Only Bob Carr has moved to the next stage - the second landslide re-election [orange]. In pure numbers, Carr's record is the least impressive and Peter Beattie's is the most, and that's without considering Queensland's usual antipathy towards the ALP.

Also on Queensland: Antony Green at ABC is up, with pendulum, seat by seat etc.

January 14

Mr Beattie goes to government house

See Queensland Newspolls since 2001

Here's Mackerras pendulum [PDF]. Malcolm is in today's Australian, but no link. As always, choc full of predictions - such as a seven percent two party preferred swing to the Coalition, cutting Beattie's majority from 43 to 15 (with 53 to 47 of 2pp vote). 

Front page Oz story repeatedly refers to 21 seat majority, understating it by 50%. (Twenty one is the number of seats required to pass from Labor to Coalition to wipe out the government's majority.)

Antony Green is in the SMH, but no link there either.

ABC website is slow on the uptake.

But a mysterious new entity The Poll Bludger has a seat by seat analysis.

Back here, Queensland goodies will appear in the next couple of days.