Jackie Trad likely victim of Labor bloodbath
The Palaszczuk Government – now facing potential wipeout at the next state election – has heard the message from Queensland voters who turned away from Labor in droves on Saturday, according to a senior minister.
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THE Palaszczuk Government has heard the message from Queensland voters who turned away from Labor in droves on Saturday, according to a senior minister.
Transport Minister Mark Bailey said the Government needed to learn the lessons from the federal election and deliver “what people want”.
“I think Labor needs to listen to the message that voters gave them on Saturday, generally that is that the voters are always right and there’s lessons there for Labor that we are already looking at and examining,” he said.
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“Of course it was a federal Labor campaign, there is responsibility there for federal Labor but there’s lessons there for state Labor and we certainly are listening.”
It comes after analysis by The Courier-Mail showed that the Palaszczuk Government would be wiped out in a bloodbath if the federal election results were repeated at next year’s state poll.
Several ministers have already traveled to the regions today to make announcements aimed appeasing growing discontent of voters and Labor MPs living outside the southeast corner.
A group of regional MPs upset with Palaszczuk Government’s handling of the stalled Adani Carmichael coal mine in the Galilee Basin forced a meeting with the premier to vent their anger last week.
Mr Bailey said there were “very strong regional members” in the Government who “put forward their points of view very strongly and very fiercely”.
He said the Government was pro-resources.
“In terms of that project (Adani) I understand there’s two issues where they’ve got to provide further information on, only two remaining but that’s something to be judged by the independent regulator so I look forward to them submitting that information and meeting the standards that apply to any applicant,” he said.
LABOR FACES WIPEOUT AT NEXT STATE POLL
THE Palaszczuk Government would be wiped out in a bloodbath if the federal election results were repeated at next year’s state poll.
Deputy Premier Jackie Trad would be swallowed by a rising Green tide in her South Brisbane electorate, while LNP swings up and down the coast could see just three Labor MPs left north of Caboolture.
Analysis by The Courier-Mail reveals Townsville, Thuringowa, Mundingburra, Keppel, Rockhampton, Maryborough and Mackay would fall like dominoes down the coastline, taking out Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s hopes for a third term amid anger about Adani.
Labor would battle to keep Cairns, Barron River, a handful of seats in Brisbane and lose its newly-won Gold Coast jewel Gaven, with little chance of realising plans to pick up more electorates south of Brisbane to counteract losses in the regions.
The analysis, based on swings and total votes recorded at federal polling booths, and compared to results from Queensland’s 2017 election, comes as another Labor stalwart, former minister and speaker John Mickel, urged Labor to better sell its resources credentials.
“We should be pro-mining because we have got a good story to tell,” he said.
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“It is mining that provides the royalties that pay for the school teachers and the cops and the doctors and the nurses and that cannot be immediately replaced.”
Mr Mickel said the majority of coal mined in Queensland was metallurgical coal for steelmaking, and solar could not make steel.
Ms Palaszczuk has been defiant when asked if her government accepted any responsibility for the poll result, saying: “Queenslanders are smart enough to know the difference” between a federal and state election.
But as regional MPs worry an anti-Adani stance will kill them, it can be revealed Ms Trad would be the biggest scalp amid any pro-mining backlash.
LNP preferences already saved her from a Greens onslaught in 2017 but with the LNP resolving not to do the same in 2020, Ms Trad will be hard pressed to survive.
Analysis of her inner-city seat’s largest polling booth at West End at the weekend shows an 11 per cent swing to the Greens candidate, who outpolled Labor incumbent Terri Butler on first preferences.
Meanwhile, massive swings towards the LNP north of Brisbane dwarfed a national swing of just 0.5 per cent and would wipe out all but a few of Labor’s 12 MPs north of Caboolture.
Only Speaker Curtis Pitt, first-term Cook MP Cynthia Lui and Gladstone’s Glen Butcher may survive in the north.
Seven other regional Labor MPs would face wipe-out including the seat of Mackay, held on an 8.3 per cent margin.
Even before Saturday’s vote, MPs with seats close to the Adani Carmichael coal mine were feeling the heat and forced Ms Palaszczuk into an emergency meeting to vent their anger at the Government’s handling of the mine.
Communities Minister Coralee O’Rourke was one attendee who faces electoral oblivion amid a dramatic reversal of two-party preferred votes in booths across the two federal seats overlapping Mundingburra.
Labor MPs in the neighbouring seats of Townsville (0.4 per cent) and Thuringowa (4.1 per cent) face the same swings and a plunging primary vote.
Across the region, booths that were solidly Labor in 2017 were flipped deep into LNP hands on Saturday off preference flows from minor parties.
A drop in One Nation’s primary vote in Herbert – which covers the most densely populated areas of Thuringowa – saw the LNP’s primary soar and, if replicated next year, would turn Thuringowa blue.
Hopes of swapping regional losses for Gold Coast gains look shaky with Labor losing ground there at the weekend. In Brisbane, Labor would likely lose marginal Aspley after varying swings of up to 10 per cent were recorded toward the LNP in the overlapping federal electorates of Lilley and Dickson.
Housing Minister Mick de Brenni, who holds Springwood by 3.6 per cent, will face a scare after federal Labor frontbencher Jim Chalmers kept Rankin but recorded swings of up to 10 per cent against him at different booths.
Labor could hold onto Mansfield, Redlands, Ferny Grove and Redcliffe, but MPs will still be nervous.
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