Cheeky David Crisafulli launches LNP campaign in Labor stronghold of Ipswich

Leader of the Opposition David Crisafulli, LNP campaign launch, Ipswich Showgrounds. Picture: Liam Kidston

Talk about confidence. David Crisafulli cheekily launched his campaign to be Queensland’s next premier in the Labor stronghold of Ipswich, a prize that by rights shouldn’t be in the mix for the Liberal National Party at Saturday’s state election.

The LNP would have you think the seat is very much in play – though Ipswich is the ALP’s eighth safest, on a more than ample margin of 16.52 per cent. The blue team also professes to be eyeing neighbouring Bundamba, higher still on the pendulum.

On noisy display in the Ipswich Event Centre was the paradox for an opposition that is desperate to cast the campaign as a close-run race, not the coronation of Mr Crisafulli suggested by the opinion polls.

Mr Crisafulli embraces wife, Tegan, at the LNP campaign launch. Picture: Liam Kidston

The LNP faithful dutifully dressed down for the occasion. There was barely a blazer, twin set or string of pearls to be seen in the room – packed to overflowing, of course – among the select gathering of 200. Most paired a cobalt LNP T-shirt with jeans or shorts.

They raised the roof when a besuited Mr Crisafulli strode to the rostrum to the stirring refrain of Hold on Forever, a track from the back catalogue of his friend, singer-songwriter Jason Singh.

This moment had been a long time coming for them all. Not since 2012, when Campbell Newman led the LNP to a monster election victory and then stunningly lost to Annastacia Palaszczuk at the next outing, has the party been so hopeful.

Not since 1989, when the late Wayne Goss kicked off 35 years of Labor dominance at the state level in Queensland, has the chance to create a new political order glimmered like it does now for Mr Crisafulli.

The unspoken message: don’t blow it.

The LNP’s official campaign launch was pared back in every respect. No Peter Dutton, no celebratory balloons or streamers, no appearance, either, by any of the candidates known to oppose abortion law reform, an issue that continues to bedevil Mr Crisafulli on the hustings.

The job of introducing him didn’t go to a party grandee. Instead, the daughter of 70-year-old stabbing victim Vyleen White stepped up. Cindy Micaleff spoke movingly of the murder in February of her mother during a carjacking by alleged juvenile offenders outside a supermarket in nearby Redbank Plains and how Mr Crisafulli spent time at the family’s kitchen table, workshopping what could be done to prevent future tragedies.

The LNP leader had listened to her bereaved dad, Victor, speak about the need for adult crime to be punished with “adult time”. So carefully, in fact, that he adopted it as an election slogan.

Mr Crisafulli with Cindy Micallef and Victor White. Picture: Liam Kidston

Mr Crisafulli told the crowd he wanted to use the belated launch – only six days out from polling day, when a quarter of Queensland’s 3.6m voters had already cast an early ballot – to “focus on the crime crisis”.

“We owe this to Cindy and the other 289,657 victims of crime in the last 12 months in this state, more than any other Australian state or territory, despite our population being much smaller than Victoria or NSW,” he said to hearty cheers and applause.

“It’s a topic this government hasn’t wanted to speak about during the entire campaign, a crisis created by their decision to weaken the youth justice laws and boast about it when they came to office nearly a decade ago.”

The news was that an LNP government would crack down on kids who played up in juvenile detention. If they assaulted a supervisor the consequences would be more than “a few minutes to cool down”, which, he claimed, was the unsatisfactory deal under the existing system. Offenders would immediately go into isolation, he said. Those who did not attend school would lose their TV privileges.

“This will instil discipline into these centres where frontline staff tell us access to a television in a young person’s room is almost never denied despite the severity of their behaviour, because it is considered a human right,” Mr Crisafulli said. Shouts of “hear, hear” echoed through the room.

“Access to food is a human right,” he continued. “Access to shelter is a human right. Access to education is a human right. Access to a television is not, it’s a privilege and should be a reward for behaviour.”

The LNP posters taped to the back wall, in Mr Crisafulli’s eye line, came unstuck and tumbled to the floor, sending young apparatchiks scrambling. But he wasn’t to be distracted. Not for a moment.

Mr Crisafulli remained relentlessly on message, hammering home his pitch. The youth justice system needed a fresh start and so did Queensland, and the only way to get that was to change the government, he said.

History showed Labor had won 11 of the past 12 state elections and this one “will be tough”.

But what’s that time-honoured adage about politicians casting for votes? About actions counting far more than their words. And Mr Crisafulli’s presence in Ipswich – a loss for Labor that would signal a Newman-esque landslide to the LNP – said it all about his confidence as the campaign enters its decisive closing phase.