David Crisafulli kicked off the final days of his campaign to become just the third Liberal National Party leader to win a Queensland election since 1989 with a regional blitz to spruik his tough-on-crime agenda.

Starting before dawn, the opposition leader and a trailing pack of candidates, advisers and journalists hit a street rally in Townsville, a car repair shop in central Queensland and an event in the pensioners’ paradise of Hervey Bay in a single-day whirlwind.