Queenslanders are voting on Saturday 26 October.
The Labor government, led by Steven Miles, is campaigning to win a fourth term. The Liberal National party opposition, under David Crisafulli, is leading in the polls after a campaign that has focused on law and order issues.
What is the state of play for Labor, the LNP and minor parties?
There are 93 seats in the Queensland parliament.
Labor holds 51 seats and could afford to lose four and still keep a majority.
The LNP has 35 seats. The opposition needs to gain 12 more to form a majority government.
On the crossbench there are four Katter’s Australia party MPs (including one who defected from One Nation), two Greens and one independent.
Who are the leaders – Steven Miles and David Crisafulli?
Steven Miles became Queensland’s premier in December after the retirement of Annastacia Palaszczuk, who won three elections. Miles, a former environment and health minister, has the backing of the United Workers Union and the Together trade union.
The LNP leader, David Crisafulli, is a former journalist and Townsville councillor who was also local government minister during the Newman government. He now represents the Gold Coast seat of Broadwater. He has refocused the LNP after a poor showing at the 2020 election and has led a disciplined opposition.
Which political parties are contesting?
Four parties are contesting all 93 seats: Labor, the LNP, the Greens and One Nation.
Katter’s Australia party is focusing its campaign on north and central Queensland. It is running in only 11 seats but could be the most successful of the minor parties. It is tipped to hold its four seats and could pick up more.
The resuscitated Family First party is running candidates in 59 electorates; Legalise Cannabis has 29 candidates; and the Animal Justice party has 12.
There are 28 independents.
And the smallest party in the contest, the Libertarian party, is contesting just four seats. One of its candidates has been campaigning in a gold Lamborghini.
What do the polls say?
Every poll predicts an LNP win. But in Queensland it’s often more complicated than that.
The most recent polls, during the last week of the campaign, show Labor and Steven Miles had closed the gap slightly, particularly in Brisbane, and could manage to save some seats that had been under threat.
What we do know about Queensland is that the state is not one big uniform political constituency. The bush often swings in the opposite direction to the city. Townsville doesn’t vote like Toowong. Cairns shares some similarities with Carina, even though they’re 1,500km apart.
While an LNP majority remains the most likely scenario, there are several others – including the KAP picking up Labor seats in north Queensland – that could leave the opposition short of a majority.
The seats and candidates to watch
Three seats in the city of Townsville – Thuringowa, Mundingburra and Townsville – are where most observers will look first. A lot of strategists think these seats, all held by Labor, will be among the first to fall. Big swings in Townsville to the LNP are an indication the party is headed for a majority. Anything else, including the possibility of conservative vote being split with the Katters, and the end result could be more complicated.
Farther north, Barron River, on the outskirts of Cairns, is a traditional bellwether.
Labor has held both Mackay and Rockhampton for a century. Both sides believe these seats could be lost on Saturday night. In Rockhampton, former mayor (and former Labor member) Margaret Strelow is a threat as an independent.
Keppel, based around Yeppoon, is One Nation’s primary target and is being contested by Pauline Hanson’s protege, James Ashby. Like others seats along the coast of central and north Queensland, the ability of the LNP to pick up seats, amid interest from minor parties and independents, will be key to its ability to win a majority.
Labor holds a number of seats from Brisbane’s northern outskirts to central Queensland – Pumicestone, Caloundra, Nicklin, Hervey Bay and Bundaberg – each on very tight margins. These seats are a legacy of the Covid election in 2020; each with older demographics, dubbed “Palaszczuk’s pensioners”, and strategist expect these to fall to the LNP.
On Brisbane’s northern fringe, Labor seats at Redcliffe and Pine Rivers are thought to be in at risk. To the south, the LNP hopes to win Redlands, Capalaba, Springwood and Macalister.
One of Labor’s star ministers, Meaghan Scanlon, has a tough task to hold her northern Gold Coast seat of Gaven.
Labor’s main hope to pick up a seat is Ipswich West – a traditional heartland seat lost to a huge swing at a March byelection.
In Brisbane’s suburbs, the LNP has hopes of winning Mount Ommaney. Two seats traditionally held by the party that forms government – Aspley and Mansfield – are believed by both major parties to be very close contests. Labor’s hopes in these middle suburbs rely on polling that shows softer swings against the government in the city.
The Greens are hoping to build on their success at the 2022 federal election and it has focused its door-knocking on attempts to win Cooper, McConnel, Greenslopes and Miller. While they won’t win elsewhere, the Greens are hoping to run second in two LNP-held seats – Moggill and Clayfield. Also watch for swings to the Greens from Labor in the outer suburbs in Inala, Stretton and Woodridge – part of the party’s long game strategy of building support among multicultural communities.
Isn’t Queensland a conservative state?
The most important thing to keep in mind when watching a Queensland election is to leave your political preconceptions behind.
Queenslanders have a tendency to spray their votes around. Areas that consistently vote for the LNP at federal elections have had Labor state MPs for years. Brisbane has had LNP lord mayors for decades, but the city has been safe Labor territory for most of that time at state elections.
The reasons for that are complex, but they do boil down to the complexity of the landscape. Labor has to be more conservative on some issues to maintain support in blue-collar regional areas. The LNP is trying to come across as more progressive on certain issues, to win back long-lost Brisbane city seats.
The need for major parties to campaign to a polarised electorate has given space for the minor parties. The Katters have become the dominant conservative force in north Queensland, and the Greens are on the march in inner-Brisbane.
What are the big policies and campaign promises?
The LNP’s major focus has been law and order; it claims there is a “youth crime crisis” in Queensland, though data shows the rate of juvenile offences is at near-record lows. The opposition’s campaigning on the issue has been successful, and it is a key reason why the party is leading in the polls.
Labor adopted a number of the LNP’s youth crime policies – making bail breaches an offence, and removing the principle of “detention as a last resort” from the Youth Justice Act – during the past four years. The opposition has gone even further, promising to bring in “adult time for adult crime”, bootcamps for at-risk young people who have never committed an offence, and mandatory isolation for children who assault guards in youth detention centres.
Many of Labor’s headline policies are designed to help with the cost of living. They include the very popular 50c public transport fares – which have been a critical component of the party’s fightback in the city. They’re so popular the LNP has agreed to keep them.
Labor is also promising to provide free lunches to schoolchildren – a Greens idea the party panned in 2021 – and re-establish a state-owned power retailer.
What other issues are on voters’ minds?
Abortion rights have become a big issue during campaign. We’ve explained that in more detail here.
The issue is becoming a problem for the LNP in Brisbane, and could help Labor defend seats in middle suburbs, which are targets for the opposition but where the issue is coming up in conversations with door-knockers and pollsters.
Elsewhere the issue has become about Crisafulli’s repeated reliance on campaign lines, rather than giving direct answers to thorny questions.
Ironically, the campaign focus on abortion could do most damage to the Greens. The leftwing party has had a lot of success in Brisbane, where many traditional Labor voters have changed camps. The task of convincing people to cross the threshold is fundamentally tougher when Labor has put progressive social values, such as women’s reproductive rights, at the forefront of its campaign.
