Just what’s going on in Queensland politics?

Or it could have been a reward for competent governance. Despite the ALP slogan, there was little evidence of LNP rorts, and a solid track record of steadily improving the city.

There is some support for all these theses in the two by-elections.

Bundamba is a seat based on Ipswich where the popular member Joanne Miller abruptly resigned in protest against her own government. Currumbin is a seat at the south of the Gold Coast where an arguably popular member Jann Stuckey resigned in protest against her side – the opposition.

In Bundamba the party organisation shoe-horned a left-wing apparatchik Lance McCallum into the seat against the wishes of the departing member, and in an area that tends to vote right-wing Labor.

In Currumbin the party organisation vetoed the former member’s choice to replace her and pre-selected Gerber, who had only just joined the party, had no factional ties, and is a young well-presented mother who works as a litigation lawyer.

Very similar circumstances, with one big difference – Bundamba was the third safest Labor seat with a 21.55% margin to Miller, while Currumbin was the seventh most marginal LNP seat with a 3.31% margin to Stuckey.

Bundamba was a bad result for Labor. There was a 2PP swing against them of 11.75%. It was also a bad result for the LNP – they won 16.58% of the vote, up from the 15.17% of the previous election, but 12.57% less than One Nation, which was the ultimate runner-up.

What this tells us is that the LNP has no traction in conservative working-class territory, and is not judged even good enough for a protest vote, while Labor’s heartland is not happy with it.

These results are a major smackdown for both Annastacia Palaszczuk and Deb Frecklington.

Currumbin was likewise a bad result for both, although this time the LNP did better than in Bundamba. There was a swing against the LNP, but small at 2.08%.

However, there was an element of luck here. In the last week or so of the campaign Premier Palaszczuk closed the Queensland/New South Wales border. Coolangatta and Tweed Heads share that border and are so close they call them the Twin Towns. LNP candidate Gerber would have appreciated the irony more than most. She’s local having grown up in Bilambil, just south of the border, and now living in Elenora in Queensland.

The decision was poorly implemented and hugely unpopular locally, suggesting to voters Labor really had little interest or understanding of that part of the state, and the LNP ran a heavily negative campaign on it. That probably saved their candidate.

While Palaszczuk performed poorly, the LNP is not performing well enough. A competent opposition this close to an election should have established a clear campaign theme that can motivate voters. That they only fell over the line in Currumbin and came a humiliating third in Bundamba shows they haven’t done this. And it was compounded by poor management that in each case saw an MLA resign and bag her own party.