Labor Vote Crumbling in QLD

Escalating criminal activity and a youth crime crisis, homelessness and a cost of living crisis, tent cities springing up in public parks, a premier who doesn’t seem to be able to organise an Olympics: “If these are the Games Brisbane will deliver, perhaps it's not worth it”; “‘A joke’: Brisbane Olympics backflip slammed”. Here’s the 1928 Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam which could hold around 32,000 people. Here’s the next smallest stadium, Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre, which will hold 40,000 people after renovating the dilapidated stands for $1.6 billion, but only hold 14,000 after the Games are complete. The stadiums kind of look the same, except there’s about a one-hundred-year difference. “Crowded out: $1.6bn stadium to be smallest Games athletics venue in 104 years”. Anyway, these are just some of the reasons the Queensland public are losing faith in the Labor Government.

On the weekend there was an election. Well, everyone voted in the local government elections, but there were also two state by-elections in Inala and Ipswich West, and Labor didn’t do very well. Crikey: “By-election loss an ominous sign for QLD Labor”; The Guardian: “Shock losses to LNP and Greens in Queensland elections sound warning for Labor ahead of October poll”; ABC: “LNP takes heartland seat of Ipswich West with heavy swing away from Labor; “Gold Coast Bulletin: “‘Totally tanked’: Labor’s by-election disaster”. All sides of the political spectrum agree, the Labor vote crumbled.

In Ipswich West, there were huge swings against Labor to the Liberal National Party with their “tough on crime” message. With a swing of almost 18%, LNP’s Darren Zanow has gained the Labor heartland seat. Looking at the results, One Nation suffered a 3.8% swing against, with some insiders hypothesising that the LNP leader David Crisafulli’s conservative approach to crime and treaty has swayed some One Nation voters to the LNP. Although, One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson wasn’t too worried by the results. She said, “I am very pleased to see the back of Labor in Ipswich West. Overall, it’s abundantly clear there is an appetite in Queensland to get rid of Labor at the October election. The cost of living, escalating crime and the housing crisis are hitting people hard and they think Labor has no solutions.”

In 2020, former Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk secured 67% of the primary vote in Inala. This weekend, Labor candidate Margie Nightingale only received about 37% of the primary vote, a massive 30% swing against Labor. Remembering, this is Labor heartland.

The Premier himself had these words to say, “These results are clearly very bad. I was expecting a bad result, and they’re even worse than that. This is the voters of Inala and Ipswich West sending us a message…”

The ABC’s chief election analyst Antony Green said, “There has not been a swing of this magnitude against a sitting Queensland government in all the years I’ve covered elections. It’s bigger than the Redcliffe and Stafford by-election swing that then-premier Campbell Newman suffered in 2014.” If the this swing of nearly 18% that we saw in the Labor heartland seat of Ipswich West was replicated across Queensland, the government would only have about four seats left. I’m not suggesting that’s likely, but just showing you how significant this swing was.

The Brisbane City Council elections also resulted in a significant swing against Labor of almost 6%, with a swing of 5% to the Greens. Labor are losing votes to both the Left and the Right.

Labor are in trouble in Queensland, and both sides of the political media are sensing it. On the Left: “The path to re-election for Queensland Labor looks like a narrowing goat track after its ‘Super Saturday’ losses”, and on the Right: “Queenslanders with baseball bats are ready to pound Labor”.

Unfortunately for Labor, who have been in power for almost 10 years, they’ve lost control of the state with regards to youth crime, the rising cost of living, lack of affordable housing, an overwhelmed hospital and health system, as well as their relentless pursuit of their divisive Path to Treaty, which is just not popular among the Queensland electorate. These recent by-election results have delivered a brutal reality check for the Queensland Labor Government – Time’s up!

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Allégro by Emmit Fenn