Editor’s View: Labor and LNP so far have failed to offer up a grand vision for Queensland

With 100 days until the state election, Labor and the LNP are in unofficial campaign mode. So far both have failed to offer up anything approaching a grand vision, writes The Editor.

Premier Steven Miles.

Today is exactly 100 days until Queenslanders will be asked to cast their ballots to decide who will lead the state for the next four years.

While the campaign proper for the October 26 election does not officially start until October 1 – when the Miles government moves into caretaker mode – both Labor and the LNP are well and truly into the unofficial campaign period.

Both Premier Steven Miles and Opposition Leader David Crisafulli have been clocking up the air miles visiting the seats they are trying to either sandbag or to win, making local promises and road testing their pitches to voters.

And so far, both have been busy appealing to those most basic of human instincts – fear and greed – rather than offering up anything approaching a grand vision for Queensland’s future.

Premier Steven Miles and Treasurer Cameron Dick. Picture Lachie Millard

Treasurer Cameron Dick kicked off Labor’s unofficial campaign early last month with his state budget that included $3.7bn of “new and expanded cost-of-living measures” – with promises ranging from $1000 off every single household’s electricity bill to 50c public transport fares and cut-price vehicle registration costs.

Treasurer Dick branded this largesse as “cost-of-living action”. Others might call it legalised bribery. Whatever it is, appealing to the hip pocket nerve is a proven electoral winner. We will have to wait and see if it has worked this time in turning around the polling trend against the government.

The LNP – without access to the public money needed to provide inducements – has chosen as its major theme so far that other always popular topic for attracting disgruntled voters: law and order, with promises of a super-tough youth crime policy. Expect to hear a lot more of Mr Crisafulli’s “Adult Time for Adult Crime” slogan over the coming 14 weeks.

Youth crime and cost-of-living pressures are unquestionably matters of concern for many Queenslanders, and it makes sense for campaigning politicians to be offering solutions. In fact, their job literally is to respond to community concerns such as these.

But what have been offered to date are either short-term sugar hits or sweeping declarations without the detail about things like a crackdown on youth crime – promises that are more designed to attract headlines and attention than actions based on thoughtful policy development.

The risk for Queensland is that over the next 100 days both sides decide that there is no political upside in offering us all anything more than blatant pitches such as these to appeal to our baser instincts.

Opposition leader David Crisafulli. Picture: Liam Kidston

Mr Crisafulli and the LNP are clearly adopting a small target approach at the moment and, so far, it’s paying off. Betting agencies have them as the easy favourites – despite some tightening of those odds over recent months.

And Mr Crisafulli will only be encouraged by the result in the British elections two weeks ago, where the Labour Party swept to a record victory using a similar small-target strategy – knowing they were facing a similarly unpopular long-term incumbent.

For its part, Labor, after a decade in office, simply doesn’t have a lot to offer by way of new policies or strategies – other than blatant local vote-buys, such as the government’s recent promise to duplicate the bridge to Bribie Island, in the heart of a marginal Labor-held electorate.

Labor’s biggest advantage is its incumbency, which gives it the keys to the vault – which, in turn, means it can keep handing out money rather than develop detailed strategies and visions for the future.

Both parties have a choice over the next 100 days – they can keep playing the games they’re playing now, trying to win over voters with bribes and appeals to emotion, or they can treat voters as adults and with respect by offering up their thoughtful and considered visions for Queensland’s future.

Being paid cynics, we suggest it will most likely be the former.