QLD: Qld Labor Party to lose parliamentary majority - poll
21 Mar 2009 3:45 AM
BERISBANE, March 21 AAP - The Queensland Labor Party will lose its massive parliamentary majority, and may even lose government, despite a final campaign surge against conservative leader Lawrence Springborg, according to a poll.
The final Newspoll of the campaign, conducted for The Weekend Australian, shows that Premier Anna Bligh's three-day blitz of 30 mostly marginal seats has improved Labor's standing in the polls and may yet deliver a fifth term in government.
But Mr Springborg's Liberal National Party, fighting its first election after a merger of the National and Liberal parties last year, still maintains a slender lead.
The poll puts Labor behind in the two-party-preferred vote by just 49.9 per cent to 50.1 per cent.
If the five-percentage-point swing since the last election was replicated uniformly across Queensland, Labor would lose 13 of the seats it is notionally deemed to hold after a recent redistribution.
On that basis, Ms Bligh would be left with a five-seat majority in parliament.
In the all-important primary vote, given Queensland's optional preferential voting system, the LNP is ahead 42.1 per cent to Labor's 41.7 per cent.
Ms Bligh has not lost any personal support among voters as the undecided have made up their minds, but Mr Springborg has been savaged in Newspolls over the past 10 days.
The LNP leader's satisfaction rating has dropped five percentage points to 39 per cent, and his dissatisfaction rating has jumped an extraordinary 10 percentage points.
In the preferred premier stakes, uncommitted voters have rallied behind Ms Bligh, whose support has jumped five points to 53 per cent, while Mr Springborg has dipped slightly to 33 per cent.
A win for Ms Bligh would be Labor's fifth in a row, and LNP leader Lawrence Springborg's third straight loss.
However, Labor and the LNP may need the help of independents to govern - for the third time in 13 years - if a close vote results in a hung parliament.
Ms Bligh says she's always expected the election to go down to the wire.
Mr Springborg says he believes voters have warmed to the merged conservative party and want an end to what he calls Labor's 11 wasted years in power.
The election was called six months early after Ms Bligh said the state needed stability and certainty to see Queensland through the economic downturn.
Labor has promised to create 100,000 jobs over the next term, and has urged a vote against the LNP over its plan to cut $1 billion a year from the public service.
The LNP has accused Labor of wasting money during the mining boom and sending the state $74 billion into debt, without a plan to put the budget back in surplus.
One Nation founder Pauline Hanson, who is running as an independent in Beaudesert, says it will be her last political tilt if she loses.
