Qlders cold-called on privatisation plans

Hundreds of thousands of Queenslanders can expect a call at home asking if they want to join a union campaign against privatisation.

The public service union Together has commissioned automated calls, which ask people whether they support selling off state government services - a key recommendation of the Costello report.

Brisbane-based Liberal National Party seats were targeted on Saturday.

Of the 50,000 people who responded, 85 per cent said they were against the privatisation of services.

Together Secretary Alex Scott said thousands also said yes when asked if they wanted to join a campaign to stop privatisation, but he didn't have an exact number.

The government has dismissed the survey as push-polling - a marketing ploy used to influence the views of respondents under the guise of a survey.

ReachTEL was commissioned by the union to conduct the calls.

It told AAP the data was not subject to the usual rigorous quality controls, and no statistically accurate conclusions could be drawn.

Mr Scott said that over the next week another 300,000 people would be called, and the work will continue until every electorate is surveyed.

Only those on the Do Not Call register won't be bothered.

"We need the community to have a strong say, to get involved, to make sure that every Queensland household has an opportunity to get up and stand up," he said.

Mr Scott admitted the data wasn't "scientifically demographically balanced".

But he insisted it was a good gauge of public opinion.

The call campaign will cost $200,000.

Treasurer Tim Nicholls said the Together union's "dirty" tactics had been exposed by the polling company it had commissioned.

"It's patently clear the polling company was only commissioned to gauge interest in political campaigns conducted by the union," he said in a statement.

"As such, no demographic questions were asked and the data was not subjected to the rigorous quality control that commissioned ReachTEL polls are put through.

"ReachTEL itself says it is statistically inaccurate to draw any conclusions from the data provided to the Together Union."

He said the government had made it very clear it would not sell government businesses without an election mandate.

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