Courier-Mail Voter Verdict: Get to know the panel for 2024 Qld state election

Introducing Voter Verdict – an exclusive candid election analysis from real Queenslanders whose unfiltered no-holds-barred views will feature in videos during the campaign.

A single mother struggling to keep up with rent increases, a dad homeschooling his four kids and a rural uni student living in the city.

These are some of the faces of the Courier Mail’s Voter Verdict – an exclusive candid election analysis from real people.

More than 20 every day Queenslanders will share their honest opinions during what will be one of the most important election campaigns in recent times.

With stories similar to yours, their unfiltered no-holds-barred views will feature as video vlogs on couriermail.com.au and in The Sunday Mail and The Courier-Mail throughout the State election campaign.

Sarah Curry, of Wavell Heights, is a single mum struggling to pay her rent because it jumped 30 per cent in one hit.

“My rent has increased 30 per cent in one hit. Everything’s getting more expensive and affordable housing is just for me to stay in the area where my family is,” Ms Curry said.

“It’s getting a little tough to find in this area. As a single person with a child it’s hard.”

Stephen Robertson, of Murgon, has been married for 18 years.

“I have four children. We home all our children. It keeps us all nice and busy,” he said.

“The issues that are here locally is youth crime, it is terrible here, it’s just like the youth can do whatever they want.

“It feels like the local authorities just don’t do enough.”

Pollsters YouGov have carefully selected each member of our voter panel and they are genuinely undecided voters.

They’ll judge the performances of the leaders and cut through the noise giving their opinions on the policies, and the promises.

Then on election day, they’ll reveal who has won their vote.

Look out for their daily vlogs and reactions to hot button issues and key moments and every Friday they’ll give their verdict of the campaign.

See what the Voter Verdict had to say about the current campaign.

Meet the Voter Verdict profiles

Name: Jason Choice

Age: 34

Occupation: OSHC Coordinator

Location: Keperra

Originally from Emerald Beach at New South Wales, Jason Choice moved to Brisbane 13 years ago in search of stable employment.

More than ten years in Queensland and Mr Choice says Brisbane is much nicer than Sydney. But he is concerned about housing, youth crime and cost of living.

When he travels he usually tries to go back to the Coffs Harbour area to visit his family.
Mr Choice is happily partnered with an almost one year old. At the moment he is renting his home because of how difficult it is to break into the market.

“I’m finding it hard to buy a house myself. That’s massive. And we’ve had savings for years but haven’t been able to break into it yet,” he said.

In his spare time Mr Choice loves to hang with his family, play video games and criticise TV shows.

Name: Sarah Curry

Age: 42

Occupation: Community engagement specialist

Location: Wavell Heights

Sarah Curry is a single mum living in Brisbane. Her biggest issues include Olympics, housing and cost of living.

“My rent has increased 30 per cent in one hit,” she said.

“Everything’s getting more expensive and affordable housing is getting a little tough to find in this area where my family is. As a single person with a child it’s hard.”

Name: Brett Jones

Age: 53

Occupation: Maintenance

Location: Cairns

Escaping the cold weather in Melbourne, Brett Jones moved to Queensland for the warmer weather.

He picked the place known for it’s hot humid weather up in Cairns in tropical north Queensland.

In his spare time you will find Mr Jones at the beach, gym, swimming and doing martial arts.

When he gets out of Cairns, Mr Jones loves to holiday at the Gold Coast or in Thailand.

Now that he calls Queensland home, Mr Jones has many issues he cares about.

“The issues facing Queensland for me are the housing crisis situation, the youth crime and the amount of censorship threatening to with freedom of speech,” he said.

Name: Troy Enright

Age: 33

Occupation: IT Manager

Location: Brisbane City

Key Issues: Olympics, cost of living and housing. “I guess homelessness in the city, and also, I guess drug use. I don’t know if those are necessarily correlated, but there’s a lot of people around in the city that are camping and things like that,” he said.

Name: Simon Levy

Age: 52

Occupation: Commercial manager

Location: Margate

An avid traveller, Simon Levy, first came to Queensland for work after having been in Asia.

He grew up in London before setting his life here. He is partnered with a 14-year-old living in his home that he owns.

His favourite places to travel is anywhere with great nature and sightseeing like Japan, Europe and the United States of America.

In his spare time you will find Mr Levy hiking, swimming, camping, travelling and reading. His main issues ahead of the election are youth crime, cost of living, housing, lack of infrastructure.

“The high crime level is pretty much out of control in a lot of areas,” he said.

“Population is getting too big too quickly and this is causing a lot of issues around cost of living, housing, lack of infrastructure and lack of doctors.”

Name: Jack Lee

Age: 26

Occupation: Junior data analyst

Location: Ashgrove

Key Issues: “Some of the issues I’d like to see addressed in the upcoming election would be the housing crisis, the cost of living reduced, increase of health care, increase in cheaper free education, a continuation of the cheaper public transport, something that affects me directly,” he said.

Name: Claire Wright

Age: 45

Occupation: Administrator

Location: Redlands

Key Issues: Olympics. “David Crisafulli I think he’s a lot of bark and no bite,” she said.

“I don’t think that he’s proved to us what he’s going to do with his claimed election promises and what he’s going to enforce if and when he becomes into power.”

Name: Kimberley Lusk

Age: 43

Occupation: Retired chef

Location: Imbal

Key Issues: Mental health, rural healthcare, childcare. “The areas that I’m concerned about are funding for mental health for rural hospitals,” she said.

“It’s seriously lacking. And I’m also concerned about affordability for and availability for lower income families and people in general, because it’s really hard for people to be able to find places to live right now.”

Name: George Solakidis

Age: 47

Occupation: Senior Lead Specialist

Location: Minyama

Key Issues: Rental affordability, youth crime, infrastructure. “ Together with also the increase in youth crime rates, which have gone through the roof, and a lack of accountability,” he said.

“And also general infrastructure to cope with the influx of people that migrated to Queensland and look forward to sharing more my views moving forward.”

Name: Stephen Robertson

Age: 43

Occupation: Homemaker

Location: Murgon

Key Issues: Youth crime, housing, healthcare. Mr Robertson has been married for 18 years and has home schooled four kids. His concerns are about youth crime, housing affordability.

“The local hospital I know is not equipped enough, and I know the staff feel like they’re not supported enough every time I go up there for any reason, they seem really stressed, like they’re over, overworked and not supported,” he said.

Name: Gail McIntyre

Age: 63

Occupation: Retired

Location: Sunshine Coast

Key Issues: Youth crime, cost of living, housing, health care, infrastructure, climate change. “My concerns with the health system are in part, lack of healthcare in rural areas and how we address that ambulance ramping and wait times in the public health system,” she said.

Name: Olivia

Age: 21

Location: Kelvin Grove

Key Issues: Access to health care in rural areas, support for farmers, climate change and cost of living. As a uni student, Olivia cares about many issues. “I grew up in a rural area for 17 years and I know first hand how limited this can be,” she said.

“I think it’s the role of the government to motivate and incentivise doctors and health professionals to move to these areas.”

Name: Breanna

Age: 27

Occupation: Student

Location: New Farm

Key Issues: Olympics, cost of living, housing crisis, rental crisis and renters’ rights. “As a renter myself, it’s really concerning. I feel like there’s a lot of infrastructure updates that need to be put in place, and a lot of bear base requirements that landlords need to be made to implement with climate change and our rising temperatures,” she said.

“I find it very concerning that it is not mandatory for a landlord to put in an airconditioning unit in properties.”

Name: Elodie

Age: 39

Occupation: Medical receptionist

Location: Kenmore

Key Issues: Healthcare in rural areas, cost of living, climate change and public transport. “I know they’ve done the 50 cent fares, but it doesn’t affect people in other areas, we need to increase public transport,” she said.

“I live in the western suburbs, and there’s not a lot of options for trains where I am, it’s mainly buses on one road.”

Name: Khatra Nekzad

Age: 33

Occupation: Individual giving manager

Location: Brisbane City

Key Issues: Cost of Living, Olympics. “Why would we put all this money into a stadium where there is no public transport. It’s so far away from everybody that just makes no sense to me,” she said.

“Victoria Park would have been a perfect location.”

Name: Elizabeth

Age: 30

Occupation: Accounts manager

Location: Toowong

Key Issues: Mental health, housing, cost of living. “I think the biggest issues for Queensland are probably all intertwined,” she said.

“So I think they’re around housing, mental health, and I guess cost of living and adjusting to the large influx of people that we’ve had move to Queensland since Covid.”

Name: Nicholas

Occupation: DJ

Location: South Brisbane

Key Issues: Public transport, swimming pools free, traffic congestion. “I would also like to see Council swimming pools free and gym memberships heavily subsidised,” he said.

“This would encourage people to stay healthy, which would actually save the health system money in the long run, for the same reason, I would like to see healthy whole foods such as fruit and vegetables subsidised, and this subsidy could be paid for by taxing cheap, unhealthy foods like Coca Cola and McDonald’s.”

Name: Beth

Age: 64

Occupation: Retired

Location: Newmarket

Key Issues: Public housing, education, cost of living. “What always concerns me, of course, with, forthcoming elections, is that egos can get in the way of the political candidates, and they can get a bit full of themselves,” she said.

“And, you know, at the end of the day, they need to remember that they are representatives of us, and that we have such a privilege, really, to be able to vote in a in a really transparent and legal way.”

Originally published as Courier-Mail Voter Verdict: Get to know the panel for 2024 Qld state election