Herbert the luckiest seat in the country

READERS of the Townsville Bulletin, in the seat of Herbert in north Queensland, will wake to news today that they are $500 million voters.

READERS of the Townsville Bulletin, in the seat of Herbert in north Queensland, will wake to news today that they are $500 million voters.

By the local daily's calculation, that is the sum of the largesse unleashed by Labor and the Coalition over the past month -- and there is still time to top it up before the polls open tomorrow.

The desperation of the struggle in Herbert is palpable, but like most of the hand-to-hand political combat that will decide this election, it is taking place below the radar of the national media and city-based commentariat.

Townsville Bulletin editor Peter Gleeson has clout that extends beyond the 26,000 weekday circulation of his News Limited title, a stablemate of The Australian.

His view that the next occupant of The Lodge needs to win Herbert is endorsed by both campaigns.

The seat has been held since 1996 by retiring Liberal MP Peter Lindsay, but is now notionally Labor by a knife-edge 0.3 per cent on redistributed boundaries.

Where Herbert goes, so will the election, in all likelihood.

Small wonder Julia Gillard was sharing a cuppa with Gleeson in a Townsville coffee shop within 48 hours of calling the election, and that Tony Abbott also beat a path to his door.

Last night, he was finalising his penultimate front page of the campaign, trumpeting the $1bn in election promises showered on the voters of Herbert.

It is quite a list.

"Upgraded roadworks, a new convention centre, a cruise ship terminal, a tropical health and medical research centre, better broadband, the CopperString project and at least a dozen others that are rats and mice stuff," he said, reeling off the goodies yesterday.

The Leader of the Opposition is expected in town again today, his second visit of the campaign. The Prime Minister has made three trips to Townsville, which Gleeson thinks is a record.

So, who will get the nod from the Bulletin in today's election-eve editorial? With Lindsay out of the frame, it is a fight between the Labor man, former Townsville mayor Tony Mooney, and the Liberal National Party's Ewen Jones.

"What we are going to say is that people in Herbert should think very carefully about who they vote for," Gleeson said.

"The worst scenario that can happen will be to elect someone who will sit on an opposition back bench. If they go into the ballot box thinking Julia Gillard will win the election, they should vote for Tony Mooney. If they think Tony Abbott will win, vote Ewen Jones."

Queensland, with its grab-bag of marginal seats in the regions and suburban fringes of Brisbane, holds the key to the election, along with NSW and to a lesser extent Western Australia. Labor's vote is weakest in these three states.

Kevin Rudd's home state has gone from being Labor's strong suit in 2007 to Ms Gillard's Achilles' heel, and the ALP is bracing for the loss of between four and seven seats there.

With the pre-election blackout on electronic advertising now in force, the already fierce fight for free media exposure is a priority for the parties as they push to the polls in the last, helter-skelter hours of the campaign.

"People can't wait until Saturday is over and done with," said radio presenter Amanda Blair, of Adelaide station 5AA.

"People are feeling really let down because there were such huge expectations of the Rudd government."

In addition to winning Herbert, Labor is hoping to offset some of its anticipated losses on the eastern and western seaboards by picking up the seat of Boothby in Adelaide, home of the Gillard family and held by Liberal Andrew Southcott with a margin of 2.9 per cent.

In Tasmania, where three marginal seats are up for grabs, local newspaper editors and talkback radio hosts are tipping a Labor win.

Garry Bailey, editor of The Mercury, also owned by News Limited, said his Hobart-based daily would be endorsing the ALP.

The editor of the Northern Territory News, Julian Ricci, tips a win for Country Liberal Party candidate Natasha Griggs in the Top End seat of Solomon, held by Labor's Damian Hale.

In Western Australia, the battles for the seats of Swan, Hasluck and Canning are so tight that local newspaper editors say they can't hazard a guess at the outcome. But like Gleeson, they are delighted to cover the bidding war for votes.

"There's money pouring in," joked Rachel Watts, editor of the Southern Gazette and the Canning Times, which cover the knife-edge seat of Swan in inner-city Perth.

The towns that lie within the boundaries of Victoria's most marginal Labor-held seat, Corangamite, were always going to do well in this election. But the Geelong Advertiser provided ample evidence that the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

On August 10, an indignant headline blared: "We're one of the most marginal seats in the country, so where are you?"

Prior to being dumped as PM, Mr Rudd had signalled Corangamite's importance to Labor by visiting three times in five weeks. But Cyclone Julia was on the way.

The paper reported that Gillard had "barnstormed" into Geelong pledging $257.5m for the Princes Highway, while the Liberal Party announced it would find cash for "the Cattery", as the football ground is known. The new headline was "Promises aplenty as Julia hits town".

Editor Steele Tallon insists the campaign has been "underwhelming" and the paper had made no decision on who it would back.

"I think, at the moment, if we were going to go one way, we would go to Labor," he said.

In Cairns, where Howard-era warhorse Warren Entsch is trying to make a comeback in the seat of Leichhardt at the expense of Labor MP Jim Turnour, veteran talkback radio announcer John MacKenzie is in no doubt about the result.

"The feeling in this town is that Labor is going to be history up here. They will return Warren Entsch to power, no doubt about it, but he'll be in opposition."

David Fisher, editor of Mackay's Daily Mercury, said with one day of campaigning to go, the fight for Dawson -- which is held by Labor with a 2.4 per cent margin -- was too close to call.

In Gladstone, industrial heart of the central Queensland electorate of Flynn, locals are feeling abandoned by both major political parties, according to local breakfast radio announcer Rob Kidd.

He said Mr Abbott had spent less than two hours in Gladstone during the campaign, which was an advance on Ms Gillard, who had instead stopped off in Emerald during her only swing through the seat. Flynn is held by vocal Rudd loyalist Chris Trevor with a margin of 2.3 per cent.

Bundaberg News-Mail editor Christina Ongley said local opinion polling favoured veteran Nationals MP Paul Neville to retain the seat of Hinkler, despite his slender 1.5 per cent margin.