Queensland election: Accusations seats were claimed too early

UNCERTAINTY remains over who will win the seats of Thuringowa and Mundingburra and they should not have been claimed by Labor, one state leader says.

It remains unclear who will win the seats of Thuringowa and Mundingburra and they should not have been claimed by Labor, One Nation’s state leader says.

Steve Dickson said it was premature of Labor incumbents Coralee O’Rourke and Aaron Harper to claim victory in their Townsville seats.

“This is full preferential voting and we have to go through that process,” he said.

“Neither of those seats have been determined and it’s inappropriate to claim victory.

“We have to wait and see. The Electoral Commission Queensland has a job to do. We haven’t had full preferential voting for a long time and it’s a long drawn-out process.”

A spokesman for the ECQ confirmed the authority was not likely to declare a winner until next week.

“In seats where the race is tight, it may not be possible to declare a winner until after the return of postal votes and people have until 6pm on ­December 5 to return these,” the spokesman said.

The commission has also stopped listing the notional counts on its website, which it said was standard at this stage of the election as the number of actual votes outstripped the notional count.

Labor incumbent Aaron Harper is standing by his claims of victory and said it was based on the analysis of information gathered by scrutineers.

“We have strategists and political people that are well across the preference flows. I’m very confident nothing will change,” he said.

In Townsville, ALP incumbent Scott Stewart maintains a lead over LNP challenger Casie Scott with 8714 votes to 8130, according to results posted yesterday.

The flow of preferences from Greens candidate ­Rebecca Ryan is expected to favour Mr Stewart.

The direction of preferences from voters who backed One Nation candidate Allan Evans, who has secured 5150 first preference votes, is unclear.

The commission says 77.12 per cent of the vote has been tallied and postal votes must arrive by Monday to be counted.

It’s expected the bulk of postal votes will favour Ms Scott.

The race for Burdekin remains a close-run affair.

ALP candidate Michael Brunker is leading with 9746 votes over LNP incumbent Dale Last with 8373 and One Nation candidate Sam Cox, who has 7792.

The commission has counted 80.30 per cent of the votes for Burdekin.

LNP incumbent Andrew Cripps is maintaining a lead in the battle for Hinchinbrook.

Mr Cripps has 7488 votes in front of One Nation’s Margaret Bell (5490), Katter’s Australian Party’s Nick Dametto (5298) and Labor’s Paul Jacob (4778).

Originally published as Queensland election: Accusations seats were claimed too early