It’s long been assumed the Queensland election of October 26 — to elect the state’s 58th (and second fixed, four-year) Parliament — would be a tough ask for a tired-looking Labor government seeking a rare fourth term.
Having won the 2020 COVID-19 election with primary and two-party-preferred swings to it — and with a net gain in seats — Labor was always likely to suffer a major correction in 2024.
But few then could have anticipated just how large that correction would be. A Freshwater Strategy poll, the most recently released, has pegged Labor’s primary vote at just 30% (down 9.6 points from 2020). The Liberal-National Party (LNP) opposition is on 43% (up 7.1%), the Greens (poised to seize between two and five seats in inner Brisbane) on 12% (up 2.5%), Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party (PHON) on 8% (up 0.9%) and others on 7% (up 1.3%).
Labor, with just 44% of the two-party-preferred (2PP) vote, trails the LNP, on 56%, by 12 points. This represents a 9.2% swing since 2020. It would see Labor lose 22 seats (17 in the regions and five in Greater Brisbane) to the LNP, and at least two more in inner Brisbane to the Greens.
The 93-seat Queensland Parliament would then be home to just 27 Labor MPs. The LNP would easily form government with 57 seats. The Greens and Katter’s Australian Party would each have four, and there would be one independent. For the first time in a decade, this election might see PHON with no representation.
So what went wrong for Labor?
Having been largely untroubled by the moderate and softly spoken LNP leader David Crisafulli throughout 2021, Labor suffered the first of a series of crises in early 2022 when integrity questions were asked of a Palaszczuk government accused of being too close to lobbyists and trade unions.
The LNP then launched a personal assault on the then premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk. She was accused of being a “part-time” and “red carpet” premier more interested in attending gala events than managing Queensland. In a state where the political culture esteems strong leaders but resents pampered “elites”, the LNP attacks were astonishingly successful.
By 2023, cost of living and youth crime crises only further burdened a premier hampered by hospital ramping and a seemingly shambolic rollout of Olympic Games infrastructure. By December 2023, a Resolve Strategic poll had found Palaszczuk — whose “next-door-neighbour” humility was once Labor’s best asset — trailing Crisafulli as preferred premier, 34% to 39%. Worse, a YouGov poll found Palaszczuk suffered a net approval rating of minus 20. Crisafulli enjoyed a plus-11-point position.
It was therefore inevitable the then deputy premier, Steven Miles — a PhD-qualified trade unionist from the Left now presenting as humble hubby and “daggy dad” — should topple (with support from Left-aligned unions) Palaszczuk last December.
While Miles’ honeymoon allowed Labor to briefly reset its fortunes — and, according to a UComms poll, attract 50% of the two-party-preferred vote — the polls since February have been consistent in their forecast of a looming Labor decimation.
Despite this, nobody could accuse Miles or his government of giving up the ghost. Despite conceding an LNP victory was the “most likely” outcome, Miles has thrown everything into his bid for reelection. His promises include 50 cent public transport fares as part of a generous state budget (now matched by the LNP), a crackdown on youth crime, ambitious carbon emission and clean energy targets, state-owned electricity retailers and petrol stations, and even free lunches for all state primary school children.
By contrast, the LNP — enjoying a dream run since early 2022 and now campaigning heavily on youth crime and health — has met its first hurdles in recent weeks.
First, many news media outlets, including conservative ones, are demanding Crisafulli provide much more policy detail. After long-trumpeting an “adult crime, adult time” slogan, for example, the LNP has only recently released vague details of an early intervention program to address youth crime.
Second — and potentially far more damaging — is the hand grenade Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) leader Robbie Katter lobbed at the LNP’s feet last week. Some time during the next Parliament, Katter says, KAP will introduce a private member’s bill to repeal Labor’s popular 2018 reforms that removed abortion from the state’s criminal code.
While Crisafulli has ruled out any change to abortion law, there are fears conservative LNP MPs, if granted a “conscience vote”, could support Katter’s bill and recriminalise abortion. Such a move would hardly thwart LNP gains in the regions, but it could prevent Crisafulli from making the necessary inroads into more progressive Brisbane seats.
While an LNP state victory is all but certain, federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton can take little comfort from a local Labor loss. In short, Queensland isn’t Australia, and Australia isn’t Queensland. Labor, holding just four of the state’s 30 federal seats north of the Tweed, has little to lose. Even a 10-point swing to the state LNP in Queensland means little in terms of the 6.3% swing Dutton needs nationally to form majority government next May.
Facing certain defeat, Labor’s strategy is now to “save the furniture” in Greater Brisbane, including its seat of Waterford, held by high-profile Health Minister Shannon Fentiman, who could easily become Labor’s next leader. If Labor holds much of Brisbane, a relatively inexperienced LNP frontbench still burdened by the 2032 Olympics, the cost of living and youth crime will likely find its first term hard going.
Another single-term LNP government, like Campbell Newman’s between 2012 and 2015, is therefore hardly out of the question.
This piece was first published in The Conversation.
