Queensland election: Steven Miles sandbagging to save Labor seats

Steven Miles has been running a highly defensive election campaign in an attempt to retain the seats Queensland Labor already holds, in an effort to limit the size of the LNP’s widely predicted victory.

Queensland Premier Steven Miles visits the Royal Flying Doctor Service hangar in Cairns on Monday. Picture: Adam Head

Steven Miles has been running a highly defensive election campaign in an attempt to retain the seats Queensland Labor already holds in an effort to limit the size of LNP leader David Crisafulli’s widely predicted victory at Saturday’s poll.

Analysis by The Australian shows almost three-quarters of the electorates the Labor leader has visited in the past 21 days have been in seats held by sitting ALP MPs. In the past 48 hours alone, Mr Miles has flown from southeast Queensland to the state’s tropical far north in a last-ditch attempt to protect six of the government’s most vulnerable seats.

It is in stark contrast to Opposition Leader David Crisafulli, who is running an attacking campaign strategy to win the 12 seats the LNP needs to form a majority government in the 93-electorate parliament. The analysis shows more than 70 per cent of electorates he has visited are currently in Labor hands.

The latest Newspoll suggests he is on track to win up to 20 seats to form a LNP government for the first time in nine years.

Both leaders want to win over voters in Townsville and Cairns, held by Labor on respective margins of 3.1 per cent and 5.6 per cent, and have each been visited three times. All three of Labor’s Townsville seats – Townsville, Mundingburra (3.93 per cent) and Thuringowa (3.25 per cent) – are marginal and key targets for the opposition.

Only nine of the 35 seats Labor has visited are controlled by the LNP, including the long-held Brisbane electorate of Moggill and Oodgeroo, which is being contested by former Queensland senator, Amanda Stoker.

Mr Miles will travel to Mackay on Tuesday, indicating how serious Labor’s sandbagging efforts are. The regional city has been held by Labor since 1915 when it was won by William Forgan Smith, and was one of the seven seats held by Labor during the one-term Newman government.

On the hustings, Mr Miles has tried to appeal to vastly different voters. On Sunday, he hosted “Steve’s Sunday Sesh” for dozens of young people at an inner-Brisbane bowls club in an effort to keep their votes from straying to the Greens, and took selfies with mortgage-strapped families in Brisbane’s outer suburbs demanding cost-of-living relief. In the regions, crime remains a hot-button issue at pre-poll booths.

It reveals the challenge that faces Mr Miles going into an election where a fifth of the state has already cast votes, according to the latest Electoral Commission of Queensland data.

Thousands more have requested a postal ballot or alternate voting method.

Speaking in Cairns on Monday morning, the Premier announced a $5.2m commitment for a new mobile dental clinic for Cape York. Mr Miles said it was a “real shame” more than 700,000 Queenslanders had already voted without seeing the LNP’s election costings, which won’t be released until Thursday.

“Those 20 per cent of Queenslanders have had to vote without all the facts,” Mr Miles said.

“They’ve had to vote without knowing what Crisafulli would do to a woman’s right to choose, without knowing what he would cut to fund his promises, without knowing his position on issues as fundamental as nuclear power.

“There’s only a few more days now before 100 per cent of Queenslanders will have voted without knowing those answers. It’s absolutely critical that he doesn’t get away with hiding these plans from Queenslanders.”

Mr Miles and Mr Crisafulli will return to Brisbane for the final leader’s debate for Sky News on Tuesday.