Queensland election: Leaders unite for three-seat showdown
Scott Morrison and Deb Frecklington have reunited in Townsville, the centre of the Coalition’s ‘miracle’ victory in 2019.
Scott Morrison and Deb Frecklington have reunited in the must-win battleground of Townsville, the epicentre of the Coalition’s “miracle” victory in 2019.
The Prime Minister and the state Opposition Leader have crossed paths three times since Mr Morrison flew into Brisbane on Saturday and they both made stops in targeted electorates in regional Queensland on their way north.
Mr Morrison has been busy spruiking his budget while Ms Frecklington has joined him at every opportunity, hoping to capture some of the popularity that led to the dramatic 4.34 per cent swing in Queensland which sealed the Coalition’s upset in last year’s federal election.
North Queensland in particular was a happy hunting ground for the Coalition in 2019 when Liberal National Party candidate Phil Thompson unseated Labor’s Cathy O’Toole to win the seat of Herbert.
In the nine days since the writs were issued, Ms Frecklington has visited Townsville twice, underlining the importance it will play in determining the next state government.
Three Labor seats in the city are up for grabs on October 31, including the seat of Townsville, the state’s most marginal, which is held by just over 200 votes.
The battle for Townsville and its adjacent electorates of Thuringowa (4.1 per cent) and Mundingburra (1.1 per cent) proved crucial for Annastacia Palaszczuk’s victory in 2015, when the three LNP-held seats swung to Labor. For the past 20 years, the electorates have come in a joint package that has been crucial to forming government. Not since 1998, when One Nation won in Thuringowa, has one of the seats been a different colour from the others.
The LNP has made its pitch to voters by focusing on jobs and crime. On Wednesday, Mr Morrison and Ms Frecklington shared a helicopter ride over Townsville to examine connection points for the Copperstring energy transmission line from Mount Isa, which the federal government has committed $11m to.
The 2019 swing to the Coalition, which was most pronounced in electorates with high resources sector employment, was attributed to Labor’s unconvincing stance on mining. Just three weeks after Labor’s drubbing, Ms Palaszczuk rushed through the Adani mine’s approvals. Just before the election campaign began last week, Labor reached a royalties deal with Adani in a bid to prevent the issue plaguing her like it did in 2017.
Ms Frecklington, who started Wednesday in Mackay, said the LNP still had a point of difference from Labor on the resources sector and planned to “supercharge the Galilee Basin”, where Adani’s Carmichael mine is located, and approve the New Acland coalmine, near Toowoomba. She also unveiled a $50m scheme to provide $15,000 grants for coastal homeowners to prepare properties for cyclones.
She accused Labor of abandoning Mackay’s resources sector and alluded to comments made by former deputy premier Jackie Trad, who said miners would need to re-skill to find work. “When the Labor Party come into Mackay and say that resource workers have to re-skill, they’ve let down the Mackay region,” she said. “Mackay is a resources town.”
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