Coronavirus: Economic timing key to Queensland poll success

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is performing a delicate political balancing act as the COVID-19 pandemic wears on.

Keen as she is to remain in the spotlight as Queensland’s chief giver of care and comfort to a frightened state, her electoral chances may hinge on picking the best time to switch from leading the response to the health crisis to shielding the state from a prolonged economic crisis.

Regional electorates hold the key to ballot box success at the October 31 poll and the ones that Labor holds on a safe margin are few and far between. In the state’s north, hardly touched by COVID-19, many people reliant on tourism are weighing the benefits of being virus-free with the cost of trying to do business where the skies are empty of aircraft and police are turning people away at the border.

Keeping these small and medium-sized businesses alive is a political imperative for all those Labor MPs north of Gladstone battling to hold their seats. Little wonder that the Premier’s suggestion of September — the end of the tourism season in the north — as a good time to resume greeting visitors from interstate was about as welcome as a cane toad in a box of mangoes.

Like all other premiers, Palaszczuk wants the benefits of good polls and a silenced opposition that the coronavirus has produced to keep rolling.

But her handling of this crisis will be the first to be put to the electoral test. The prospect of double-digit unemployment and industries such as tourism flattened to the floor make that test very hard to pass.