Bell tolls for Miles government

Saturday’s Queensland by-elections in two normally ultra-safe Labor seats confirmed what Newspoll showed a few days ago. Labor is facing defeat at the October 26 state election, after spending 22 of the past 25 years in power. The two-party preferred anti-Labor swings (17 per cent in Ipswich West and 21 per cent in Inala, formerly held by ex-premier Annastacia Palaszczuk) confirmed what has been clear all year. That is, the union-led elevation of her former deputy, Steven Miles, has failed. His grinning visage has not impressed voters concerned about the cost of living, crime, and health and hospitals. Labor has lost Ipswich West to the Liberal National Party and clung on in Inala.

Those seats are in battlers’ country, on the western outskirts of Greater Brisbane. Voters work hard to make ends meet and get ahead. Homes have risen in value but, against high mortgage costs and higher rents, power bills bite hard. And voters are in no mood for Labor’s shambolic preparations, to date, for the 2032 Olympic Games, the costs of which could get out of hand if sensible decisions are not made soon.

The government’s failure to deal with youth crime is more heartfelt in those and neighbouring electorates than anywhere, worrying as that issue is across the entire state. Ipswich West and Inala are close to Redbank Plains, where 70-year-old Vyleen White was stabbed in the chest in front of her six-year-old granddaughter in the underground car park of her local shopping centre last month, allegedly by a 16-year-old who was on bail and intent on stealing her car. The boy has been charged with her murder. Mr Miles remains staunchly opposed to reforming youth crime laws, which provide that children should be detained only as a last resort. Such a change would not work, he says, be dangerous, expensive and see thousands more in jail.

The anti-Labor swings in the two seats were three to four times normal anti-government by-election swings. Newspoll predicted a 7.2 per cent two-party-preferred swing against it, which if replicated statewide would cost Labor 18 seats in October. Including Ipswich West in the LNP column, the opposition needs to win a net 12 seats to secure a majority in the 93-seat parliament. Labor also did poorly across the state in council elections. LNP and Labor apparatchiks will be studying gains by the Greens in some of Brisbane’s most prosperous near-city suburbs. Their foothold at that level is strengthening, mainly at Labor’s expense. But LNP lord mayor Adrian Schrinner and his team remain firmly in control of Australia’s largest local government area.