Cruisey Can Do must do better in Queensland election.

Queenslanders currently hate the ALP – the party brand is the major theme that comes up when you ask how they will vote – but the LNP is not seen as safe or inoffensive.

That is one reason that Bob Katter's Australia Party is polling so well. He is an alternative to Labor that doesn't have some of the defects the LNP does.

On our figures Katter is getting a state-wide vote somewhere around 13%, more or less level with the Greens. This is not as good as One Nation's 22.7% in 1998, but better than it was doing at this stage.

The vote is between six and ten percent in south east metropolitan areas, but tops out around 30% on the Darling Downs, and is high in the country generally, and around Townsville.

Katter has pulled voters from both Labor and Liberals. 32% of his supporters say they voted Labor last election, and 42% LNP.

A major issue associated with voting for Katter, and the reason he does so well on the Downs, is opposition to coal seam gas. He opposes the industry, and his supporters believe him, while they don't believe the LNP and their leader Campbell Newman.

A vote for Katter can therefore be a vote against the government, against coal seam gas, and a warning to Newman, which could be a very attractive proposition as the election draws closer in a seat like Kingaroy where the sitting member, independent Dot Pratt, is retiring.

Newman is becoming a significant negative for the LNP. He was originally enthusiastically embraced by voters, but this enthusiasm is waning. He is still preferred premier to Bligh (55% to 34% on our figures), but his approval and disapproval ratings tie at 42%.

This is undoubtedly the result of negative ALP campaigning, as well as voters looking more closely at the government-in-waiting.

It is also the result of campaign mistakes by Newman and the LNP reviving memories of past LNP and Coalition incompetence. The only reason Labor has stayed in power so long in Queensland, is that the only bigger joke in state politics than the government has been the opposition.

One mistake that has cost Newman dearly is the failure to disclose his pecuniary interests when the ALP made an issue of it. This has created a perception that he is shady, doing deals to favour his wife's family, and providing an associative link to National Party corruption from the 70s and 80s.

Newman's unconventional position as non-parliamentary leader of a parliamentary party is also becoming an issue.