2012 Queensland Election Summary

Queensland goes to the polls on 24 March 2012 with the real prospect of the election delivering a change of government.

History shows that Queenslanders are strangely disinclined to change their government. Since 1915 Queensland has seen just three elections that changed the state's political order, and another three short term governments that proved to be just political interludes. There have been fewer changes of government in Queensland over the last century than in any other state.

It was the 1915 election that produced Queensland's first popularly elected Labor government, Labor going on to govern the state for 39 of the next 42 years. Labor's long period of dominance was broken only by the brief interlude of A.E. Moore's Country and Progressive National Party government, unlucky enough to take office at the height of the Great Depression.

The second great change of government was in 1957 when the Labor Party split asunder, ushering in 32 years of non-Labor government. Queensland was governed for the next 26 years by a Coalition government, first Country-Liberal and then National-Liberal. The great Coalition split of 1983 rounded out the era with a six-year interlude of the Nationals governing in their own right.

The third change in the political order came in December 1989 when Wayne Goss led Labor back to government. Labor has governed for 20 of the 22 years since, its period in office broken only by the brief interlude of the Borbidge Coalition government from February 1996 to June 1998.

Now the 2012 election looks set to produce another change, with the Labor government of Premier Anna Bligh trailing badly in the polls. Whether like 1915, 1957 and 1989, the 2012 election will mark out a new political era is a judgment that must be left to history. Yet there is already historical precedent at the 2012 election, with Liberal National Party (LNP) Leader Campbell Newman being the first Brisbane-based leader to take the conservative parties to an election since 1915.

Newman's leadership and the formation of the LNP in 2008 are an acceptance by the LNP of the increasingly urban nature of Queensland politics. The National Party's dominance of conservative politics from the late 1970s left a terminally weakened Liberal Party incapable of challenging Labor in Brisbane. In opposition after 1989, the weakened Liberal Party made conservative recovery more difficult, but any Liberal recovery also imperilled National leadership of the Coalition.

Since the end of the old zonal electoral system in 1992, Labor has been able to govern because of its grip on greater Brisbane. At the 2009 election Labor won 34 of the 40 seats in greater Brisbane. At the 2001 and 2004 election Labor won as many as 39 greater Brisbane seats. When Labor won only 31 greater Brisbane seats at the 1995 election, the Goss government was left clinging to office until losing the Mundingburra by-election in February 1996.

Yet the LNP has adopted a high risk strategy in choosing Newman as Leader while he is not a sitting member of parliament. Non-parliamentary party leaders may be common in Canada but are unheard of in modern Australia. You need to go back to the more fluid party structures of pre-Federation politics to find the last Australian example, when Edmund Barton led the opposition National Federal Party from outside parliament at the 1898 NSW Election.

Labor holds the 51 seats in the Legislative Assembly, the LNP 31, with the balance of seven seats held by Independents and representatives of Katter's Australian Party. Three of the cross-bench members were elected as LNP members in 2009.

On a uniform swing of 3.2% Labor would lose six seats and cling to office with a majority of one. Assuming no change on the cross-benches, the LNP need a uniform swing of 4.6% to gain the 14 seats for majority government. Labor polled an estimated 50.6% of the statewide two-party preferred vote at the 2009 election, so if the 2012 result is close, then the LNP may need in the vicinity of 53-54% of the two-party preferred vote to win.

To become Premier, Campbell Newman needs the LNP to win the election, but he also needs to win his chosen Brisbane seat of Ashgrove. It is currently held by Labor's Kate Jones with a margin of 7.1%, above the uniform swing the LNP need for government. The LNP has not won Ashgrove since 1986, though Newman would have easily won the seat based on the 2004 and 2008 Brisbane City Council elections when Newman was elected Lord Mayor.

The problem for the LNP is that if it wins the election but Newman is defeated in Ashgrove, then viewing the 2012 election as a change of political era will not be so clear cut.

From Coalition Warfare to the LNP

Queensland may share political parties with the rest of Australia, but the historically decentralised nature of the state has inverted the normal order of non-Labor politics. Where in other states the Liberal Party and its ancestors formed the major component of any conservative Coalition, in Queensland it was the Country Party that always ruled the roost.

The Country Party's dominance came about through it holding more seats than the Liberal Party, not through possessing a greater share of the vote. The graph below of Liberal and Country/National Party vote share and seats won at election since 1950 reveals that it was not until 1977 that the Nationals recorded a greater share of the vote than the Liberals.

In 1974 the Country Party changed its name to the National Party and embarked on a policy of pushing into newly urbanising areas in the state's south-east. It was in this period that the National Party championed the abolition of death duties against the opposition of Liberal Leader and Treasurer Gordon Chalk. The end of death duties fuelled the rapid growth of the Gold and Sunshine Coasts, fed the coffers of the National Party and become a weapon in its armoury against the Liberal Party. By 1980 the National Party held all of the Gold and Sunshine Coast seats, and after the Coalition split in 1983, the Nationals supplanted the Liberals in outer parts of Greater Brisbane, even winning several seats within the traditionally Liberal territory of Brisbane City Council.

The National Party never succeeded in wiping out the Liberal Party, merely enfeebling it. The success of the Bjelke-Petersen government in fuelling population growth created a paradox because the Nationals relied on an electoral system that favoured rural areas and discounted the south-east. When the hubris of Bjelke-Petersen's 'Joh for Canberra' campaign combined with the Fitzgerald Commission into Police Corruption to bring the National government down, the new Goss Labor government set about dismantling the old electoral system.

The National Party now needed a Liberal Party revival to challenge Labor in the south-east, but under one-vote one-value electoral boundaries, a Liberal revival also challenged National dominance of the Coalition. In the 1990s the Liberal Party slowly supplanted the National Party on the Sunshine Coast, and repeated the process on the Gold Coast in the first decade of the new century. Where in 1986 the National Party had held all ten seats on the Gold and Sunshine Coasts, in 2006 the party only retained one out of 14 seats in the two regions.

At three elections between 2004 and 2009 the Labor Party campaigned strongly in urban seats against a Coalition with rural MP Lawrence Springborg as its alternative Premier. The task was made even tougher in 2006 when new Liberal Leader Bruce Flegg found himself unable to answer a simple question, who would be Premier if the Liberal Party won more seats than the National Party? The logic for a merger of the two parties was becoming unanswerable, and was only delayed until 2008 by opposition from the Howard government in Canberra, concerned about the impact of a merger on Coalition relations south of the Tweed.

After the 2009 election Springborg was replaced as leader by Surfers Paradise MP John-Paul Langbroek. When the Bligh government's poll ratings rapidly improved after the Premier's handling of the Queensland floods in early 2011, the LNP drafted popular Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman as its new leader. Unable to engineer a by-election to get Newman into Parliament, the novel experiment of Newman leading the LNP while former National Jeff Seeney served as Leader of the Opposition was adopted.

Newman immediately returned the LNP to an election winning lead in the polls. With the LNP in place, a Brisbane-based Leader and ahead in the polls, the 2012 election is positioned for the LNP to win. The one distraction may be the arrival of Bob Katter's Australian Party, the revival of the Queensland tradition of rural populism in the face of the emerging urban focus of conservative politics.

Labor in Power since 1989

Labor's failure at election after election through the 1970s and 1980s was often blamed on the old zonal electoral system. In truth Labor lost because it didn't get enough votes. As the graph below of major party percentage vote at elections since1950 shows, Labor's vote reached a post-1957 highpoint in 1972 when it could argue the electoral system worked against it. But Labor's vote did not pass that level again until the election of the Goss government in 1989. After Labor was steam-rolled at the 1974 election in a backlash against the Whitlam government, Queensland politics became a battle for dominance in the Coalition. Even when the Coalition collapsed into full-scale warfare in 1983, Labor could not take advantage.

After its election in 1989, the Goss Labor government introduced social legislation that had previously been resisted by the National Party, but otherwise Goss led a cautious administration. Perhaps too cautious as its electoral fate revealed. Goss was re-elected at the 1992 election, the advantage stemming from the end of the zonal system hiding a swing against Labor in north Queensland. Placing too much emphasis on fiscal rectitude, the Goss government failed to deal with festering problems in the Health system, and also proposed the infamous 'Koala tollway'. A sensible idea to build a second motorway link between Brisbane to the Gold Coast was deeply unpopular because of the proposed toll and its intended route through a koala habitat, generating a huge swing against Labor in south-east Brisbane. Labor lost nine seats at the 1995 election and was left clinging to office by a 12 vote victory in the Townsville seat of Mundingburra. A court ordered by-election in February 1996 was won by the Liberal Party, and the Coalition surprisingly found itself back in office under new Premier Rob Borbidge.

In the same way the fate of Wayne Goss and his government became hostage to the actions of the Keating government, so the Borbidge government felt a backlash driven by Federal politics under new Prime Minister John Howard. The emergence of Pauline Hanson and her new One Nation Party seemed to be viewed in Canberra as an opportunity to leak preference votes away from Labor. Older hands in Queensland knew better the dangers of rural populism. The Coalition's vote fell from 49.0% in 1995 to 31.3% at the 1998 election. One Nation polled higher than either the Liberal or National Parties and elected 11 MPs, the direction of Liberal and National preferences to One Nation delivering the party six seats that would otherwise have been won by Labor, leaving Labor one seat short of a majority. With no viable alternative government in the Parliament, Labor came to office courtesy of support from new Independent MP Peter Wellington.

The next three years proved even more politically eventful. One Nation fell apart, its MPs and membership contesting the 2001 election as Independents and on behalf of two different parties. National Party Leader Rob Borbidge joined his federal colleagues in vowing not to direct preferences to One Nation, only for his own MPs to abandon his pledge in the election campaign. Allegations of electoral rorts had earlier forced the Beattie government to appoint Shepherdson Inquiry which cost the government several MPs and a Deputy-Premier. Labor was forced to an early election in February 2001 and looked in trouble only for Peter Beattie to play the stability in government card after two terms of minority government. His party's advertising pushed the line that the only alternative to a Labor government was an unstable National-Liberal Coalition with Pauline Hanson trying to drive from the backseat. Labor also took advantage of optional preferential voting to urge voters to 'just vote 1'. It was a message conservative voters' adopted with alacrity, delivering Labor shock victories in seats where the conservative vote was split between competing candidates. The Liberal Party was reduced to a single seat in Brisbane, Labor swept the Gold Coast for the first time and even won Sunshine Coast seats and rural seats in the north. One Nation's vote collapsed, but it was matched by a rise in Labor's first preference vote, not the Coalition's.

The 2001 election was Labor's highpoint, polling 48.9% of the vote and winning 66 of the 89 seats in the Legislative Assembly. Labor's vote fell to 47.0% in 2004, losing only the surprise gains of 2001 in Burdekin, Burnett and Charters Towers, also losing Currumbin in a local reaction to controversial MP Merri Rose. Compensating for these, Labor gained Keppel with the retirement of long serving National MP Vince Lester.

In 2006, poor polls earlier in the year pointed to big losses for Labor. In the end, only four seats were lost, Noosa and Kawana both lost in the backlash against the proposed Traveston Dam, marginal Clayfield returning to its more normal home with the Liberal party helped by the problems sitting Labor MP Liddy Clark, and Bundaberg lost following the major problems with medical services at its local hospital. The 2006 election was more remarkable for Labor managing to re-gain Chatsworth, Gaven and Redcliffe, three seats lost at by-elections over the previous year.

These results were a depressing return for the Liberal and National Parties. From its low point of 28.5% in 2001, the Coalition's vote rose to 35.5% in 2004 and 37.9% in 2006. While National Party support returned to its former levels in rural Queensland and the Liberal Party wiped out Labor on the Sunshine Coast, Labor's lock on Brisbane remained the Coalition's problem. The Liberal Party's inability to make inroads in Brisbane and the failure of both Coalition parties to dislodge Labor's Gold Coast MPs delivered Labor its third landslide victory in a row in 2006.

Labor's re-election in 2009

Two events re-shaped state politics before the 2009 election. The first was the merging of the Liberal and National Parties to form the LNP. The second was the retirement of Peter Beattie and the appointment of Anna Bligh as Queensland's first female Premier.

At the 2009 election Bligh was to break ground by becoming the first female Premier to win an election. Western Australia's Carmen Lawrence (1990-93) and Victoria's Joan Kirner (1990-92) may have preceded Bligh as female Premiers, but both lost their only election in charge. Only ACT Chief Ministers Rosemary Follett and Kate Carnell and NT Chief Minister Clare Martin had won elections as female leaders, with Carnell and Martin the only two to have led their party from opposition to government.

Bligh inherited a majority from Peter Beattie that left the LNP with a herculean task to win the 2009 election, a task made even tougher by a major redistribution that cost the LNP seats. In 2009 the LNP needed to gain 18 seats on a uniform swing of 7.6% to deprive the Bligh government of its majority and a swing of 8.3% to achieve government in its own right.

The tables below show the results of the 2009 election, with Labor winning a clear victory at an election that should have been much closer.

2009 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY : STATE-WIDE TOTALS (Roll: 2,660,940) Candi-

dates Seats

Won

Change

Votes

% Votes

Swing 89 51 -8 1,002,415 42.25 -4.67 88 34 +9 987,018 41.60 +3.68 89 .. .. 198,475 8.37 +0.38 72 4 .. 134,156 5.65 +0.97 32 .. .. 22,170 0.93 +0.93 25 .. .. 19,379 0.82 -1.08 2 .. -1 9,038 0.38 -0.22 397 89 2,372,651 46,908 1.94 -0.15 2,419,559 90.93 +0.46

Analysing the seats changing party at the 2009 election is greatly complicated by the scale of the 2008 redistribution. The LNP gained Aspley, Cleveland, Gaven, Hervey Bay, Indooroopilly, Mudgeeraba and Redlands, also winning the new notionally Labor-held seat of Coomera on the Gold Coast.

The LNP also won Burdekin, Clayfield and Mirani, each of which had become notional Labor seats in the redistribution. The LNP gained Glass House, though it had become a notional LNP seat in the redistribution, and also won the new seat of Dalrymple, defeating the state's sole One Nation MP.

Once back in office, the Bligh government was to engage in a series of policy reversals not flagged in the election campaign and each deeply unpopular with the electorate. There was the decision to ditch the eight cents a litre petrol subsidy, an untidy administrative arrangement left over from the High Court's decision to end state-based petrol taxes. The government also announced a range of privatisations in ports and railways, all deeply unpopular in the union movement.

When The Australian resumed publishing Newspolls for Queensland after the 2010 Federal election, Labor's lead had evaporated with the LNP opening up a 15% lead on first preferences. There was a remarkable turnaround though over the next six months as Bligh's handling of the Queensland floods crisis returning Labor to the lead. The LNP quickly moved to to replace its low profile leader John-Paul Langbroek.

While not a surprise that the LNP drafted Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman, the decision to have him as leader while not a member of Parliament was without precedent. While the government understandably taunted parliamentary opposition leader Jeff Seeney in the Legislative Assembly, the public responded more positively to Newman's appointment, as the graph below of Newspoll's first preference vote by party shows.

While the final Newspoll of 2011 showed some improvement in the government's position, Labor still goes into the election campaign well behind. In choosing to call a longer election campaign the government will be hoping to maximise pressure on the LNP, perhaps producing an error by Campbell Newman. Wearing down the opposition looks to be the government's best option for winning the election, or at least minimising the Labor losses.

Where the Election Will be Decided

Overwhelmingly the 2012 election will be decided in greater Brisbane, where Campbell Newman will hope to break Labor's grip on the capital. The LNP also needs to deal with unfinished business on the Gold Coast by winning back seats lost to Labor over the last decade.

Beyond the south-east, the fate of government may lie in Brisbane but the future of the Labor Party may depend on how it performs in holding on to its seats in the state's regional cities. In the bush another battle will be under way, as Bob Katter's Australian Party runs a campaign to remind the LNP that it is also meant to be a country party.

The Brisbane Line

One of the achievements of the Bjelke-Petersen government, and in part its eventual undoing, was the rapid expansion of the state's south-east urban population. Much of this growth was on the Gold and Sunshine Coasts, but Brisbane itself expanded beyond the old boundaries of Brisbane City Council, creeping outwards along the Pacific Highway corridors towards the Gold and Sunshine Coast to the north. Today's greater Brisbane extends from Caboolture in the north to Beenleigh in the south-east and Ipswich in the south-west. As well as Brisbane City Council, greater Brisbane includes Moreton Bay Regional Council to the north and Ipswich, Logan and Redlands City Councils around the south.

Labor's election victories since 1989 have been built on the party's success in greater Brisbane. Since 1992 greater Brisbane has included 40 of the state's 89 electorates. At five of the seven elections since 1992 the Coalition won four or fewer seats. At the 2001 and 2004 Beattie landslides, the Liberal Party was reduced to just a solitary seat in greater Brisbane, winning only the leafy western Brisbane seat of Moggill. The seats won by each party in greater Brisbane at elections since 1986 are shown in the table below.

Greater Brisbane - Seats Won by Party at Elections 1986-2009 1986 1989 1992 1995 1998 2001 2004 2006 2009 19 31 36 31 33 39 39 38 34 9 5 4 8 4 1 1 2 6 8 .. .. 1 1 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 2 .. .. .. .. 36 36 40 40 40 40 40 40 40

The LNP won four seats within the boundaries of Brisbane City Council at the 2009 election, Moggill (LNP 10.2%), Indooroopilly (LNP 5.9%), Clayfield (LNP 5.8%) and Aspley (LNP 4.5%). These four seats were the core seats of the old Liberal Party, the same four seats it won from 1992 to 1998. The Liberal Party was reduced to just Moggill by the 2001 election, it then taking two elections for the Liberal Party to recover Clayfield in 2006, and a third election for the new LNP win back Indooroopilly and Aspley 2009.

The LNP won two extra seats in greater Brisbane at the 2009 election, Redlands (LNP 0.1%) and Cleveland (LNP 0.3%). Both lie in the Redlands City Council area south-east of Brisbane. Redlands was the sole seat won by the National Party seat in greater Brisbane at the 1995 and 1998 elections.

In assessing where Labor is at risk in 2012, a worthwhile starting point is the seats that Labor lost or came close to losing in 1995. In the discussion that follows, the margins quoted are 2009 results.

One of Labor's vulnerable seats is the south-west Brisbane seat of Mount Ommaney (ALP 4.8%). It was one of the few seats Labor gained from the Liberal Party at the 1992 election, and returned to the Liberal Party in 1995. It was regained and has been held for Labor since 1998 by Julie Attwood, and her late decision to retire at the 2012 election will hurt Labor's prospects of holding the seat.

Three seats running along the northern side of the South East Freeway are at risk in 2012, and all were lost by Labor in 1995. Greenslopes (ALP 6.9%) is held by Education Minister Cameron Dick, Mansfield (ALP 4.4%) by Child Safety and Sport Minister Phil Reeves, and neighbouring Springwood (ALP 4.1%) in Logan City Council by backbencher Barbara Stone. While the 'Koala Tollway' proposed by the Goss government in 1995 played an important part in Labor losing these seats, all three had been exceptional in being National-held Brisbane seats in the 1980s.

Four seats in the leafy hills to the west of the Brisbane CBD are in traditional Liberal territory, but all have been held by Labor since 1989. Based on Federal election results, all would be Liberal held seats. With the area also recording above average Green support, Labor's prospects are made even grimmer by high rates of exhausted Green preferences under Queensland's system of optional preferential voting.

The seat that will attract most attention is Ashgrove (ALP 7.1%), where Labor MP Kate Jones resigned from the ministry to concentrate on holding her seat against the high profile challenge from LNP Leader Campbell Newman. Newman's chances can be judged by local results in his two successful runs for Brisbane Lord Mayor in 2004 and 2008. At both elections Newman recorded a Liberal majority in the district.

Next door in Mount Coot-tha (ALP 5.3%). Treasurer and Deputy-Premier Andrew Fraser is under serious challenge, as is first term Labor MP Murray Watt in Everton (ALP 1.4%) and Health Minister Geoff Wilson in Ferny Grove (ALP 4.5%).

In the Moreton Bay Regional Council area lie several seats that look defendable for Labor, but all cover areas that have been won by the LNP at recent Federal election. Covering Caboolture and Bribie Island, Pumicestone (ALP 5.0%) has been held for Labor by Carryn Sullivan since 2001. Her husband Jon was defeated in the local area by One Nation in 1998 and lost the local Federal seat of Longman at the 2010 election. First term MPs Mark Ryan in Morayfield (ALP 9.1%) and Mary-Anne O'Neill in Kallangur will be under challenge based on 2010 Federal election results. Labor's chances of holding Pine Rivers (ALP 4.6%) have also been damaged by the late decision of sitting MP Carolyn Male to retire. Labor's good 2010 Federal result in Petrie is reflected in Redcliffe (ALP 5.6%) looking safer for Labor, but sitting MP Lillian van Litsenberg was defeated at her first attempt to win the seat at a 2005 by-election.

In Brisbane's east lies Labor's most marginal Brisbane seat, Chatsworth (ALP 0.1%). When held by former Deputy Premier Terry Mackenroth, Chatsworth was viewed as a Labor bastion. When he retired in 2005 the seat was won by Liberal Party powerbroker Michael Caltabiano. Labor won the seat by the barest 0.1% margin at both the 2006 and 2009 elections, and sitting MP Steve Kilburn will struggle in the face of any decline in Labor vote at the 2012 election.

If things really turn sour for Labor, other seats that could be at risk include Ipswich West (ALP 9.6%) which was lost to One Nation in 1998, Stretton (ALP 9.5%) where Stephen Robertson is retiring, and Capalaba (ALP 9.7%) and Stafford (ALP 7.3%).

The Gold Coast

Through the 1970s and 1980s when Labor languished in opposition, the Gold Coast was the crucial battleground between the Liberal and National Parties. The state's changing demography led the Country Party to rename itself the National Party and push into the state's rapidly urbanising coastal south-east. The National Party won all six Gold Coast seats in 1986, but by its last election as a separate entity in 2006 could win only one of the region's nine seats, and that courtesy of the coalition agreement.

While Labor swept other parts of the state on election to office in 1989, it recorded only 40% of the first preference vote on the Gold Coast, but did win Albert courtesy of the Liberal decision to deny preferences to National MP Ivan Gibbs. With the number of Gold Coast seats increased from six to eight at the 1992 election, the Gold Coast remained a battleground between the Liberals and Nationals, though Labor retained Albert and gained Currumbin. The table below of seats won by party at elections since 1986 shows how Labor remained a minor player on the Gold Coast until its dramatic gains in 2001.

Gold Coasts - Seats Won by Party 1986-2009 1986 1989 1992 1995 1998 2001 2004 2006 2009 6 2 4 5 5 1 .. .. .. .. 3 2 2 2 1 3 3 6 .. 1 2 1 1 7 6 6 4 6 6 8 8 8 9 9 9 10

In 2001 Labor played the stability in government card. Gold Coast voters responded to Labor's message that the only alternative to re-electing the Beattie government was an unstable coalition involving the Liberal and National Parties supported by sitting and former One Nation MPs. One Nation's support on the Gold Coast nose-dived, the Liberal and National Party's vote collapsed and Labor won seven of the nine seats. The subsequent retirement of former Premier Rob Borbidge saw his seat of Surfers Paradise won by an Independent, depriving the National Party of its last remaining Gold Coast beach head. The Liberal Party then won Surfers Paradise in 2004 election, also gaining Currumbin following the travails of Labor MP and former Minister Merri Rose. The National Party briefly re-gained Gaven at a 2006 by-election, but Labor still won six of the nine seats and outpolled the Coalition at both the 2004 and 2006 elections. Even with the ebbing of its vote in 2009, Labor was able to win four of the now ten Gold Coast seats as the LNP recovered Mudgeeraba and Gaven.

Labor will face serious contests in all four of its Gold Coast seats in 2012. Labor was able to retain its three most marginal seats in 2009 through the personal vote of its sitting members. In the face of another swing against the government, Peta-Kay Croft in Broadwater (ALP 2.0%), Peter Lawlor in Southport (ALP 3.5%) and Christine Smith in Burleigh (ALP 4.9%) will struggle to hold their seats. Even in Labor's safest Gold Coast seat, Margaret Keech in Albert (ALP 6.5%) will face a stern challenge.

Labor in the Regions

While the fate of government lies in Brisbane, the fate of the Labor Party as a viable opposition could rest on whether it can retain a string of key seats in Queensland's regional cities.

Labor likes to call itself a party for all of Queenslanders, arguing the former Liberal and National Parties represented only parts of the state. A bad result at the 2012 election could cost the Labor Party dearly, wiping it out along the coast and turning it into a party of the south-east corner.

The greater Cairns area encompasses three marginal Labor seats and overflows into a fourth. Labor's Steve Wettenhall has held the northern Cairns seat of Barron River (ALP 2.3%) since 2006. The central seat of Cairns (ALP 4.2%) has been held by Labor MP Desley Boyle since 1998, but she is retiring at the 2012 election. Mulgrave (ALP 8.1%) extends from southern Cairns down to Innisfail and has been held by Curtis Pitt since he succeeded his father Warren in 2009. Extending north to the Torres Strait and Cape York, Cook (ALP 2.2%) also extends as far south as the northern beaches of Cairns and has been held by Labor's Jason O'Brien since 2004.

Labor's history in the region is strong but all four seats are at risk. Cairns has been held by Labor since 1904 but is no longer a working class town full of cane cutters and rail workers. Cook fell to the Nationals in 1974 on a single issue, the Torres Strait boundary, but has been held by Labor again since 1977. It became more marginal when the 2008 redistribution incorporated parts of the former One Nation held seat of Tablelands. Both Barron River and Mulgrave have traditionally been marginal seats, held by the Nationals through the 1970s and 1980s before being gained by Labor in 1989. Both seats were lost in the swing against the Goss government in 1995, and Mulgrave also fell to One Nation in 1998

Townsville's three seats display a similar pattern to those in Cairns. All have a Labor history but Labor battled to win them in its wilderness years of the 1970s and 1980s. At the 2012 election Labor will defend Townsville (ALP 4.0%), Mundingburra (ALP 6.6%) and Thuringowa (ALP 8.5%) and on federal election figures all three are at risk. Labor lost Mundingburra at the famous 1996 by-election, re-gained it in 1998 but lost Thuringowa to One Nation at the same election. As with the Cairns seats, Labor's three Townsville seats have looked at risk at recent elections but not fallen. The 2012 election could provide a sterner test.

In Central Queensland Whitsunday (ALP 3.2%) is a regional seat that must be won by the LNP. It should have been one of the first seats to fall in 2009 but sitting MP Jan Jarrett increased her majority. Whitsunday was won by One Nation for a single term in 1998, but Labor has held the seats for the rest of the period since 1989. It is the sort of seat that goes with government.

One of the few LNP seats at risk of falling to Labor in 2012 is Mirani (LNP 0.6%), covering the areas between Rockhampton and Mackay. In 2009 it became a notional Labor seat when the neighbouring Labor seat of Fitzroy was abolished, transferring many mining towns into Mirani. It was won narrowly in 2009 by sitting LNP member Ted Malone, but he faces an interesting challenger in 2009 in Jim Pierce, the former member for Fitzroy who retired with the abolition of his seat in 2009. Mirani is the only LNP seat in the state that would have been won by Labor on 2010 Federal election figures. Mirani is likely to be retained by the LNP but is one of the few LNP-held seats likely to see a serious contest..

The other key seat to watch in Central Queensland is Keppel (ALP 7.6%), held by Labor's Paul Hoolihan. It lies on the coast near Rockhampton and should have been won by Labor in 1992, but the strong personal following of veteran National MP Vince Lester meant Labor had to wait until his retirement in 2004 before finally capturing the seat. Neighbouring Rockhampton (ALP 17.9%) is one of Labor's safest seats, but long-serving Labor MP Rob Schwarten is retiring.

Gladstone (IND 6.1% v ALP) is a seat Labor would have hopes of winning, but that has been Labor's view since this industrial seat was first lost to Independent Liz Cunningham in 1995. The seat has remained marginal and in Cunningham's hands through Labor's good years, which suggests that with Labor's vote in decline, Cunningham should be re-elected. Gladstone would be a safe Labor seat based on 2010 federal election results.

South of Gladstone Labor used to hold Maryborough (IND 16.8% v NAT), Hervey Bay (LNP 6.5%) and several seats on the Sunshine Coast. Maryborough was lost on the rise of One Nation in 1998 while Labor's Sunshine Coast holdings were wiped out in 2006 on the back of the Traveston Dam decision. Labor's last Wide Bay-Burnett region seat, Hervey Bay, was lost by the Bligh government at the 2009 election.

Labor holds only two seats inland from the coast and both will be at risk in 2012. Toowoomba North (ALP 3.2%) has been held by Kerry Shine since the 2001 landslide. He increased his majority in both 2004 and 2006 but it returned to being a marginal seat in 2009 and will be tough for Shine to retain in 2012. Labor's other inland seat is the vast seat of Mount Isa (ALP 5.7%) in the state's north-west, but it is best discussed as one of those seats that will depart from the traditional two-party preferred contest.

Away from the Two-Party Contest

Since the emergence of One Nation at the 1998 election, the Coalition/LNP have been obstructed in their efforts to win office by the presence of minor party and independent candidates splitting the conservative vote. Four conservative independents were elected at the 2009 election, and the cross-benches have since expanded to seven with the defection of three LNP members, including two who have joined the state's new political force, Katter's Australian Party.

Bob Katter's party will have more than just a party name to its advantage in Mount Isa (ALP 5.7%) where his son Robbie will attempt to become the third generation of the Katter family to enter parliamentary politics. Labor's Betty Kiernan is defending a seat Labor has held since 1989, but successive redistributions have added more rural areas to the electorate. Also on the ballot paper in Mount Isa is LNP candidate Kevin Pattel, organiser of the 2011 'Convoy of No Confidence' trucking protest in Canberra, and the fledgling Queensland Party's candidate Jim Nicholls.

Katter's parliamentary recruitments have been Shane Knuth in Dalrymple and Aidan McLindon in Beaudesert. Knuth was first elected as LNP MP for Charters Towers in 2004 and defeated One Nation's Rosa Lee Long in the new seat of Dalrymple at the 2009 election. His brother Jeff Knuth is a former One Nation MP for Burdekin and will be the Katter candidate in Hinchinbrook (LNP 14.7%) in 2012. Aidon McLindon was first elected in 2009, winning the seat of Beaudesert for the LNP and holding off a challenge from Pauline Hanson. McLindon formed his own party on leaving the LNP before joining forces with Bob Katter as State Leader of the Australian Party.

Another LNP member to split with his party in 2010 was Burnett MP Rob Messenger, who has remained as an Independent after winning his seat with an LNP margin versus the Labor Party of 11.1%.

As mention earlier, Liz Cunningham has held the industrial city of Gladstone (IND 6.1% v ALP) since 1995 and she is expected to retain the seat in 2012. In the Sunshine Coast seat of Nicklin (IND 16.3% v LNP), Peter Wellington will face his strongest challenge since winning the seat in 1998. His LNP opponent is former Australian Rugby Union Coach John Connolly. In Maryborough, Chris Foley (IND 16.8% v LNP) is expected to be returned.

Independent and former One Nation MP for Nanango (IND 2.9% v LNP) Dolly Pratt is retiring, but LNP candidate Deb Frecklington will not face an easy task in recovering the seat for her party. Nanango is a seat where coal seam gas issues have been prominent and Katter's Australian Party has chosen former Australian fast bowler Carl Rackemann as its candidate in a contest certain to attract considerable attention.

If the long campaign sees the LNP lead over Labor slip, then the campaigning by Katter's party may be telling. The more cross bench members elected, the harder it will be for the LNP to win a majority in its own right. The nightmare scenario for the LNP would be for the party to fall short of a majority and for Newman to be defeated in Ashgrove. But given the state of the polls, much would have to go wrong for the LNP for this doomsday scenario to matter.