Queensland election: The campaign rush is on to mine crucial regional votes

Annastacia Palaszczuk and Deb Frecklington are rushing to the regions to campaign in a sign the Queensland election will be won outside the metropolitan southeast corner.

Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick on Tuesday. Picture: Getty Images

Annastacia Palaszczuk and Deb Frecklington are rushing to the regions to campaign in a sign the Queensland election will be won outside the metropolitan southeast corner of the state.

On the opening day of a historic campaign for the state’s first fixed four-year term, both leaders were dogged by questions about whether they would seek support from crossbenchers in the event of a hung parliament after the October 31 election, before they turned their sights to the north.

The Premier and Opposition Leader urged voters not to flirt with minor parties after two state elections in which preferences from the minnows decided key seats, repeating promises of “no deals” to form minority government and asking voters to deliver a majority to aid Queensland’s economic recovery.

Before the pandemic, Queensland was plagued by three years of the nation’s highest unemployment, reduced growth, low business confidence and struggling industries.

On day one of the campaign, Ms Palaszczuk pleaded with voters to “allow me to get on with the job of economic recovery” post-COVID-19 and her Treasurer, Cameron Dick, said the election would be about “who will keep Queenslanders safe”, emphasising the government’s capable management of the health crisis.

Ms Frecklington, who will fly to far north Queensland on Wednesday night after announcing a statewide manufacturing policy in Brisbane, said voters needed to decide “who do you trust” to fix the state’s economy, evoking John Howard’s 2004 campaign rallying call that won him a seemingly unwinnable election.

In a surprise move for a Labor premier, after a brief visit to the Port of Brisbane Ms Palaszczuk flew straight to Mount Isa — Queensland’s mining capital in the heart of Katter country — in a totemic show of support for the regions and the state’s resources sector.

The target is not crucial crossbencher Robbie Katter’s seat of Traeger — the safest in the state, on an unassailable margin of 28.49 per cent — but rather an overt early move to blunt the threat of losing in regional Queensland after state and federal Labor’s mishandling of the Adani issue and the mixed message on coalmining was blamed for Bill Shorten’s loss last year.

Ms Palaszczuk’s previous election campaign, in 2017, was dogged by anti-Adani protests and pro-resources jobs pressure, and she largely avoided the issue of mining to quell the controversy.

But the Premier on Wednesday will back one of Mr Katter’s pet projects — the $1.7bn Copperstring 2.0, a high-voltage power transmission line that would help deliver cheaper power to new and existing mines in the burgeoning northwest minerals province.

Asked about the Galilee Basin, where Adani has the first coalmine, Ms Palaszczuk said it would be “up to the market” to decide how successful it was but she insisted her government backed mining jobs. “Let me say very clearly, we support the resources industry,” she said.

“We back jobs, whether they be in coal, whether they be in copper, whether they be in bauxite, whether they be in renewables.”

Framing her pitch to voters around the state’s dire economy, Ms Frecklington spent day one of the campaign on the Gold Coast, where she announced $25m funding for a space technology company to help grow the state’s manufacturing sector.

“There is a binary choice this election between the Labor Party and the LNP, which has a big, bold and ambitious plan to drag Queensland out of recession,” Ms Frecklington said. “This election is all about who do you trust, who has the best plan for the economy and for jobs in Queensland.”

The LNP has based its pre-campaign announcements on major infrastructure projects, including the New Bradfield water diversion scheme, widening the Bruce Highway from Gympie to Cairns, and building a second M1 motorway.

Labor holds 48 of the parliament’s 93 electorates, a two-seat majority, with the LNP on 38. The opposition needs a net gain of nine seats to win majority government and will target Labor’s seven marginal seats in regional Queensland.

Three seats in Townsville, one in Cairns, the Cape York seat of Cook and the One Nation-held Mirani will be key targets for the conservatives.

Labor is eyeing off the north Queensland electorate of Burdekin, which the LNP holds with a margin of 0.8 per cent, as well as independent-held Whitsunday.

Ms Palaszczuk is also targeting LNP electorates on the Gold and Sunshine coasts, where Burleigh, Pumicestone and Glass House are marginal. Another Gold Coast seat, Gaven, is in the LNP’s sights after it was narrowly lost to Labor in 2017.