Queensland Labor MPs ‘sitting around waiting to lose’ election

Steven Miles’s regional MPs are ‘sitting around waiting to lose’ as Labor struggles to field candidates in all 93 seats just one week out from the start of the Queensland state election campaign.

Queenslan Premier Steven Miles at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium on Tuesday. Picture: Steve Pohlner

Steven Miles’s regional MPs are “sitting around waiting to lose” as Labor struggles to field candidates in all 93 seats just one week out from the start of the Queensland state election campaign.

In an extraordinary leak, The Australian can reveal not a single regional MP has made it on to Labor’s internal leaderboard – which tracks the total number of “doorknocks” and phone calls made to voters in each electorate – in the past week.

All 10 electorates at the top of the leaderboard are in the state’s southeast corner, exposing how candidates and MPs in regional parts of the state are struggling to attract volunteers and union resources.

A senior Labor source told The Australian party members have been “very unmotivated across the board”, with successive polls predicting Labor is on track to lose the October 26 election.

“Getting volunteers to doorknock and make calls has been a real struggle and I think that is because they think we are going to lose,” the source said.

“A lot of MPs are not motivated either.

“The people who should be making calls like crazy are the ones in regional Queensland but they aren’t. They are just sitting around waiting to lose and it is really frustrating.”

Labor’s internal database reveals the campaign that has had the most voter interaction this week was the Brisbane bayside seat of Redcliffe, which, as of Tuesday afternoon, had made 2245 calls and 2183 doorknocks in the past seven days.

Party strategists fear the seat, held on a 6.1 per cent margin, is extremely vulnerable to the Liberal National Party, as long-serving MP and Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath is retiring at the election.

Former high school teacher Kass Hall is contesting the seat for Labor and is up against the LNP’s Kerri-Anne Dooley, who is running for Redcliffe for the sixth time.

Campaigns being boosted by resources from the United Workers Union and the public sector Together union – Pine Rivers, Mansfield and Gaven – were next on the leaderboard.

Ipswich West, the Labor heartland seat lost to the Liberal National Party at a bruising by-election earlier this year, was in fifth place, followed by Education Minister Di Farmer’s campaign to retain her seat of Bulimba and Transport Minister Bart Mellish in Aspley.

The local campaign to re-elect Ali King, a close factional ally of Mr Miles, in her seat of Pumicestone, north of Brisbane, placed eighth, followed by Cooper and Redlands.

The Australian has also obtained data revealing the Labor MPs and candidates who have personally made the most number of phone calls or visits to voters’ homes in the past week.

Eric Richman, contesting the LNP-held seat of Moggill, topped the list, followed by Chris Johnson in the marginal LNP seat of Coomera.

The ALP source said: “The fact that candidates in seats we are not winning are at the top of the leaderboard is ridiculous.”

The leaked news comes as Labor headquarters scrambles to fill ballot papers across all 93 electorates, with candidates yet to be announced in nine seats just one week before the start of the campaign.

Seats without Labor candidates are Buderim (held by the LNP’s Brent Mickelberg on 5.29 per cent), Kawana (LNP’s Jarrod Bleijie, 9.31 per cent), Burnett (LNP’s Stephen Bennett, 10.79 per cent), Lockyer (LNP’s Jim McDonald, 11.52 per cent), Southern Downs (LNP’s James Lister, 14.09 per cent), Hinchinbrook (Katter’s Australian Party’s Nick Dametto, 14.76 per cent), Callide (LNP’s Bryson Head, 15.83 per cent), Condamine (LNP’s Pat Weir, 19.20 per cent) and Warrego (LNP’s Ann Leahy, 23.15 per cent). The David Crisafulli-led LNP has candidates preselected in all but the south Brisbane seat of Stretton, won by Labor backbencher James Martin at a by-election in 2021.

The latest Newspoll, published on Saturday, showed the LNP with a 10-point lead after preferences, putting Labor on track for a crushing defeat.

If replicated statewide, the predicted Newspoll swing would wipe out 20 seats, including five held by ministers, reducing Labor to just 31 seats in the single-chamber parliament.

Asked on Tuesday if Labor was as ready as it could be for the election, from an organisation point of view, Mr Miles said: “Yes.”