Queensland isn't just a COVID-19 election

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk might have glowed with optimism the weekend before last.

Jacinda Ardern’s extraordinary performance in NZ was a reward for her COVID performance.

With 4 times as many Kiwis dying as Queenslanders, the effect could be even larger here.

The Queensland premier needs help. Polls show a similar margin to last time which was a majority of only 2.

And Labor know voters want to know what you will do tomorrow, not what you did yesterday. (Winston Churchill’s reward for winning WWII was to lose the subsequent election).

So Labor says it has a “plan” for recovery and that they can be trusted, unlike the opposition because they kept the borders closed at the same time the LNP’s  Deb Frecklington called for them to be opened “64 times”.

This is a neat deflection, because Labor’s economic performance since they beat Newman in 2015 has been average to poor.

Queensland’s regional politics also make it difficult for them. Most of the COVID infections have been in the south-east, and radically different issues drive voters up the coast and into the regions.

This election is really 6 or 7 different battles.

In the Brisbane local government area the LNP holds only 4 seats, Labor 19 and the Greens 1.

Clayfield is the ALP’s best bet with an LNP margin of 2.41% but their campaign on the ground there is non-existent.

In fact Labor should lose the seat of South Brisbane, where the LNP “put Labor last” preferencing strategy should hand Deputy Premier Jackie Trad’s seat to the Greens.

Brisbane is to Queensland what Victoria is to Australia. Climate change and soft social issues hold sway, with mining and agriculture barely-necessary evils.

Outside Brisbane is a doughnut of commuter suburbs, where the federal Liberal Party does very well.

This is where the realm of “Howard’s Battlers” “Silent Australians”, starts but at a state level not only does the ALP hold 12 seats to the LNP’s 2, but One Nation is frequently more competitive than the Libs.

The LNP needs to win 9 seats to form a majority government. If they could replicate the federal result in these areas they’d be virtually there, yet with the exception of Redlands, which requires a 3.06% swing, nothing appears to be in prospect for them.

This illustrates better than anything else the failure of the LNP to get the conservative “vibe”. These are the areas which tend to determine government in Queensland. Working class enough to not fear Labor, but aspirational enough to see the sense of economic prudence.

Populists like Joh Bjelke-Petersen and Pauline Hanson have reaped huge dividends here, but the LNP leader, Deb Frecklington, while representing Joh’s old seat, doesn’t cut through.

If the ALP is to pick up seats, it is most likely on the Gold or Sunshine Coasts. Yet on the Goldie border closures may work against them. And they also have one seat at risk there themselves.

So wins for Labor and LNP seem hard, until you get to North Queensland seats such as Townsville, Mundingburra, Barron River, Keppel and Cairns. These voters are motivated by mining, tourism and agriculture, and have a strong sense of northern identity. Katter does well here.

Annastacia Palaszczuk spent her first day of the campaign in Mt Isa, announcing a new coal mine. Labor has a lot of ground to make up in mining courtesy of its handling of the Adani (as well as Acland) mine.

The LNP needs to make up ground too and is promising a “New Bradfield Scheme” and a complete $33 B upgrade of the Pacific Highway.

The latter is obviously biting as Labor has just tried to nullify it by promising to duplicate the Highway west of the Great Divide as a way of taking trucks off it. This recycles a promise Campbell Newman made in 2015 and is a really a series of road upgrades that the government says will cost $1bn while the industry says it is $2 bn.

While the parties talk about “plans”, their economic promises seem more like a Jackson Pollock with rich blobs of promise thrown at marginal seats, but no actionable structure.

For example the ALP is promising to spend $600 m manufacturing trains in marginal Maryborough, employing 400 people, but train patronage is down in the south-east where they would be presumably used.

It is an odd election. Normally the opposition attacks the government and the government defends its record.

Instead the government is attacking, condemning the opposition for Campbell Newman’s almost 6 year-old record, while the opposition runs only positives.

Government changes capping electoral spending, designed to limit the LNP expenditure and drown it under a union avalanche, have also changed the dynamics, spawning a plethora of third parties all spending money pursuing their own agendas.

Clive Palmer is one and he can spend $1M in his own right, as well as $8.95M through his party, which he is spending on ads attacking the government.

Perhaps Frecklington is relying on him to do the dirty work for her.

Unions are another third-party force. They are causing problems for the premier’s messaging, by, amongst other things, advocating preferences for One Nation.

This might be why the premier suddenly made a voluntary euthanasia pitch in her campaign launch. Afterall, it seemed to work for Daniel Andrews in 2018, and it might appeal to older voters, the LNP’s bedrock.

Which underlines how tight the contest is. If COVID were to decide the result, the premier would be easing back. Instead she’s throwing everything into it she can.