‘Worst result on record’ says Labor’s last regional MP

Labor’s only remaining regional MP in Queensland – and north of the Brisbane River – has a message for his colleagues if they have any hope of winning back the conservative state.

LABOR’S only remaining regional MP in Queensland says the party needs to fix its messaging and policies if it has any hope of winning back the conservative state.

Member for Blair Shayne Neumann, who will hold Labor’s only seat north of the Brisbane River if Lilley falls, said the weekend had been catastrophic.

“Our vote has collapsed, it was the worst primary vote result we’ve had in Queensland on record.

“The population of Queensland cannot be denied.

“Unless you tap into Queensland seats, Labor federally cannot win.”

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Labor won just 27.4 per cent of the primary vote in Queensland, five points lower than when John Howard defeated Paul Keating in 1996 and about 2 points down on 2013 when Tony Abbott came to power.

“When only one in four Queenslanders voted for us, we can’t win nationally,” Mr Neumann said.

“It goes to show that Queensland is Labor’s most important state.”

Blair MP Shayne Neumann is the only remaining regional Labor MP. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

His seat of Blair, which covers Ipswich up to Somerset, looked like it would hold against a 6.6 per cent swing to the LNP on two-party-preferred.

But Mr Neumann was yet to declare victory with postal votes still coming in.

Labor remains ahead but in trouble Lilley, where the LNP’s Brad Carswell is just 1100 votes behind with 10,000 postal votes to be counted.

Mr Carswell, a tree lopper who describes himself as one of Howard’s battlers and campaigned on the slogan “send a worker to Canberra”, said if the postals broke 55-45 in his favour he could fall over the line.

LNP candidate Brad Carswell, whose pitch was "send a worker to Canberra", is close to causing an election upset in winning the seat of Lilley, previously held by former Treasurer Wayne Swan. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

“It will be touch and go. It will either be just enough or we’ll just fall short,” he said.

“There will be a recount either way.”

It would be a huge win for the LNP to take Lilley, which had been held by former Treasurer Wayne Swan who did not contest the election.

The LNP looked set to win Longman from Labor, though the current MP Susan Lamb is yet to concede.

LNP candidate Terry Young remained 3.1 per cent ahead, but would not declare victory with more votes still to be thousands of voters still to be counted.