Former Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk hits the campaign trail
Former premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has made her first political appearance since announcing her shock retirement, emerging on the campaign trail a week out from two by-elections.
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Former premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has made her first political appearance since announcing her shock retirement from the top job, emerging on the campaign trail a week out from two by-elections.
Ms Palaszczuk on Saturday lent her star power to Labor’s Inala candidate Margie Nightingale, who will attempt to retain the state’s safest electorate with a convincing margin.
Premier Steven Miles faces the first major test of his leadership when more than 75,000 Queenslanders go to the polls in by-elections on Saturday.
The results in Ms Palaszczuk’s former seat of Inala and in Ipswich West are expected to have major ramifications for the confidence of the Labor faithful in the lead-up to the state election in October.
Ipswich West has shaped up as the most volatile of the two – with senior Labor insiders saying they are growing increasingly “concerned” about retaining the seat.
MP Jim Madden resigned from parliament this year after holding the seat since 2015 to contest the Ipswich City Council election, with Wendy Bourne Labor’s candidate.
But while Mr Madden recorded a strong 14.3 per cent margin in 2020, the lack of a Greens candidate and the potential for One Nation preferences to flow through to the LNP’s Darren Zanow have Labor worried.
The electorate traditionally has a solid One Nation support base and elected the party in 1998, while the seat turned to the LNP during Campbell Newman’s 2012 victory.
Labor has attempted to discredit Opposition Leader David Crisafulli and the LNP for having One Nation second on their how-to-vote preference recommendations, with Mr Miles going on the attack in parliament last week.
“That is despite One Nation being well known to have racist views, but then up the road in Inala he pretends to be a champion of multiculturalism,” Mr Miles said.
“It is time the Leader of the Opposition … learned that nothing good comes from getting into bed with Pauline Hanson. You should not support racists.”
Mr Crisafulli hit back, saying that “if we had optional preferential voting, the opposition would not be in the situation where we had to choose between the pot-smoking party, the party responsible for destroying services in this state or the ‘please explain’ party, because they are the only options on the table.”
Senior LNP members say a win remains unlikely – but a decent swing would place them in a strong position to campaign hard to October, and seize a seat which had previously looked out of reach.
The LNP is understood to be hoping for a swing of at least 6.1 per cent on the two-party vote – a result which, if replicated across the state in October – would win them 14 extra seats, and government.
In contrast, Inala is Queensland Labor’s safest seat – with Ms Palaszczuk’s father and former minister Henry holding the seat from 1992 until 2006.
Ms Palaszczuk emerged on the hustings on Saturday and it is understood she was warmly welcomed by locals.
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