Federal election 2019: Herbert locked in a 50-50 two-party-preferred battle

Vanity parties will decide who wins Queensland’s most marginal seat of Herbert, with LNP and Labor struggling with low primary votes but locked in a 50-50 two-party-preferred battle.

Labor’s Cathy O’Toole is locked in a 50-50 split with the LNP’s Phil Thompson.

VANITY parties will decide who wins Queensland’s most marginal seat of Herbert, with LNP and Labor struggling with low primary votes but locked in a 50-50 two-party-preferred battle.

Labor’s Cathy O’Toole, who won the seat by just 37 votes in 2016, is in the political fight of her life with 37 per cent of voters shunning major parties.

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Despite the benefit of incumbency, Ms O’Toole, who has repeatedly muddled her message on whether she supports the Adani coal mine, has only shifted her primary vote by 0.5 per cent since 2016.

The LNP’s candidate, former Army private Phil Thompson, has clocked up a primary vote of 32 per cent, but that is 3.5 per cent lower than what the Coalition polled in the 2016 double-dissolution election.

Of all the minor parties, Katter’s Australia Party (KAP) has the strongest support at 14 per cent, more than double One Nation’s 6 per cent.

In a shock result for One Nation, it’s primary vote has dramatically sunk. In 2016, its vote was 13.5 per cent.

The Greens have lost ground from 6.3 per cent in 2016 to 5 per cent.

Townsville has an unemployment rate of 8.4 per cent, with almost 10,000 people without a job.

Labor’s Cathy O’Toole is locked in a 50-50 split with the LNP’s Phil Thompson.

Mr Palmer has done a preference deal with the LNP that could help push Mr Thompson over the line, however, KAP and One Nation are running split tickets, which means they will have double-sided how-to-vote cards. On one side it will direct voters how to distribute their preferences if they prefer the Coalition and the other side what to do if they align more with Labor.

In 2016, the LNP’s Ewen Jones lost the seat.

At the time, Mr Jones was rounded upon by locals for not supporting a pay rise for Australian Defence Force personnel and not securing funding for a new Townsville stadium. A city deal for Townsville was announced at the later end of the campaign, which included funding for a stadium, but a high number of voters had already pre-polled.

His campaign team also did not send a team to hand out how-to-vote cards on Palm Island, and the LNP suffered an 18 per cent swing at that booth.

Originally published as Federal election 2019: Herbert locked in a 50-50 two-party-preferred battle