LNP snatches seat from Katter’s party in devastating by-election for Labor
Labor's vote has collapsed to a 70-year low in the Hinchinbrook by-election as David Crisafulli's LNP government achieves a historic victory, heaping pressure on Steven Miles.
David Crisafulli’s Liberal National Party government has won a historic by-election in his hometown seat, heaping leadership pressure on Opposition Leader Steven Miles as Labor’s vote slumped to a 70-year low.
The Premier’s hand-picked candidate and best mate Wayde Chiesa beat the incumbent Katter’s Australian Party 54 per cent to 46 per cent, two-party preferred, to win Hinchinbrook with a record 17 per cent swing, the first time in 27 years that a Queensland government has picked up a seat at a by-election.
Labor’s primary vote cratered to 8.3 per cent, believed to be the lowest first preference vote for the ALP in a Queensland state election since 1957 in the seat of Condamine, after the party’s 1955 split, which divided the vote between the splintered factions.
Mr Chiesa secured the seat with the help of preferences from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, which won 13.5 per cent of the primary vote, a 9 per cent swing to the minor party in the seat from the October 2024 state election, but a dip in support from its 2017 result.
Mr Crisafulli said he would accept the victory – which he described as a “big deal” in Queensland political history – with “humility and grace”, and use it as proof voters backed what the LNP government had done in its first year in power.
Speaking in his home town of Ingham on Sunday morning, he wasted no time in weaponising the victory against Mr Miles.
“Before this by-election, the Leader of the Opposition described this as a test of my leadership; now that’s a strange statement as you know by-elections traditionally swing against governments … I’m not sure I’ve seen a Labor Party vote in single digits,” Mr Crisafulli said.
At the ALP state conference on Sunday, regional delegates described the result in Hinchinbrook – which takes in Townsville’s northern beaches and runs north along the coast to Ingham, Cardwell and Lower Tully – as “devastating” and a “massive wake-up call” for Labor, but Mr Miles said there was not “any risk” of his leadership being under threat.
“This by-election was very much a contest between the LNP and the Katter’s Australian Party … the LNP government threw everything at it. They basically stopped governing for a month so that they could run this by-election,” Mr Miles said.
He did acknowledge the result showed Labor needed to “accept that there were mistakes made in the previous government”.
“That’s why I’ve said we have a policy clean slate and now we will review the entire party’s platform to ensure that it is fit for 2028 (election).”
Labor frontbencher and Old Guard faction leader Grace Grace said the Labor caucus remained supportive of Mr Miles’s leadership.
“This is a notoriously different by-election,” Ms Grace said. “We wanted to make sure people had an opportunity to vote for Labor … Steven Miles has 100 per cent support from the Labor caucus.”
Under Labor rules, Mr Miles cannot be forced from the leadership without votes of the party’s grassroots members, leadership of affiliated unions and caucus.
ALP headquarters had initially not wanted to run in the Hinchinbrook by election – sparked by sitting Katter’s Australian Party MP Nick Dametto quitting to successfully run for the Townsville mayoralty – but Mr Miles was goaded by Mr Crisafulli and Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie into fielding a candidate.
Mr Dametto held the seat with a 13.2 per cent buffer, more than doubling his primary vote between winning the seat in 2017 and his final election last year.
The LNP ran a strong negative campaign against KAP candidate Mark Molachino’s Labor past, including his time as a Townsville councillor and card-carrying member of the ALP. KAP state leader Robbie Katter described the Hinchinbrook campaign as the “most wicked” he had experienced, and said it showed “if you spend a lot of money on a smear campaign it can be really successful, so well done to the LNP”.
Mr Crisafulli left the door open to the government further toughening its youth crime laws to reflect accountant and rugby league commentator Mr Chiesa’s election policy to jail children who breached bail.
“Wayde’s job now is to bang down the door and put forward his case for stronger youth crime laws,” Mr Crisafulli said.
“I make this commitment to the people of Queensland: every change we make will be about strengthening not weakening the laws.”
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