Politics with Michelle Grattan: ‘It’s going to be a bad result for Labor’

Queenslanders vote on October 26 when, according to the polls, the almost decade-long Labor government is expected to be defeated.

Last year, in a bid to improve its chances, Labor dumped long-time premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in favour of Steven Miles.

Miles has handed out or promised extensive and expensive cost-of-living support, including $1000 rebates on electricity bills, 50-cent fares, and now promising free school lunches.

But even all this seems to have failed to drastically change the mood in the electorate.

To discuss what’s happening on the ground, the potential outcome and what that could mean for the federal Labor government, we’re joined by the ABC’s election specialist, Antony Green and The Australian’s Queensland editor, Michael McKenna.

Green says:

The swing has shifted from being catastrophic to just being very bad.[…] the odds are the government’s going to lose.

All the government’s marginal seats are in the regions, in the regional cities in the north of the state. If it’s a 5 or 6% swing uniform, then all those regional city seats will be knocked out. And once they’ve lost a couple of seats in Brisbane’s belt as well, they’re out of government. So they’re in a very difficult position.

On what a poor result for the Labor party could mean federally, Green says:

Labor won the last federal election without doing well in Queensland – [there] was always a view that they couldn’t win an election without doing well in Queensland. They did well in WA instead. Can Labor do worse in Queensland at the next federal election? Well that’s a tough ask, it’s hard to see how. You would have to be back to the level of the defeat of the Whitlam government or the Keating government to do worse in Queensland, and I’m not sure that it’s that level of disaster for the Labor Party. I think there will be a lot of comment on that. But I mean this is a Queensland election and it’s fought on and very much based around sort of Queensland issues.

Michael McKenna says of the general mood:

I think for the first time in a few years, I’m seeing a real mood for change in government. Labor is seeking a fourth term on the trot. You can see it in the published polling, which for about the last two years has shown that Labor’s support is sliding and the Liberal National Party has the momentum. I think there’s a real ‘it’s time’ factor.

What we’ve seen is that Labor’s brand is still seemingly on the nose, particularly in the regions. And Steven Miles, […] he’s given a red hot go, but so far, I’m not seeing much evidence that he’s going to pull out a miracle win.

McKenna highlights Opposition Leader David Crisafulli’s strategy:

There’s no doubt that he has adopted a small target strategy to, in one way, focus people’s attention on the failings of a government which has a record of ten years, and there’s always going to be failings and things that are going to make people angry. But I would say that this is arguably the smallest of small target strategies that we’ve ever seen.

David Crisafulli really only wants to talk […] about the issues that he wants to talk about, and those are crime, particularly youth crime, cost of living, housing and health. But he doesn’t like to be pushed onto any other issues, and he’s done a good job in one sense in that he’s probably the most disciplined conservative party leader I’ve seen in decades in Queensland.