After months of speculation, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced Queenslanders will head to the polls on November 25.
Griffith University will look beyond the slogans, blame-games and promises to provide voters with the insights they need to be informed and active participants in the state election.
Griffith experts will draw on their vast experience to contribute to a dedicated website, with written analysis and interactive material including podcasts.
“We have deep cross-disciplinary expertise and a forty year tradition of being engaged in understanding Queensland politics and electorates,” said Professor Anne Tiernan, Dean (Engagement) with the Griffith Business School and Director of the Policy Innovation Hub.
“Expert researchers from across the University’s four academic groups and five campuses are involved as analysts in Griffith’s coverage of the 2017 campaign.
“They study political culture and work very closely with the Government in a number of key delivery areas including, among others, education, health, law and justice and transport and infrastructure. We’re pairing specific domain expertise with political scientists, journalists and historians of the Queensland Parliament. Our team has decades of experience and can offer comparative insights into issues at different levels of analysis, including what’s going on in individual electorate contests.”
Our independent expertise will be underpinned by big data analytics, mining social media to provide insights and profiles of various key electorates. The Griffith team has identified ‘Twenty Seats to Watch’. With telephone polling proving increasingly unreliable, this will allow university experts to tap into voters’ real thoughts through a system similar to what was used in the last US presidential election.
“Queensland is always volatile, but at the moment it is particularly so,” said Professor Tiernan.
“We’re seeing cost of living pressures, wage stagnation – how this will all play out remains to be seen.”
Policy issues that may prove crucial in coming weeks include employment – particularly in regional Queensland. Expect lots of controversy around Adani – energy pricing, natural disaster funding, the digital divide, leadership, integrity and accountability.
“Ultimately, the experts at Griffith University live in Queensland too. This election affects all of us,” said Professor Tiernan.
Visit Griffith University’s dedicated State Election page here.