Labor will lose largely because of its longevity in office but the scale of the defeat will be magnified by perceptions that the Bligh government misled the electorate to win the 2009 election. Only weeks after its return to office, the government announced the privatisation of several public assets and ended a long-standing petrol tax rebate. Despite her handling of the state's flood crisis last year, voters have not forgiven the Premier for the 2009 subterfuge.

If Queensland has changed through the long era of Labor government, so has the Liberal National opposition.

The end of the zonal electoral system by the Goss government ended the bias in favour of the National Party. Repeating the pattern already seen at federal elections, the Liberal Party has since supplanted the Nationals on the Gold and Sunshine Coasts. The decentralised nature of Queensland means the Nationals are normally larger than the Liberals in opposition but any change of government would come about through Liberal gains at the expense of Labor.

The decision of the two parties to merge as the Liberal National Party ended the conundrum of which party would provide the Premier. The LNP also broke new ground in going outside its parliamentary ranks in choosing the then Brisbane lord mayor Campbell Newman as its new leader. In another break with history, Newman will be the first Brisbane-based conservative leader in almost a century.

The election will largely be decided in greater Brisbane, where Labor holds 34 out of 40 seats. The most watched contest will be Ashgrove (ALP 7.1 per cent), where Newman will attempt to enter Parliament at the expense of the popular Labor MP Kate Jones.