There have been persistent rumours last night and this morning that Queensland Premier Campbell Newman will cut his holiday short today to come back and call the Queensland state election.
Most reports have suggested that the election will be called for the 31st of January, but it seems possible that Newman has left it too late to call an election for that date, and the earliest viable date is the 7th of February.
In the meantime, you can visit the complete guide to the Queensland election, including guides to all eighty-nine races, and discuss today’s news in the thread below.
Your right Ben up to yesterday it was thought that the election would be held 14th Feb or the 21st Feb. The meeting yesterday seems to have been about trying to push it closer. The polls are the best in awhile (Morgan and Australian) but there is this growing 17% in the conservative minor block that would be worrying them. Particularly up here which by default is a first past the post system. The only thing that seems to be occurring is the Palmer vote dropping so its hard to know where the rest of this vote is going. It is noticeable that Palmer has most Gold Coast seats covered which would be a worry for the LNP.
Are there any Queensland seats on which the Greens would be likely to focus? Is there any prospect of them even being vaguely competitive on a 2CP basis?
Calling an election around Australia Day while people are still on holidays tends to be regarded by many people as annoying and unAustralian
And the election has been called for the 31st of January:
http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2015/01/06/queenslanders-to-vote-on-january-31.html
Typical of Newman this election has not taken into account the difficulties foe ECQ staff of arranging polling booths for an election after schools have closed for year and before school opens for 2015. / Lets hope the keys for the hundreds of polling booths in One Teacher Schools across the state can be found.
For Example can they find Principal for Mackenzie River SS or Gunpowder SS. He/She may be in Nepal or Fiji. Never mind it is only 100 KM to Dingo or 120Km to Nebo. ECQ Public Servants can be left to sort out.
Next problem for ECQ which they probably have addressed will be running an election for the first time without a Government Store. NO doubt the additional cost of this will be hidden from public view just as the additional cost to schools of purchasing educational requisites without the benefgit of centralised purchasing has been hidden from view. The hundreds of staff that Newman sacked within hours of taking office at SDS will not be there to help distribute ballot boxes etc etc etc.
The Cost of Newman’s insistence on certainty could be an election fiasco similar to WA Senate election. Holding an election in Wettest Month of year is the type of incompetence that one would expect from someone with no knowledge if Queensland. I guess that is Newman.
We have had enough of CAN DO. Glad we have an election.
adrianbw Brisbane central and Indooroopilly are probably the Greens best hope. Moggil has also been a fairlly good seat for the greens.
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/qld/2012/guide/indo.htm
The Qld ALP leader said on ABC radio today that she was ready to go and Pauline Hansen said she did not need more time to campaign as she has been campaigning for 18 years.
The NLP will win but will loose lots of “oncer” (one term) MP’s with the seats going to the ALP.
Doug – They must have very long holidays in QLD given that most start around 25 Dec. Perhaps that is the problem with QLD – to much free time.
The great majority of Queenslander’s like rest of Australians get very similar holidays. School’s have a few more weeks. School Teachers go back to work on 22 Jan and school kids on 27 Jan. SO strictly speaking the election is out of school hols.But to run an election requires details of polling places to be advertised and my gut feeling is that ECQ will not know which school they have access to when advertisements have to be placed. I suspect that ECQ staff will have had their holidays cancelled but like their jobs they will not have to worry about their holidays. Will Newman (or a new ALP government ) Pay for lost holiday deposits by ECQ staff. or will they just say tough luck..
To run a successful ,election requires Electoral staff to be trained.
The majority of Officers in Charge and Issuing Officers in country electoral booths are holidaying teachers. There have been changes to Electoral Act since the 2012 election eg ID now required. Therefore Issuing Officers and OIC will need re-training. ECQ Senior Officers will be tearing their hair out.
Of course they should be able to hold an election at any time but Newman has closed Government Printer and private printers are not able to be dictated to in the same way as GO-PRINT could. Hopefully the Ballot Papers will not go astray. Hopefulkly teh ROlls can be printed and distributed in time
If ECQ planning is as good as Newman’s planning we are in for a hum dinger of Court of Disputed Return adjudicated decisions. Personally I trust ECQ staff who are professionals but they are not miracle workers.
If a cyclone crosses the coast in late January we could have a cancelled election.Tully for example gets an average rainfall in January of 300 mm. IT is likely that part of state will get 1500 mm of rain in January.Roads will be closed and I can not see Campbell Newman being keen on hiring aircraft to drop off ballot papers let alone helicopters to pick them up from isolated areas in Country Queensland.
In effect It is my contention that Newman has not listened to ECQ Senior Officers just as he did not listen to Senior Public Servants when he took office. His desire to reduce the number of public servants was his only goal and any efforts to do a cost benefit analysis were met with DO AS I SAY.
IT will not be a good look for Campbell Newman with kids sitting on floor because he closed the Government Store that was responsible for distribution of furniture. Hopefully the Courier Mail will not hold back and will show show the kids in their bare classrooms like children in 1960’s Tanganyika.
One week later would eliminate all but the Cyclone problem. Whilst we get cyclones November to April their incidence is like a Bell Graph highest in January> on Average we get 4.7 a year so the odds are we will have cyclone in January.
Andrew Jackson
Adrian – I had in mind school holidays – lots of people take the last week around australia Day off for time with the kids even if they had worked during January
Doug – you weren’t to know when you made your original comment that the election was later called for 31 Jan 15 but your Australia Day comment was only speculation too. Anyhow school children don’t vote and parents can pre poll vote (very popular in Victoria last election) or postal vote anyway if away from their electorates.
In my view Australia Day is actually on 01 Jan 1901 when the nation was formed (federation) and we have a holiday then for NYD. 26 Jan 1788 is only Sydney Convict Settlement Day or Cronulla Riot Day to be more current.
Adrian
Queensland Public Holiday for Australia Day is Monday 26th January 2015. Throwing your view about when you think Australia day should be only confuses question further. Election is Saturday following Australia Day. IN fact we are all wasting our time talking about when election should have been it will be held on 31 Jan 2015. WE may as well live with 31 January as argue over it.
“God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other”.
Adding Pre polling into issue confuses the question more. Pre Polls are not generally held in schools. Any Premier taking advice from Public Servants would have found that schools would generally be using their facilities during pre-poll times. Pre polls I have attended in both Qld and Victoria are held in halls (Stones Corner 2012), Court Houses (Geelong 2009? Redcliffe 2014 and Holland Park 2009) or vacant shops (Caboolture 2010, Stafford 2014)
Andrew Jackson
Andrew – I agree speculation about election dates should be ignored but the press is obsessed with it and that confuses the masses too. Doug originally raise the speculation about an election date around 26 Jan not me.
Halls and schools are used in pre polling and it depends what is available in each electorate. In smaller electorates there is usually one pre poll place but I imagine in sprawling QLD there would need to be a few per electorate.
In my state electorate of Albert Park Vic schools, town halls and council buildings are mostly used. Church hall used to be used but most churches in my area have closed due to lack of interest but this would not be the case in QLD I imagine. Anyhow there is always a postal vote that can be mailed to an address of your choice. Anyhow nothing will change now and even at other times of the year voters will often be away from home or overseas with work or holidays. That life.
What absolute crap he goes on about saying Queenslanders don’t deserve uncertainty!!! If he truly believed that he would have legislated for fixed terms. Labor even supported introducing fixed four year terms
Victoria has a fixed term and a fixed date elections at the end of November and it works fine. It would be good if we could standardize local, state and federal elections on the same day/year using postal voting for all. Attendance voting is from the 19th century not the 21st century.
Attendance voting is a great expression of community – people doing things in public together – sausage sizzles and community markets – public expression of democratic participation. Love it
Ho Hum community (what ever that is) and BBQ – all good ALP stuff.
Most people I see lining up at attendance voting don’t even talk to each other and are often staring blankly at a HTV card. At home with postal voting a voter can check candidate websites and perhaps debate the issue within the household if desired too.
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