Yahoo News...
The Queensland premier is holding a secret cabinet meeting in Brisbane as another poll shows he's on the nose with voters.
Campbell Newman sits down with his cabinet team every Monday at the executive building in inner-city Brisbane, and reporters have always been advised when the meeting is to be moved elsewhere.
But a spokeswoman for Mr Newman on Monday refused to tell journalists where the pow wow was being held, or why it was moved.
The secret appeared to be out a short time later, when press gallery reporters tweeted pictures of the West End dance studio where Mr Newman and his team were believed to be located.
On Monday, the third poll in a week showed Mr Newman's popularity is plummeting as he sheds public sector jobs and cuts funding for some services.
Five months after the Liberal National Party's (LNP) landslide win, a Galaxy Poll for The Courier-Mail shows 49 per cent of voters are dissatisfied with his performance.
That compares to 19 per cent in May.
The poll, taken last week and published on Monday, shows just 39 per cent of voters believe Mr Newman has lived up to expectations, down from 60 per cent a few months ago.
A further 21 per cent rated his efforts as worse than expected.
About a quarter of poll respondents who preferred Mr Newman as premier in the previous poll, switched to Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk or were uncommitted.
On a two-party preferred basis, support for the LNP fell to 60 per cent against Labor's 40 per cent - a seven-point swing to the opposition in three months.
The poll comes a fortnight out from the Newman government's first budget, which is expected to detail the full extent of public sector job cuts.
The government has warned the final number could be as high as 20,000.
The public sector union Together says the government is clearly trying to avoid public scrutiny.
"I've never seen a government try to hide so much from so many," the union's state secretary Alex Scott told AAP.
"They won't allow questions at community cabinet meetings, there's little consultation with new legislation and now they're hiding their cabinet meetings."
He said the poll results showed how Queenslanders' unhappiness about the job cuts.
Some reporters were finally let into the meeting and found it was greatly expanded, involving public service directors-general and chiefs of staff.
The ABC reported the expanded meeting was part of a two-day strategy conference.
The government later said the two-day meeting began on Sunday, before the latest Galaxy poll was published.
Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk said holding a cabinet meeting at a secret location was unprecedented.
She said Queenslanders were finally seeing the "real Campbell Newman".
"I think over the coming months, and especially when we see the budget, a lot of people are going to feel disappointed, this was not the man they voted for," she told reporters.
Dave R.
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