Crisafulli claims victory, promising to ‘honour’ contract with voters

Queensland’s Liberal National Party has claimed victory in a state election for the first time in more than 10 years – and only the second time in almost 40 – with David Crisafulli set to become the state’s next premier.

While in a speech on Saturday night, Premier Steven Miles conceded only that both major parties appeared unlikely to gain the seats required to govern in their own right, he called Crisafulli on Sunday morning to congratulate him.

David Crisafulli, with wife Tegan, declares victory in the 2024 Queensland election on Saturday night.Credit: William Davis

The last throes of five hours of counting after the polls had closed meant enough pre-poll votes favoured the LNP for Crisafulli to declare victory and a “fresh start for Queensland” shortly before 11pm.

Addressing a roaring crowd of party faithful in a blue-clad Brisbane CBD hotel, Crisafulli said he was intent on establishing the party for “generational” government, with the conservatives not having won consecutive polls since the Joh Bjelke-Petersen era.

“Tomorrow we get to work, and do what we say we were going to do. We don’t do what we say we wouldn’t do. And we have a contract with Queenslanders. We intend to honour it,” he said.

Crisafulli said it was important to govern with humility, decency, vision and tenacity, to now stay in government, before borrowing a phrase from Gough Whitlam’s successful effort to reclaim federal parliament for Labor in 1972.

“To borrow a phrase from a different era and different political movement – it’s time,” he said of his intent to see the LNP government re-elected in 2028.

Miles had addressed an upbeat crowd of his own at a pub in his electorate in Brisbane’s suburban north about one hour earlier, saying it was always going to be a challenge to retain a fourth-term for Labor in government.

In a speech appearing to be a pitch to lead the party in opposition, he said it was clear Labor would be short the 47 seats needed for government in the 93-seat single house of parliament, and the LNP was “unlikely to have a majority”.

“But I have no regrets about the campaign, or indeed by last 10 months,” Miles said, thanking family, staff, the party and union movement, and continuing campaign attacks against the LNP.

“Whatever the final number of seats, I will keep doing what matters for Queensland.”

The four-week fight was a continuation of Miles’ effort to turn Labor around in the public eye after taking the reins from three-term leader Annastacia Palaszczuk, who brought the party back to power in one term after Campbell Newman’s wipeout 2012 LNP win, which catapulted Crisafulli into his cabinet.

That last period of LNP rule, in which thousands of public servants lost their jobs, has been a spectre raised by Labor since. It was again in this campaign, which the LNP fought on crime and Labor overwhelmingly on living costs.

But those ghosts of the past, alongside questions about the LNP’s plans on the energy transition, nuclear power, and simmering support among MPs and candidates to wind back abortion and assisted dying reforms, had threatened to derail Crisafulli’s otherwise disciplined effort and long polling lead.

But by the end of counting on Saturday, Nine News had projected wins for the LNP in 44 seats, with Labor on 32, Katter’s Australian Party on three, and independent Sandy Bolton likely to keep Noosa.

ABC election analyst Antony Green said just prior to Crisafulli’s victory speech he was confident the LNP would reach 47 seats.

With almost two-thirds of votes counted, the LNP appeared to have collected a swath of marginal seats off Labor along the length of the coast, including two of the three seats around Cairns and the three around Townsville.

Labor’s almost 110-year hold on Mackay, and decades-long reign in Rockhampton, had slipped, and the LNP was also on track to pick up neighbouring Keppel and Hervey Bay to the south.

In the south-east, where Labor’s vote held up stronger than the regions, the party was set to lose its two-seat beachhead on the Sunshine Coast, and the Bribie Island-based seat of Pumicestone.

Redcliffe and Redlands also looked likely to be won by the LNP, with the result in several other Labor-held seats around Brisbane and the Gold Coast still unclear, but maybe offset by Labor winning back Ipswich West.

Question marks remained over the Greens’ hold on South Brisbane and Maiwar, while Katter’s Australian Party appeared on track to retain its four pre-election seats.

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