Queensland LNP fears Labor abortion scare campaign working ahead of State poll

A scare campaign orchestrated by one of the Queensland Labor government’s main union backers over abortion is hurting the Liberal National Party so much that party insiders are concerned it will reduce the size of an LNP majority or lead to a hung parliament.

Even though public opinion polls show Opposition Leader David Crisafulli leading the party towards the first LNP Queensland Government in nine-and-a-half years on Saturday, confidential internal opposition polling has detected a last-minute swing back to the Labor Party among inner-city voters.

LNP candidates report that pro-abortion signage authorised by the United Workers Union secretary Gary Bullock — Premier Steven Miles’ main backer within the Labor Party — has appeared at all or most polling booths across Brisbane.

More than half the Labor Party’s seats are in the greater Brisbane area.

“We can see in the data from polling and analysis that the ALP is throwing everything into sandbagging these Brisbane seats,” one party insider said. “I am not confident a majority is in the bag. Everyone might be waiting longer on Saturday night for a result than they thought.”

Eighty per cent of Labor’s online advertising is focused on stoking concerns a LNP government would reduce access to abortion – a position denied by Mr Crisafulli as recently on Tuesday.

The campaign seems to be working. In Brisbane, younger women and their mothers, women mostly in their 50s and 60s, who were wavering in their support for the Labor Government are being convinced not to switch to the LNP, which has only held power in the State once, for three years, another party source said.

As women walk into polling booths, he said, Labor activists have been calling out: “Vote for women’s rights.”

A hung parliament or small majority would surprise pundits, given polls over the past six months have put support for the LNP at between 53 and 58 per cent.

Because of the way voters are spread across the state’s 93 seats, the LNP could emerge with a slim majority even if it gets 55 per cent of the vote, a figure that would deliver a landslide victory in a Federal election.

Abortion emerged as an unexpected campaign issue when Labor MPs began accusing the LNP of secret plans to change a 2018 law, which allows a termination 22 weeks into a pregnancy for any reason.

In the last leaders’ debate of the campaign, on Tuesday evening, Mr Miles said: “Do you believe in a woman’s right to choose?”

After a smattering of applause from an audience of undecided voters, Mr Crisafulli answered: “Well, it probably won’t work for his TikTok, but yes.”

The party’s head office has said: “The LNP has no plans to change the current laws.”

Revelations that a few LNP candidates and the Coalition’s Federal Indigenous spokeswoman, Jacinta Nampijinpa Prince, are sympathetic to changing abortion laws have helped the Labor campaign.

On Tuesday Nine newspapers reported Ms Price said abortions after the first three months were “immoral” and late-stage abortions were a form of infanticide.

Federal deputy leader Sussan Ley on Wednesday said the Coalition had no plans to change its pro-abortion policy.

In Queensland, both sides have offered campaign bribes, from free school lunches to heavily subsidised public transport.

But resentment over inflation, a perception that youth crime is out of control and a huge State debt after almost a decade of Labor in power has driven voters to the LNP and Mr Crisafulli, who has presented himself as a centrist unlikely to make any drastic changes in government.

On the Gold Coast and the rest of South-East Queensland, voters are swinging to the LNP, one party insider said, but not as much as in country Queensland, where anger with the government is strong.

Cherish Life Queensland has produced ads reporting that 1289 late or mid-term foetuses were aborted between 2018 and 2022 in the state, and asking voters to place Labor last.

The chief executive of the Christian lobby group, Matthew Cliff, said it was “incredibly frustrating and disappointing” that the LNP refuses to promise restrictions on the procedure.

The Opposition’s strategy to counter the effect of the abortion claims is to show video footage and photographs of Mr Miles, who LNP research has found makes voters feel uncomfortable and gives them “the wibbles”.

A week ago the party published an ad on social media asking readers to guess how many times Steven Miles would giggle during a leaders’ debate.