Queensland state election 2024: Everything you need to know about October 26 polling day
Welcome to live coverage of the state election day 2024. The Gold Coast has 11 seats in play which will determine who the next premier is. LIVE AND FREE
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Welcome to live coverage of the state election day 2024. The Gold Coast has 11 seats in play which will determine who the next premier is.
FULL LIST OF GOLD COAST CANDIDATES
10am
Voters have poured into polling booths across the city, though political insides are reporting wildly different experiences in different locations.
At the Palm Beach Currumbin High School booth there was chaotic scenes with marketgoers clashing with voters.
Meanwhile, one minor party candidate set up at the wrong entrance to the school and was forced to relocate.
Further north, some of the city’s polling booths are reportedly far more quiet than previous election days.
Insiders suggest it is the result of increasing pre-poll voting.
9.10am
The man tipped to be the next Premier David Crisafulli and his LNP candidate in the
pivotal seat of Gaven have had a fiery election morning clash – with one of their own voters.
The pair, on the tools cooking up a BBQ at the William Duncan Primary School booth, got a
grilling themselves from voter Vicki Campbell – who later admitted she was all for the Liberals.
8.45AM
David Crisafulli says the Gold Coast seat of Gaven is “pivotal” to the LNP winning government.
Speaking on the Gold Coast before leaving to travel to Brisbane to vote, Mr Crisafulli said
“Swings are never uniform and I look at an area like gave and I see a whole lot of aspirational people who deserve better,” he said
8AM POLLS ARE OPEN
Polls are officially open on election day 2024. LNP Opposition Leader David Crisafulli was in Gaven meeting with candidate Bianca Stone hoping to win over undecided voters in the must-win seat.
A streaming of people moved through the booth quickly, with most not taking how-to-vote cards from candidates and volunteers.
Mr Crisafulli told voters: “Vote for a fresh start, Queensland needs change.”
7AM: THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
Labor and the LNP have sent final clear messages at the booths at voters as they start to vote at 8am in the State poll.
The ALP’s signage is directed at Opposition leader David Crisafulli warning voters to “cut Crisafulli before he cuts you”.
Their argument is the LNP in Opposition will repeat the Campbell Newman era and remove health workers, cut hospitals and jobs for unfunded promises.
The LNP, by comparison is promoting their candidates, like Bianca Stone in Gaven, saying they will be “tough on crime”, employ more police and will “axe Labor’s patients’ tax”.
At Pacific Pines, in the major booth where Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon will fight to save her seat on a 7.8 per cent margin, LNP booth workers arrived at 4.30am.
What is different about this State poll will be the restrictions on signage.
Booth workers say they are limited to about half a dozen signs.
“You have to be careful with the (political) real estate,” a booth worker said.
Further south at Burleigh, LNP candidate Hermann Vorster and his volunteers arrived before Labor.
They had chosen the pick of the spots to put up signage.
An LNP insider said: “Hermann’s campaign has been boosted by community workers, involving themselves in politics for the first time, injecting a significant grassroots energy.”
Meanwhile, both Labor and LNP volunteers were out early at Southport Community Centre with plenty of signage from both camps.
Mr Crisafulli began the day in the knife-edge seat of Gaven where he cooked a barbecue with LNP volunteers and the party’s candidate for the seat, Bianca Stone, at Nerang’s Bischoff Park.
THE SURPRISE KEY CANDIDATE
Meet the candidate who could determine the outcome of the Gold Coast election.
Greens leader Sally Spain has been alone for the past two weeks at prepoll at Pacific Pines where she has told each voter arriving that she would be “preferencing Meaghan Scanlon”.
Gaven is held by Ms Scanlon, Labor’s Housing Minister on a 7.8 per cent margin. It’s considered one of Queensland’s most important seats.
Opposition leader David Crisafulli needs to win it, to ensure it secure Government. Labor needs to hold, to have any chance of surviving. The swing against Labor could be eight per cent.
Ms Spain is standing because she wants the environment to get as high priority as crime.
“The environment should play an important role, and that’s what we’re saying,” she says.
She estimates “1.2 million hectares in Queensland were broadscale cleared and 45 million species were lost” during the Campbell Newman LNP Government.
“These are figures impossible to comprehend,” she said.
Ms Spain understands the focus on juvenile crime “but this should not be a one issue election”.
“One issue should not govern the whole state. The State has many issues. Some people will regret they didn’t look further into wider policies,” she said.
“Meaghan Scanlon is an excellent local candidate. We’ve had some wins in general Queensland politics to the Left in terms of animal rights, in terms of environmental heritage and transparency on election campaigns and who donates to it.
“The LNP seems fixed on one issue. One issue does not make an election make.”
For a full list of candidates, see the Bulletin’s special guide.
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Originally published as Queensland state election 2024: Everything you need to know about October 26 polling day
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