Overview
In seeking a fourth term at the October 26 election, Labor hopes to extend a dominance of Queensland state politics established when Wayne Goss finally led the party out of the wilderness after 32 years in 1989. It does so after completing the state's first fixed four-year term, giving effect to the result of a referendum held in March 2016. Labor has been out of office for two short periods since 1989: when Goss's government fell after losing the Mundingburra by-election in February 2016, which lasted until Peter Beattie took office after the subsequent election in June 1998; and following Campbell Newman's unprecedented landslide in 2012, which surpassed Joh Bjelke-Petersen's 1974 landslide as the most lopsided result in Queensland history, and was followed just as spectacularly by the LNP's defeat and the loss of Newman's own seat in 2015.
The January 2015 election was the first of three won for Labor under the leadership Annastacia Palaszczuk, one of seven survivors from the party's rout of 2012. Labor emerged from that election with 44 seats out of 89, sufficient to govern in minority through to the next election in November 2017, at which it secured its hold on power by winning 48 seats in a parliament enlarged to 93 seats. The 2017 result was also notable for the return to prominence of One Nation, which had been energised by its Senate successes at the 2016 double dissolution, although it yielded only one state seat.
The next election in October 2020 was held at the height of the COVID pandemic, of which Queensland was spared the worst, despite a certain amount of discontent over the severity of the government's border closure regime. Labor was returned with an increased majority, gaining five seats from the Liberal National Party while losing one to the Greens. However, every indication since has been that this result marked a peak in Labor's fortunes. Pressure mounted on Annastacia Palaszczuk's leadership throughout 2023 as the party's standing in the polls deteriorated, culminating in her resignation in December. Any suggestion of a recovery in Labor's fortunes under her successor, Steven Miles, was scuttled by still worse polling and massive swings at two by-elections held in March.
Labor's third term
Labor's decline in the polls can be traced to mid-2023, at which point the government was experiencing mounting difficulties over its plans for the 2032 Olympic Games, which in an apparent coup for the government were awarded to Brisbane in July 2021. With escalating costs for infrastructure projects tying into growing concerns about the cost of living, the government drew mounting criticism for its proposed $2.7 billion rebuild of Gabba Stadium. Reports of internal polling pointed to a particularly stark decline in support in regional Queensland, compounded by rising crime rates and difficulties maintaining services at regional hospitals.
Starting from August, reports indicated that Annastacia Palaszszcuk was coming under mounting pressure to retire in good time before the next election. She ultimately yielded in December, reportedly after being told to go by two heavyweight union and party figures, Gary Bullock of the Left and John Battams of the Labor Unity/Old Guard faction, who hoped to smooth Deputy Premier Steven Miles' path ahead of his Left faction colleague Shannon Fentiman. This Miles was able to accomplish as part of a leadership ticket with Treasurer Cameron Dick, whose own manoeuvering for the top job failed to find support.
Miles promptly commissioned a review of plans for Olympics venues, then rejected its recommendation of a new stadium at Victoria Park in Brisbane's inner north in favour of an upgrade to the Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre at Nathan in the south, which had been built for the 1982 Commonwealth Games. The new plan was in turn widely criticised, and certainly did nothing to halt Labor's slide in the polls, which by mid-year had them trailing by upwards of 57-43 on two-party preferred.
A more tangible sign of declining support came on March 16 with the by-elections for Inala and Ipswich West, the former having been vacated by Palaszczuk. Labor suffered respective swings of 21.5% and 17.8%, the latter of which cost them the seat, compounding a disastrous performance at the same day's Brisbane City Council elections. There were some indications of an improvement in Labor's position following an initiative to set all public transport fares at 50 cents regardless of the distance, initially proposed for a six-month trial but then promised to continue indefinitely if the government was re-elected. Polling nonetheless continued to show Labor headed for defeat.
The LNP in opposition
The Liberal National Party has been led since the 2020 election defeat by David Crisafulli, who gained and then lost the Townsville seat of Mundingburra in 2012 and 2015 before returning in 2017 in the Gold Coast seat of Broadwater. Crisafulli was immediately elevated to cabinet under Campbell Newman in 2012, serving through his period in government as Local Government Minister. There were suggestions in mid-2020 that state party president David Hutchinson had leaked private polling to the media with a view to having Crisafulli depose Deb Frecklington as leader. That would not transpire until after the October election, when Frecklington resigned and Crisafulli emerged as leader unopposed.
The LNP has largely enjoyed stability under Crisafulli's leadership, bolstered by strong opinion polling both for the party on voting intention and for Crisafulli personally. However, there were grumblings from the conservative wing over the adoption of moderate policy positions as part of a perceived small-target strategy, notably in support of government legislation establishing a path to an Indigenous recognition treaty. Debate over the decision at the LNP's July 2023 state convention was held in a closed session, reportedly to spare Crisafulli embarrassment. Crisafulli also clashed with the party's federal wing over its nuclear policy, insisting that a government he led would not repeal the state's legislated ban on nuclear energy.
Electoral arithmetic and geography
The election will be the third and last held on boundaries that took effect at the 2017 election. Labor goes in holding 51 seats out of 93, down one on the 2020 election result owing to its defeat in the Ipswich West by-election in March, such that a net loss of five from its present position will cost it its majority. Its task will be complicated in five seats by the retirement of sitting members, the loss of whose personal votes will be especially keenly felt in the regional seats of Mackay, Rockhampton and Mulgrave. Ipswich West boosted the LNP to 35 seats, to which it will need to add 12 for a majority. Most if not all of these gains would need to come at the expense of Labor, although Mirani MP Stephen Andrew's breach with One Nation may present the party with an opportunity in that seat, and a resurgence in support could also threaten independent Sandy Bolton in Noosa.
Both major parties have been challenged in metropolitan Brisbane by the Greens in recent years: at state level, the party gained Maiwar from the LNP in 2017 and South Brisbane from the Greens in 2020, while federally it won Brisbane and Ryan from the LNP and Griffith from Labor in 2022. The Greens' immediate plans to expand its inner urban footprint in state parliament pose more of a threat to Labor, notably in the seats of McConnel, Cooper and Greenslopes, although the LNP may come under pressure in Moggill and Clayfield.
Notably for an election held amid the COVID pandemic, the five seats gained by Labor in 2020 included the two with the biggest 70-plus populations (Pumicestone and Hervey Bay) and another three that ranked in the top twenty. The latter included the Sunshine Coast seats of Caloundra and Nicklin, which had eluded Labor at its high-water mark under Peter Beattie in 2001 and 2004. The other gain was Bundaberg, which Labor recovered by nine votes after losing it in 2017. This gave Labor a clean sweep of regional city seats north of Brisbane, encompassing three each in Cairns and Townsville and two in Rockhampton, together with Gladstone and Mackay. This stands in contrast to the party's fortunes federally, where Labor has not held a Queensland seat outside metropolitan Brisbane since 2019.
Metropolitan Brisbane nonetheless remains the bedrock of Labor's strength, providing it with 35 seats compared with only five for the LNP. However, Labor has not matched the ascendancy achieved in Brisbane under Peter Beattie in 2001 and 2004, which was disturbed only by the Liberals' hold on the seat of Moggill. Labor can also claim only one of the eleven seats of the Gold Coast, the majority of which were Labor-held after the Beattie landslides.
Rising minor party support has also made an impact in rural Queensland, with the steady progress of Katter's Australian Party and the more erratic performance of One Nation. The latter party returned to the scene first with the federal election of 2016, when it won two Senate seats in Queensland and another two in New South Wales and Western Australia, and then with a state election vote of 13.7% in 2017, achieved despite leaving a third of the state's seats uncontested. However, the latter yielded only one seat, and it was followed by a near halving in the party's vote in 2020.
In typical style, One Nation has also managed to lose its only state MP, Stephen Andrew from the Central Queensland seat of Mirani, who defected to Katter's Australian Party after One Nation disendorsed him. This boosts the Katter party to four seats, its long-established core of Rob Katter in Traeger (formerly Mount Isa) and Shane Knuth in Hill (formerly Dalrymple) having been supplemented by Nick Dametto's win in Hinchinbrook in 2017. One Nation presumably rates its chances of recovering Mirani, but its main effort for the coming election would look to be in neighbouring Keppel, where its candidate will be Pauline Hanson's high-profile chief-of-staff James Ashby.
Katter's Australian Party especially has gather together members who might otherwise have been independents, of which the only current example in state parliament is Sandy Bolton, who has held Noosa since 2017. Other independent candidates at the coming election include veteran former mayor Margaret Strelow in Rockhampton, who fell short in a previous bid in 2017, but may find a more conducive environment this time amid expectations of weakening Labor support in regional Queensland.