Cruisey Can Do must do better in Queensland election.

Voters think a competent party would have found a way to get him into parliament before making him leader and see the LNP as a fractious forced marriage of Liberals and Nationals.

Urban voters tend to think it is dominated by rednecks, and rural voters by city slickers. So added to concerns about competence are ancient reflexes of distrust.

And Labor is reminding voters of some of Newman's career low lights, such as the poorly patronised City Cycle project, with its highly visible platoons of unused bicycles littering CBD street corners.

Notwithstanding all of this the LNP should still win, but that is not what this election is about. What this election is about is the 2015 and 2018 elections.

Labor is trying to avoid decapitation. If it can damage Newman and the LNP enough, then it can save some of its bright young stars like Stirling Hinchliffe and Cameron Dick, and claw its way back in three to six years.

If the LNP can really make it like 1974, the the ALP will be out of power for at least 15 years.