The AIM Network

Queensland’s Electoral Future in the Home Straight

Premier Steven Miles in Brisbane’s Seat of Moggill with Labor Candidate Dr Erich Richman (ABC News 9 October 2024)

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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Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building in these difficult times. Your feedback from readers advances the cause of citizens’ journalism. Full names are not required when making comments. However, a valid email must be submitted if you decide to hit the Replies Button.

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