Queensland’s Electoral Future in the Home Straight
By Denis Bright
YouGov Polling released on 19 October shows some improvement in Labor’s run into the home straight in the last week of the Queensland election campaign. The polling was supported by a tolerant Courier Mail editorial containing some criticism of the communication skills of Opposition leader David Crisafulli.
A key feature of the YouGov polling was its identification of the significant regional breakdown of polling trends. The holistic picture of Queensland polling showing a 55-45 percent divide between the LNP and Labor after preferences conceals the electoral currents across a vast state.
There are nineteen Labor-held seats from the 2020 state election from the Premier’s own electorate of Murrumba near Moreton Bay to the tip of Cape York in the state electorate of Cook.
This coastal strip includes Labor heartland seats in Maryborough, Central Queensland, the Mackay District, Greater Townsville and the Cairns Region.
One of the bright spots on this long political corridor is undoubtedly Bruce Saunders MP.
Since 2015 after Queenslanders swung back to Labor after the excesses of the LNP’’s Campbell Newman Government, employment opportunities in Maryborough has been transformed by public investment in rail transport. Even those defective Indian-built trains from the Campbell Newman era have been modified at Maryborough’s Downer Rail workshops.
Regional Queenslanders always warm to affordable public transport investment. Major cities like Maryborough and Toowoomba are currently outside the Brisbane-focused Translink zone. Translink does provide local affordable services within these cities.
For Toowoomba, Translink bus services need to be extended down the range to the Lockyer Valley and onto Brisbane via suburbs in Northside Ipswich and adjacent Brisbane which currently have no public transport services. Should passengers wish to use electrified rail services from Rosewood Station, the Through Bus Service could call there using the existing road network from Laidley across the Little Liverpool Range. Existing commercial bus fares from Toowoomba to Brisbane cost thirty dollars in each direction even with concessional discounts.
Access to Wide Bay urban centers could be improved by Translink services which make Gympie North station a potential transport hub for the first time with bus connections to Noosa, Rainbow Beach, Maryborough and Hervey Bay resorts. Rainbow Beach is one of Queensland’s popular destinations for tours to K’gari (Fraser Island). These centers are not served by frequent Translink services. The bus service from Noosa to the Gympie District (Route 632) stops at Cooran some 31 kilometres south of Gympie and carries many empty seats on most transits. Even a slow bus to Maryborough from Gympie North Station could complete this distance in less than 80 minutes. A Gympie CBD to Rainbow Beach (74 kilomteres) could also service Gympie North Station.
Rail staff at Gympie North Station tell me that patronage has improved since the introduction of 50 cent fares on 5 August 2024 but this connection is not receiving its share of potential patronage. Trains from Nambour station to Brisbane and Ipswich carry a considerable volume of patronage and need to be supported by a shorter electrified three car train shuttle from Gympie North. There is no reason why this shuttle should not be extended from Bundaberg and Maryborough to Nambour to extend the 50 cent fare options across the Wide Bay District with connecting services to those wonderful coastal resorts like Rainbow Beach and Noosa.
During the Goss years, Queensland Rail introduced a most affordable long distance train from Brisbane to Longreach with a mini-bus connection to Winton. This service offered sleeping cars, Motorail services for cars, gourmet food and entertainment over evening meals. The LNP took the Motorail services off the outback route and failed to consolidate Labor’s initiatives to improve regional long-distance services. This would include the replacement of the Westlander and Inlander services which were reduced to sitting car services without dining car facilities by the LNP.
With connecting bus services provided by bookings for buses, accommodation and tours through Queensland Rail Travel, non-electrified services like WA’s Prospector train could be a hit in Regional Queensland (Image: Rail Express 2020):
The Cafeteria Equipped Prospector En Route to Kalgoorlie from Perth (564 Kilometres)
Refurbished by Downer Rail in Maryborough, carriages once used on the Inlander and Westlander could restore a Rockhampton to Townsville service with rebuilt Motorail cars for vehicles sold off by the LNP in connection with the Spirit of the Outback train service which passes through Rockhampton. The Goss Governments Spirit of the tropics to Townsville also offered a disco car and bar.
As mentioned in my previous articles, outer metropolitan and regional heartlands are proving a challenge for Labor in the current campaign in Queensland. The 11 percent polling result for One Nation in these two regions is largely a protest vote embedded in cost-of-living politics. Nimble political communicators can take up these concerns in the last few days of the campaign.
Commitments to more Transport Oriented Development Projects (TODs) with new layers of affordable housing in localities like Caboolture, Beenleigh and Ipswich would be well received by voters. The latest polling shows that Labor is narrowing the gap with the LNP in these outer metropolitan areas.
In the leafy inner-suburbs of Brisbane, the extraordinarily high Green vote of 22 percent could produce some surprising results in electorates like South Brisbane, Moggill, Clayfield and Chatsworth should LNP slip into third spot behind the Greens, Independents or Labor following the directive from the LNP to allocate preferences to Labor over the Greens.
It might dawn on voters even at this late hour that Crisafulli’s cabinet team is recycling several Campbell Newman Ministers in its current team. David Crisafulli was indeed Campbell Newman’s choice as Minister for Local Government. The Adult Crime, Adult Time slogan is of course a minority opinion covered in criminology journals from that era. The state LNP is totally fixated in that era.
The Brisbane City Council and the Whitbox Management have finally turned on the flood lights at the Witton Barracks Community Centre in Indooroopilly for two nights in a row. Despite the abundance of competent electricians in Brisbane, one key light is still faulty. Perhaps the ETU can offer assistance to the local LNP candidate in Maiwar who claims to be Tough on Crime in her letterboxed literature.
I cannot promise anything on the home straight of the Queensland election campaign. Races can indeed be won or lost in this home straight. Exaggerated dog whistles about crime rates appeal to gullible voters in the midst of their own cost-of-living crises and deserve empathetic responses from the progressive spectrum of politics. In Moggill, Labor candidate Dr Eric Richman has strived to rectify the policy balance.
Commitment to libertarianism has a diminished following as the ranks of the disadvantaged are creeping closer to the Queensland Government’s administrative complex at 1 William Street with tent cities by the Brisbane River. The closest encampment is under the Motorway near QUT University.
Expect a Cedar Bay style raid as in 1976 on these encampments if David Crisafulli becomes Premier.
Without a Fight Leading on the Home Strait at the 2023 Melbourne Cup (ABC News)
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13 comments
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Leila
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Sarah
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BurleighWaters
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Andrew Smith
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Lyndal
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Andrew Smith
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Cool Pete
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Pete
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Terence Mills
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GL
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Even Stephen
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Noeleen
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Terence Mills
Return to home pageSports matches and horse races can be won or lost on the home straight. Labor is moving in the right direction in the YouGov polling but must pick up its act in those outer metro and regional heartlands which still supported Labor in that Joh era (1970-87)
Some apology is needed from Labor insiders for their lapses on communication to long-standing Labor voters in those heartland areas. The high vote for the Marijuana Party in Ipswich West during the by-election loss to the LNP was largely a protest vote.
Adult Crime-Adult Time is a slogan copied from the political far-right of the USA. Brisbane was a prison two hundred years ago: The LNP wants to turn back the clock In the days of King George IV (1820-30).
One would be cautious citing YouGov (a Tory type Zahawi helped establish), why?
It’s self selecting population sample skewed towards those at home and rewarded with perks for doing surveys etc.
Andrew Smith, as a pensioner doing surveys to earn about $25 a week, I think there might be bias in some surveys as it is clear that the survey companies are looking for a particular demographic. You don’t get to choose to opt in.
However, I suggest that all samples could be skewed in the direction of time rich, income poor people because I can’t imagine anyone doing these surveys simply for fun. As far as I can tell, MyGov is no different from any of the other survey companies
Lindal, interesting opinions, but I disagree and it’s not the point, as I have both registered with YouGov in the past and follow higher level expertise.
An acquaintance who is a bona fide PhD. qualified social scientist now manages a qualitative research outfit in the UK which do focus groups etc., they criticised YouGov as invalid.
Further, polls can be so easily misused &/or misrepresented for political PR eg. US media looks at poll averages claiming neck a neck between Harris and Trump, but ignore how apparently couple of weeks 20 GOP inspired polls flooded the zone vs one Dem poll, dragging the latter down….
A protest vote for One Notion is a wasted vote. Why? Unless you truly believe in One Notion’s horrendous policy agenda, you may be voting against your own interests or those of somebody you care about. For example, your transgender niece. In fairness, however, KAP is just as bad, but fortunately, they did not field a candidate in my electorate.
One thing that I hope may be in Labor’s favour is that I don’t believe that federally, despite the attack on negative gearing and franking credits, that Scotty from Marketing’s “miracle win” was a miracle win at all. It was perhaps a stay of execution. Steven Miles hasn’t been Premier for very long, and hopefully some people might think, “Look, give him another chance.”
Let’s also not forget that David Crisafulli has been deliberately vague about his stance on abortion, and should he become Premier and cross the floor to vote with Labor on a KAP private Member’s Bill, Bleijie may be waiting with bated breath to say, “His position is untenable,” and challenge for the leadership. And Bleijie is a hardline conservative fool!
Recently Premier Miles said his govt will never sack nurses. He must have been looking out the window or something and he missed what Qld Health did a while back. Over 2,300 out of 90,000 QH staff members sought exemptions from an experimental gene-therapy, but those who did not comply with the mandate were eventually shut out of their workplaces. Forced resignation under threat of being injected with a new synthetic substance with no long-term safety data – that doesn’t sound like a voluntary action to me. It sounds more like sacking by default.
On Fri 11 Oct 2024, Port Hedland council passed a motion to provide Port Hedland recipients of mRNA injections info regarding evidence of synthetic DNA contamination. The TGA, the authority which seems to have no intention to ever actually independently verify claims made by drug companies, is in a pickle.
From Julian Gillespie substack – All 537 Australian Councils to Receive DNA Contamination report https://julesonthebeach.substack.com/p/all-537-australian-councils-to-receive
It is reported in today’s Qld press that : Mr Crisafulli has ventured north to crime-plagued Townsville after announcing reforms to Queensland’s youth detention program at the LNP’s official campaign launch on Sunday.
Dubbed “detention with purpose” by the LNP, children within youth detention centres would be subjected to discipline and rehabilitation through compulsory education, minimum isolation periods and behavioural management programs as part of the reforms.
Just a couple of observations :
crime-plagued Townsville this is the media narrative that is both misleading and dishonest.
discipline and rehabilitation through compulsory education, minimum isolation periods and behavioural management programs. Playing to the theme that these things are not already in place. Of course they are but it sounds tough adult time for adult crime.
The election is coming down to vibes and slogans – back to the future !
“Do we have any policies?” asked Crisafulli.
“Tax cuts for corporations and well off people. Open slather for coal to placate Gina…”
“Stop right there, we don’t want those announced until AFTER we win.”
“Hm, well that pretty much…hang on, it’s not a policy, but crime…”
“Brilliant, we can use what won the CLP power in Northern Territory. Who’s the most vulnerable section of the community as a whole?”
“Um, Indigenous criminals…I mean youth in crime riddled northern areas of the state?”
“Terrific, lets make that a policy and Rupert (Hail The Murdoch) will hammer the sheep with a scare campaign for us. We can’t lose.”
GL Hit the Mark. Politics on both sides is about elite strategies to gain or retain power. These power plays are the ongoing saga of the Court at Versailles revisited. During the Joh era, Labor was always a real irritant but was kept well away from power by the National Party’s media management gurus until the Courier Mail decided to investigate the political realities of the Moonlight State with its paper bag donations from corporations and land developers. In the future, the LNP has decided to accept donations from property developers again. Unless Labor engages better with its regional and outer metro heartlands this week, the old days will be back again.
The cost of living crisis has certainly swelled the ranks of the working class.
The Queensland Labor government has done more than any government in Australia to address cost of living issues.
The fifty cent public transport fares have, as I’ve noted before, put cash in the pockets of many, in particular commuters.
I mentioned before the single mother I know who was paying $37.50 a week in bus fares ($7.50 each day) is now paying five dollars a week : a real l cash saving of $32.50 a week.
After a Qld govt. electricity subsidy of $1000 (Plus $300 from the federal govt) most Queenslanders found that their September quarter power bills were ‘zero’ and will probably be the same in the December quarter.
Then you have the very real policy of free school lunches for those who need them. A boon to many families.
Yet Newscorp and the miners are saying we should take a baseball bat to this government and elect the LNP.
Like the folk in the ACT, Q’landers are saying why should we throw out a government that is actually addressing cost of living issues ?