In far north, things never black and white

ONE is a former crocodile farmer who became a Howard hero for the Liberal Party, and jumped before voters got the chance to push him in 2007.

Julia Gillard and the candidate for Herbert, Tony Mooney. Picture: Kym Smith

ONE is a former crocodile farmer who became a Howard hero for the Liberal Party, and jumped before voters got the chance to push him in 2007.

The other is Australia's longest-serving mayor, personally recruited by Kevin Rudd, and now the hope of the side to hold the line in the former prime minister's electorally crucial home state.

In Queensland's deep north, where the locals really do see themselves as a breed apart, Warren Entsch in Labor-held Leichhardt and Tony Mooney in Liberal-held Herbert are set to turn the tables on each other's parties, find personal redemption and show just why all politics is local.

If the election is as close as early polling suggests, it will come down to bitterly fought grassroots contests such as those in Townsville-based Herbert and the seat of Leichhardt to its north, which takes in Cairns and reaches to the tip of Cape York Peninsula.

For very different reasons, Mr Mooney and Mr Entsch enter the campaign as warm favourites to oust their incumbent opponents.

The indigenous vote is one of them.

While conventional wisdom has it generally breaking Labor's way, Mr Entsch is confident he can win back the support he used to command in the remote Aboriginal communities of the peninsula and on the islands of Torres Strait.

Mr Mooney, however, will struggle to carry the indigenous vote in Townsville and nearby Palm Island, given that his 19 years as mayor were punctuated by controversy over the removal of Aborigines from parks, crackdowns on them, and allegations of racial violence.

Mr Mooney took an unashamedly hard line on public drunkenness and nuisance, but there is no suggestion that he pursued or condoned racist policies.

Fortunately for Mr Mooney, it is Mr Entsch who needs to chase the indigenous vote, in another twist that has turned conventional politics on its head in a very north Queensland way.

Such is the confused state of play in the sunshine state that -- with Labor defending six seats with margins of 4 per cent or less and five Liberal National Party seats even more precariously poised -- winning at the other side's expense in Herbert and Leichhardt is a priority for both major parties.

In sharp contrast to the 2007 campaign, when John Howard was an overly known quantity and Mr Rudd ruthlessly exploited his home-turf advantage in Queensland, Mr Entsch and Mr Mooney are more familiar figures to local voters than are either of the new leaders, Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott.

Still, there was an uncomfortable moment yesterday for Mr Mooney when the Prime Minister steamrolled into town to announce a $9 million top-up for the redevelopment of the Townsville Hospital.

Given that Mr Rudd had "handpicked" him to run, a reporter wondered, wasn't he "disappointed" Ms Gillard was the one now standing beside him?

"There's no secret of the fact that Kevin Rudd was supportive of me," Mr Mooney replied.

"But I think we now have in Julia Gillard a fantastic leader, somebody that I'm delighted to be working with."

Mr Mooney, 45, was in his sixth successive term as Townsville's Labor mayor when the city council was amalgamated with neighbouring Thuringowa in 2008 and his vote was swamped.

Mr Rudd lined him up for Herbert, knowing that entrenched Liberal member Peter Lindsay -- like Mr Entsch a class-of-1996 MP who had entered parliament at the election that brought Mr Howard to power -- would not recontest.

A redistribution of the seat's boundaries after the last election made Herbert notionally Labor, by a knife-edge 0.3 per cent, even before Mr Mooney threw his hat in the ring.

The LNP's candidate, Ewen Jones, 50, a real estate auctioneer, insists that he is still in with a chance.

"They are pretty big shoes to fill," Mr Jones said of taking over from Mr Lindsay, who is retiring at this election.

"But I would not have taken it on if I did not think it was winnable.

"Tony Mooney certainly has a lot of name recognition, but nobody hates me, either."

Mr Mooney did not return The Australian's calls in time for this edition's deadline.

In Leichhardt, Mr Entsch's task in winning back the seat for the Coalition is formidable.

Labor's Jim Turnour has a margin of 4.1 per cent and Australia's first female prime minister for cover, but he is still considered vulnerable, given that unemployment in Cairns is pegged at 9 per cent, close to twice the national average.

Mr Entsch, 60, says the battle for Leichhardt will be won and lost in the city.

But what he calls the "icing" of the indigenous vote could turn out to be a necessity if the result goes down to the wire, as both sides expect.

Mr Turnour won up to 85 per cent in some cape communities at the 2007 election, which Mr Entsch did not contest, having bowed out to honour a commitment to his son to spend more time with him.

But the perennially colourful Mr Entsch believes his rough-hewn brand of politics goes down well on the peninsula and across Torres Strait; he used to poll upward of 50 per cent there.

With indigenous communities up in arms over the Queensland government's Wild Rivers preservation law and moves to list the region on the World Heritage register, Mr Entsch said last night: "There is definitely a mood up there for change."

Asked if his decision to sit out the Kevin07 "Ruddslide" had turned out to be a blessing, Mr Entsch said: "I deeply regret the fact that I had to do it . . . I felt I could have won the seat."

Mr Turnour did not return calls from The Australian.