Queensland election guide

Introducing the Poll Bludger’s (almost) all-encompassing guide to the October 31 Queensland state election.

There’s a lot of biographical detail still to be added for significant candidates, and it could as always have used another day of proof reading before being set out into the wild — but nonetheless, let it be noted that the Poll Bludger’s comprehensive overview and seat-by-seat guide to the October 31 Queensland state election is open for business. Together with expanding and updating this guide in the days to come, my next order of business it get a guide happening for the Australian Capital Territory election on October 17, which should be about a week away if the wind blows in the right direction. Please use this thread for general discussion of the Queensland campaign and to point out the errors and design flaws that are no doubt to be found on the site.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

23 comments on “Queensland election guide”

  1. Keep a careful eye on the Gold Coast seats for Labor. I think you’re going to be in for a big surprise. Coomera and Theodore are definite 50/50 races as well as Currumbin and Burleigh with Rabbit Bartholemew as Labor’s candidate. If Labor lose seats up north as predicted they can consolidate those losses by picking up 2-4 Gold Coast seats.

  2. Just a small error in colour coding on the pendulums – Whitsunday is an independent seat and Nicklin is an LNP seat. You’ve got them the other way around 🙂

  3. So Mickey W let me bite. Why would Gold Coast seats buck the trend which the recent polls say is a swing to LNP. Would it be because all of those tourism business and economic support services on the Gold Coast are doing so well out of the lockdown.
    I think you’ll find it’ll be 10-0 to LNP after polling day.

  4. Moderate: the LNP have taken the Gold Coast for granted for far too long. The sitting members aren’t popular at all. Take the Currumbin by-election for example. Swing to Labor despite the LNP holding the seat. They picked up Gaven in 2017 with a grass roots campaign. Those same campaign workers are on the ground in Coomera and Theodore, my neck of the woods, every single day. Crandon and Boothman are both low profile back benchers whom have achieved very little for their constituents. The announcement of the Coomera connector and the building of 3 new schools in the area has been a welcome policy in my local community plus the local Labor candidates have been seen out and about more than the LNP. People take notice of that and I believe Labor are in with a good shot of picking up both seats.

  5. Oodgeroo might be an interesting seat to watch with an independent running (Clare Richardson) who was very popular against the sitting mayor in the recent local council election and came within a whisker of beating her. The local issue in play being a massive development proposed for Toondah harbour that many locals oppose. Labor could well come in third and preferences will be important to the outcome

  6. Well to think those silly Greens questioned the economic benefits of Adani! Now the deal is done and Qld Treasury will get… nothing… for an unknown number of years. Brilliant. That is a terrific return on hundreds of millions of dollars of government funded infrastructure and will really kick-start the Qld economy out of Covid. There has never been a better time to sell stupid ideas to desperate governments 🙁
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-01/adani-carmichael-coal-mine-royalties-deferred-qld-election/12716272

    Does this mean Qld Labor has all but written off inner Brisbane seats like Jackie Trad’s?

  7. Socrates @ #9 Thursday, October 1st, 2020 – 4:29 pm

    Well to think those silly Greens questioned the economic benefits of Adani! Now the deal is done and Qld Treasury will get… nothing… for an unknown number of years. Brilliant. That is a terrific return on hundreds of millions of dollars of government funded infrastructure and will really kick-start the Qld economy out of Covid. There has never been a better time to sell stupid ideas to desperate governments 🙁
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-01/adani-carmichael-coal-mine-royalties-deferred-qld-election/12716272

    Does this mean Qld Labor has all but written off inner Brisbane seats like Jackie Trad’s?

    The main reason the Qld government won’t get anything is that the project will never go ahead. It’s just not economic and is only being kept alive by Adani to avoid their corporate structure collapsing.

    The announcement of the deal at this time is to rob the LNP of a lever they could use in the election campaign in Central Queensland. The general terms of the deal have been publicly known in Queensland for a long time so it’s unlikely to cause the ALP to lose any more votes than they’d already lost to the Greens and that they weren’t likely to regain anyway.

    There’s only a couple of seats that the Greens could realistically win in Brisbane – Maiwar that they already hold and South Brisbane which is Jackie Trad’s seat. If Labor doesn’t win an absolute majority I doubt if they’ll need a “deal” with the Greens. Realistically the Greens could never co-operate with the LNP in Queensland so they’d have to support a Labor government.

  8. Can’t wait for some SEQ polling.

    At this time, the ALP is going to lose several regional seats i.e. the three Townsville seats, Barron River and probably Keppel and Maryborough. It should also lose South Brisbane. So where are the offsetting gains?

    Of course the ALP could pull things back, but it’s very hard to see how they don’t lose the Townsville seats and South Brisbane at least.

  9. Interestingly the betting agencies have firmed in their odds of the LNP forming government. Majority now have the LNP down for the win or at worst, even money.

    Labor’s problem looking at the small sample I have seen of polling is that its vote is very solid in the seats in the city it holds vs LNP but little traction elsewhere and seemingly north of Brisbane is very weak.

    Of course, with COVID, both the ALP and LNP are just one bad day away from a Landslide such is the current climate.

  10. People seriously taking into account the very odd polling that has been released. With no state newspoll since what end of July or something? All the other polls have come from ex LNP hacks. Would take all current polling with a grain of salt until a more reputable source comes up.

  11. I think the lack of recent Courier Mail polling (or the spruiking of polling by the CM) suggests that Palaszczuk is doing much better than the CM want you to believe.

    Add to that, Palaszczuk’s intense focus on the Gold Coast, and the Murdoch bias and the interventions by the Federal Coalition MPs, and I think the internal polling is showing this is going much better in Labor’s favour than many may think.

    I also think that the Greens polling is likely overstated.

    I see Palaszczuk dropping some seats – potentially the Townsville seats and a marginal Brisbane seat or two (South Brisbane or Aspley) BUT I also see the LNP dropping seats (Pumicestone, Whitsunday etc).

    I wouldn’t write off a slim Labor majority – in fact I think it’s far more likely than an LNP majority at this point…..

  12. Well my bias is that Palasczuck is a lot less popular than the Covid inflated polls and that a lot of Queenskand are very tired of Labor. The next set of polling should be revealing.

  13. All I can say is that I hope that #reefwrecker Deb Frecklington doesn’t get in, the environmental and economic damages of the previous LNP gov. cannot be sustainable for Queensland

  14. Plus the Townsville seats are also Katter possibilities. LNP really can’t lose Pumicestone or any Gold Coast seats. To form their own majority they really need most of Gaven, Aspley, Pumicestone, Redlands, Mansfield, Springwood and their current Gold Coast seats in their column.

  15. Hi William,

    There seems to be a problem with your historical results graph for Mansfield. It shows ALP < 50% 2PP in 1992 and 1998 but they won the seat in those years (maybe due to recalculations stemming from more recent changes in boundaries the figures show that way). But 2009 only shows ~45% ALP 2PP and they won Mansfield in that year as well.

    I would expect LNP to win Mansfield this time – Corrine McMillan has not been highly visible (may have been working hard behind the scenes – but that is not the same thing) and the LNP has been out campaigning for over 12 months, their signs outnumber the ALP signs about 10 to 1 around the suburbs of Mansfield and Wishart, and their candidate's surname of Wishart will probably (for no logical reason) mean an extra swing in that suburb.

    House prices have also got much dearer around here (due to the popularity of the Mansfield SHS) and probably a greater proportion of LNP voters have been moving in.

  16. IMO the Greens will win South Brisbane easily, if for no other reason, due to changes in LNP preference flow.

    Overall I expect LNP to govern with support of Katter party.

  17. @fargo61 The irony here is with South Brisbane is ALP voted to move back to compulsory preferencing for the exact reason to increase the flow of greens preferences to them. This is now highly likely to backfire and push LNP preferencing to the Greens to take out at least one if not two ALP scalps in Trad and Grace.

    Also I think ALP will hold Mansfield. LNP is struggling to cut through in the Brisbane seats.

  18. Campaign slogans:

    ALP – Labor. We fight for Queensland.

    LNP – Change the Goveenment to get Queensland working again.

  19. Reading these comments, is like that of a sad novel.

    Why is it, come election time, we always have two factions arguing over NOTHING, missing the point about EVERYTHING, and forgetting about the people who DON’T support either side???
    Who is it that decides for ALL people, that the electors have only “Two Party Preferred” as a choice?

    Such a magnanimous amount of wastage occurs on this one day each three years…there should be a total BAN on electioneering materials handed out at polling booths.
    Go to the booth, cross off your name, vote if you wish, then go home….talk to nobody.
    Remember….it’s called a SECRET ballot….even if it IS rigged!

    Also, if ‘Queenslanders’ would only open their eyes, and realise, the Sun is OUTSIDE, NOT inside shining out.

    You were ALL told in 1999, that ALL Councils, and State & Federal governments, their legislation, codes, rules, regulations, orders, & enforcement, were deemed INVALID….and who listened?
    You were also informed, and further told by QEII herself on BBC1 in 2009, that “I Hereby Declare ALL Commonwealth Constitutions, INVALID”.
    Peter Beattie wrote a new constitution for ‘QLD’, in 2000-2001, after consultation with Joh Bjelke Petersen, and changed the ‘laws’ concerning landholders, and that’s why NOBODY owns any land, or for that matter ANYTHING in ‘QLD’.
    – This system is being closely monitored by the Federal government, who already utilise Al Capone’s famous system for taxes, payments, etc, etc.

    Elections? What elections? You mean SELECTIONS don’t you?

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