Queensland Labor is on track for a majority government, with the ABC election analyst Antony Green predicting the incumbent government will win 48 seats.
After a fraught election campaign, minor-party preferences decided many of the seats with inner-city voters turning against the Liberal National party, which had preferenced One Nation, for the Greens, resulting in a loss of key electorates.
The LNP leader, Tim Nicholls, suffered almost a 7% swing against him in his own electorate, while Labor claimed the inner-city seats of Aspley and Mansfield from the LNP.
However Labor has stopped short of celebrating. Townsville, one of the seats Green appears to have predicted as a Labor win, is coming down to the wire, before a full preference count. The Greens look set to win shadow treasurer Scott Emerson’s seat of Maiwar, although it also looks to be decided on preferences.
Green, who described Saturday’s election as one of the most difficult he had covered, predicted Labor would finish on 48 seats, one more than is needed for government, with the LNP holding 39, dropping from the 42 it won in 2015.
One Nation and the Greens were expected to join the crossbench with one electorate each. Pauline Hanson’s only victory is expected in the Labor-held seat of Mirani, while the deputy premier, Jackie Trad, fought off a Greens surge in her South Brisbane electorate, with the help of LNP preferences.
Katter’s Australian party will keep its two seats, while an independent was also expected to join the parliament, with Sandy Bolton defeating the former Newman government minister Glen Elmes in Noosa.
Nicholls was understated in his first appearance since Saturday’s poll but still was not conceding defeat.
“I said everything that needed to be said last night, the premier wasn’t granted the majority after a terrible campaign of fear, smear and no idea,” he said. “It’s now in the hands of the scrutineers and the votes have been cast and we just wait for them to be counted and we’ll see what happens and the outcome of the people of Queensland is.”
A welcome change of pace this afternoon, joining family and friends for a coffee and catch up in Hendra after almost a month of campaigning across this great state. Queensland means the world to me and I would like to thank everyone who supported us. pic.twitter.com/97jyxyqY8j
— Tim Nicholls MP (@TimNichollsMP) November 26, 2017
Speaking at her own event to thank volunteers and greet new MPs, Annastacia Palaszczuk said she remained confident of a majority government but was not ready to declare victory. However, she refused to enter into discussions of what would happen if she did need crossbench support to govern, a situation that presented itself in 2015, when Labor fell one short of the needed seats.
“I am not even thinking of that,” she said. “I am confident, I have just spoken to Evan Moorhead, the state secretary. He is confident, we are both confident of a Labor majority.”
Labor strategists told Guardian Australia their internal polling had the party winning 52 seats during the last week of the campaign. But preference flows, in the first state election since Labor reintroduced compulsory preferential voting, proved too difficult to pick.
The LNP suffered a more than 7% swing against it statewide, while Labor experienced a setback of just under two percentage points. But it was the Greens’ vote in LNP electorates, a trend referred to as the “teal” vote, which particularly cost the Queensland conservatives in the south-east.
A boundary change turned Emerson’s formally safe seat of Indooroopilly into a fight he ended up losing, with the question on Saturday night turning to whether Labor or the Greens would claim it. On Sunday, it became evident that the Greens, who had focused energies on Trad’s Labor seat, would instead join the parliament in place of a LNP MP.
One Nation’s vote in north and central Queensland proved crucial to Labor holding its electorates, with the minor party cannibalising the LNP vote but falling short of the necessary primary to win seats outright.
On Saturday night, Hanson, who remained the face of the One Nation campaign in Queensland, leaving party leader and now felled MP Steve Dickson struggling to gain a profile, refused to concede the result was a disappointment for her party, despite it following a similarly poor result in the latest Western Australia election.
Both the LNP and One Nation were blaming Labor’s “scare” campaign on Saturday night for the result, with Palaszczuk switching her message midway through the hustings to focus in on the One Nation-LNP coalition she said would be formed if Labor failed to win a majority.
With the predicted win, Palaszczuk added to her list of historical political firsts, having become the first woman to be elected premier from opposition and, now, the first female premier to defend that election win.
In a tweet, the federal LNP MP George Christensen apologised to One Nation voters for the LNP failing to “stand up more for conservative values” and attributed “a lot” of the blame to the Turnbull government.
To Qlders who voted One Nation, I'm sorry we in the LNP let you down. We need to listen more, work harder, stand up more for conservative values & regional Qld & do better to win your trust & vote. A lot of that rests with the Turnbull govt, it's leadership & policy direction. pic.twitter.com/0vCREdd7mn
— George Christensen (@GChristensenMP) November 25, 2017
“We need to listen more, work harder, stand up more for conservative values & regional Qld & do better to win your trust & vote,” he wrote. “A lot of that rests with the Turnbull govt, it’s leadership & policy direction.”
However, the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull said the election was fought “overwhelmingly on state issues”.
