If Labor and the LNP hope you forget (bits of) the past, what’s the future?

With Queensland budget week and the final parliamentary sitting over, October’s election is fast approaching and there is one thing both Labor and the LNP seem to agree on: voters should be focused on the future.

Except when they shouldn’t.

Liberal National Party leader David Crisafulli, left, and Labor premier Steven Miles.Credit: Bethany Rae

Treasurer Cameron Dick says the vote isn’t a “referendum on the last nine years” of Labor government. But as he casts Steven Miles as the “new” premier, he still wants to talk up the party’s positive record.

The LNP is also keen to tell voters it’s changed in opposition – at least in approach, if not so much personnel – since it blew the parliament’s most overwhelming majority in history in a single term.

Both could, and do, cherry-pick data points that suit their narratives while glossing over others, and have U-turned on previously held positions.

There’s little said about the vastly different circumstances – state, national and global – that Annastacia Palaszczuk and Campbell Newman found themselves in, and their use of a state parliament which enables a winner-takes-all approach.

Both, instead, want voters to focus on what they’re offering: the vision they’re painting for the future of the state and its impact on Queenslanders’ lives.

(Except, of course, when they shouldn’t.)

But what if we took them on their word? A forward-looking contest of ideas built around the concerns Queensland’s residents want addressed sounds great.

Whether we get that, rather than a lengthy slanging match, depends on how committed the parties are to it. And whether voters – the media, too – can hold them to it.

So, with the caveat that some of Labor’s plans are already in action, and oppositions can have longer lists by seeking to differentiate from longstanding government positions, I’ve pulled together a picture of “the visions” on offer from the two major parties to date.

This is a resource I hope to continue in some form up to October 26, so feel free to sing out if I’ve missed something. (And don’t worry, the smaller parties will get a look-in as well.)

Ultimately, it’s now up to voters, and the media, to examine the evidence driving these visions and their evolutions in the next four months, unpack how they might work (or not), and highlight what’s missing.

If the government and opposition are genuine about a better future, they’ll listen.