Following Sunday’s closure of nominations and ballot paper draws, I have given my Queensland election guide a good once-over, adding full lists of candidates and expanded biographical detail.
Campaign developments of note:
• The Australian reported yesterday that Labor was “increasingly confident” Jackie Trad would hold out in South Brisbane, with “several Labor insiders” saying Greens support was weakening. Also in South Brisbane, Greens candidate Amy MacMahon is standing by a young party volunteer after a media beat-up and opportunistic Labor attacks over a harmless pop culture meme she posted on Twitter.
• The Courier-Mail reported last Friday that Labor internal polling conducted in late September showed the party was “holding on to its slim 1.1 per cent margin” in the Townsville seat of Mundingburra, albeit that any such finding would have placed an LNP win within the poll’s margin of error. The seat is being vacated with the retirement of two-term member Coralee O’Rourke.
• Among the late nominees is Andrew Bartlett, who will run for the Greens against former LNP leader Tim Nicholls in Clayfield. Bartlett was an Australian Democrats Senator from 1997 to 2008, including a stint as leader from 2002 to 2004, and briefly a Greens Senator from November 2017 to August 2018, when he replaced Larissa Waters after her resignation on Section 44 grounds. This follows the disendorsement of the Greens’ original candidate, John Meyer, over alleged threatening behaviour towards women. Meyer is now seeking to upset his former party’s applecart in South Brisbane by running as an independent, claiming his dumping had been retribution for efforts to blow the whistle on financial impropriety within the party.
• Candidates in the marginal LNP seat of Currumbin on the Gold Coast include independent Richard Stuckey, husband of Jann Stuckey, who held the seat for the LNP until her resignation in January. The candidate of the party that will appear on ballot papers as “Clive Palmer’s UAP” is the boss’s wife, Anna Palmer. Sarah Elks of The Australian reports one third of the party’s 55 candidates are either employees or relatives of Palmer, and that their combined $13,750 nomination fees were paid for on the credit card of his company Mineralogy.
QLD LNP Leader in trouble:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-13/lnp-crisis-as-deb-frecklington-referred-to-election-watchdog/12748400?fbclid=IwAR191OD_1CKVbooJ1Nl_9z26Nq7nDUwqTOw9u2iuEUj29jzESgo54MNDd3M
Watch the Gold Coast seats of Coomera and Theodore! I’m telling you Labor will pick them up. I’m so confident. The troops on the ground for Labor here are astronomical. The policy announcements are coming thick and fast and the LNP members can’t match them.
LNP getting more negative press.
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/queensland/poll-call-labor-on-firm-ground-as-lnp-targets-vulnerable-seats-20201015-p5659v.html#p51chb
… but it’s not all negative, same link as earlier.
Frecklington continued with points about women in relation to domestic violence, regional Queensland, and babies. But when asked about being a feminist, “I identify as a female…”
Will the Courier Mail editor be sacked if Labor win in Qld?
Last election a site collected negative and positive front page stories. As can be imagined ALP all negative LNP all positive.You would seriously only want your political news from the CM if you are a LNP tragic who wants to revel in false hopes and wish dreams and pro LNP barracking. I will not even read a free copy at a coffee shop. It’s lost it’s better journalists like Dennis Atkins who presumably could no longer drink the cordial and I really can’t see what its purpose is other than propping up LNP but especially those who are most right wing.
The economy is doing well in Queensland, compared to the rest of Australia. The response against the Covid-19 pandemic has been strong, decisive and effective, which is what Queenslanders demanded. The ALP team is united and Anna is a competent and strong leader who enjoys the support of her party.
On the LNP side there is chaos, laughable leadership, incompetence and a desperate attempt to seek some help from the NSWelshman and Federal PM ScuMo, who has been called in to do something to help the sinking fortunes of the LNP… with little positive effect as far as we can see.
If the LNP falls in Queensland, it is possible that the tremor will be felt all the way to Canberra… Will Dutton start organising a second challenge for the leadership? Is there a “Peter for Canberra” campaign already in the making?…. After all, the Coalition has been able to win the last three federal elections only and exclusively due to their smashing wins in Queensland.
Interesting times ahead…. 🙂
Late Riser:
“Ms Frecklington launched a defence when asked what women issues she championed. “Do you know what I champion? I champion jobs for little girls who actually want to work”…
Jobs for little girls?… Surely you don’t support this stance on child exploitation in the workplace, LR, do you?…. We may be living in Neoliberal times, but even the Neoliberals are supposed to reject the old laissez faire of the 19th century Industrial Revolution!
If that was a strong performance for Deb…. the contest is already over.
Alpo, may I assume the sarcasm font when you wrote, “Surely you don’t support this stance on child exploitation in the workplace, LR, do you?”
Yeah Alpo, QLD Labor are doing a great job on the economy. After 5 years of this mess of a government yes they have handled covid well, but thats basically it. The unemployment figures released today guess who has the highest rate, at 7.7% QLD Labor takes the title. In 5 years they still have not a clue how to create jobs bar in the public service, but looking at the makeup of the cabinet there lies the answer. Massive debt, stuffed economy, highest unemployment, a total disaster.
I don’t want to get into the merits or otherwise of the State Labor Government, but I do not think this is a popular government at all, with a real undercurrent of tiredness with Labor. But the LNP are, yet again, highly underwhelming and are not projecting as a credible alternative government. They are much better placed on the seats than the ALP but they seem to have blown it again.
I do agree that the ALP may pick up some GC seats after a long drought. Just a vibe really with no solid evidence.
In reply to Michael I wonder if any government including Scomos is very popular. I do know that candoes LNP government was exceedingly unpopular (with good reason outside of any diehard LNP member). Many LNP supporters and the Courier Mail could never work out Peter Beattie either but he kept on getting elected despite their dislike of him and the ALP. Perhaps it’s that more people in Qld. at state level, prefer Labor considering they have been in charge for most of the last hundred years.
“Perhaps it’s that more people in Qld. at state level, prefer Labor considering they have been in charge for most of the last hundred years.”
It is easy to win when you can borrow your way to success along with. I am just amazed at why the LNP choose seemingly hopeless leaders. Is Frecklington going to be compared to Spingborg at a later date?
Maybe the LNP are Labor people in disguise? They do not seem to want to win government.
Why has Frecklington not called out this government and their secret royalty deal with Adani, and the secret deal to host the AFL?
Why has Frecklington not bought up the government report that due to Labor cutbacks rural babies have a 65% greater chance of dying at childbirth.
Why has Frecklington not bought up Labor wanted to jail journalists for six months for doing their job?
Why has Frecklington not bought up the states Labor sports minister overruling the public service determinations and handing money to Labor electorates?
Why has Frecklington not bought up the premier’s head of staff giving tax payer money to a business he owns?
Why has Frecklington not bought up Trad buying a house in an area where she was directly responsible for as a minister?
I saw the latest doozy today Palaszczuk saying the government will buy Aurizon’s now stripped bare railway repair facility in Rockhampton. Palaszczuk voted to sell that facility back in 2010. I bet the price of it just went up and up on today’s news
In the last days of the government she handed $200 million to Virgin who was heading towards going bankrupt prior to coronavirus. She then went and borrowed another 4 billion dollars to fund her promises.
Today it was an amazing coincidence that the day we learn the state has the worst unemployment in the country that a years old facebook post where a person says they have no opinion is released and the SJW’s have their arms flapping trying to make more noise over an insignificant event to hide the unemployment figures. It was a classic textbook political move. So predictable.
Part of me hope Labor does win and the state is so bankrupted and destroyed in the next four years action to repair the damage has to be so severe many are essentially punished. Essentially just like post WW2 in Australia.
Wow!!!!! where have you been Paul? LNP have been banging the bass drum on a lot of these issues especially Jackie Trad, who is now relegated to the backbench and probably won’t win her seat anyway. I reckon also if an LNP government had have opened up the public purse and kept virgin in the Qld. LNP supporters/the Courier Mail would be ringing the bells and calling them economic geniuses.
…and yet more negative press for the LNP
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-16/qld-election-lnp-budget-surplus-means-spending-cuts-report-finds/12770292
The heading…
A little way in…
Though if you dig well into the article…
Kevin Bonham pointed out that last CourierFail poll found both parties are equally matched when it comes to economic management which is a disaster for LNP and bodes terribly for them given it is a traditionally strong topic for conservatives.
Pro Capita is slanted left though. Look at the makeup of the board of directors.
Or to look at it another way. If a report came out from the IPA, how many people would say it is true and accurate. It would be slanted to the right for sure. I could say two millions Victorians are coming to Queensland should the LNP win and create a new golden era. Of course it is as likely to happen as finding unicorn dung. Much like the LNP going on a huge public service purge, more unicorn dung.
It is pie in the sky stuff. There is going to be no budget surplus for decades and the public service is not going to be cut as it would be political suicide, even if it really needs doing.
It is clear there has to be total destruction before change will happen. Hard limits on government borrowing except in times of extreme emergency (requiring a ~90% majority to pass parliament) must be implemented down the track. We have seen state and federal governments use borrowed money to buy election wins time and time again and the voters seem not to care.
service is not going to be cut as it would be political suicide,
It’s in LNP DNA Paul, Lol
Paul, get real mate!!! The LNP will sell assets and will get rid of public servants. Every public servant now knows that and with 200,000 plus all the family members this is a good chunk of Qlders.Lets face it LNP at state level is inept. Joh was in for a long time by looking after the public service and keeping Brisbane seats with a much higher number of voters than country ones.city libs never got a look in back then either
The way you cut a service is that you starve it slowly, and let them cut themselves. The treatment of the ABC serves as an example.
Not sure where to post this?
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/queensland/poll-call-pm-stranded-as-labor-lnp-leaders-regroup-in-brisbane-20201016-p565o4.html
Didn’t Palmer do this during the federal election too?
It’s worth noting that the unemployment rate can be a bit misleading because it depends on the labour force participation rate. Queensland’s employment to population ratio (i.e. the share of the adult population that is employed) is actually a bit above the national average according the latest ABS labour force survey – it’s higher than Tasmania, South Australia and Victoria (and only slightly below NSW).
Qld Premier AP has handled covid as good as anyone in the world and that has provided a ground swell of support in SE QLD particularly with oldies. At Brisbane northern suburb prepoll today, L/NP booth workers removed all Debs corflutes and replaced them with pics of the candidate. Whether Labor is returned or not, there must be a brawl coming within L/NP in QLD.