What to expect as Annastacia Palaszczuk and Deb Frecklington go head-to-head in People’s Forum
Gladys Berejiklian’s shock foray into the Queensland election campaign has added fire to what was already shaping as a heated showdown between Annastacia Palaszczuk and Deb Frecklington at today’s The Courier-Mail/Sky News People’s Forum.
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Does Gladys Berejiklian know what this Saturday is?
In a surprise foray into Queensland’s election campaign that will be seized upon at The Courier-Mail/Sky News Leaders debate later today, the NSW Premier handed Annastacia Palaszczuk exactly the political attack she wants going into the election in just three days’ time.
WATCH THE LEADERS DEBATE LIVE FROM 4PM HERE
The Premier had started strong on COVID issues in the first week of the election, telling Queenslanders she had kept them safe and pointing to the LNP’s repeated calls to open them in the weeks before Victoria’s second wave.
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But LNP Leader Deb Frecklington had somehow managed to dampen the issue since then, helped when Prime Minister Scott Morrison joined her on the hustings in the second week and managed to keep a straight face while telling Queenslanders he’d never said the state should open their borders.
But enter Berejiklian, who today accused Palaszczuk of not having the “courage” to open the borders.
“Deb and I have a great working relationship, we’re in touch with each other all the time, in fact I was in touch with her yesterday … so I know that if she was elected Premier she would definitely open the border … and she would have done it months ago,” she said.
The quotes have already been turned into an attack by Labor, who are merrily tweeting the clip and accusing Frecklington of having no regard for health advice.
Both leaders have traversed the state for the past weeks launching varied attacking at political foes, but today they both returned to their original messages.
Labor says Queensland would be riddled with COVID if the LNP had been in power through the pandemic, while the LNP has doubled down on Labor’s high unemployment rate – unreasonably high even before COVID struck.
Last month Queensland won the unenviable title of holding the country’s highest unemployment rate, even ahead of locked-down Victoria.
Both attacks will feature in tonight’s debate – the first time the leaders come face-to-face and the first time they’ll have to answer to the voters.
And so while we know what the leaders want to talk about, this afternoon we hear what the voters care about.
At the 2017 state debate, questions ranged from cost of living, public service job security, the threat of minority government, safe bus services, Adani and how each side would create jobs.
There will be similar questions tonight, as well as the potential for a left-field bomb, or a leader gaffe that could still shake up this election.
We shall see at 4pm.
Originally published as What to expect as Annastacia Palaszczuk and Deb Frecklington go head-to-head in People’s Forum