MARK RILEY: Labor Premier Steven Miles has run a better campaign but when QLD swings, it swings hard

Shortly after the 2012 Queensland election, I bumped into long-time Howard government MP Peter Lindsay in the corridors of Federal Parliament.

Lindsay had held the Townsville-based seat of Herbert for 14 years.

He was a Liberal warrior and a Howard loyalist.

He was also a good judge of political character.

And he wanted to share a judgment about one particular newly elected member of the Queensland Parliament.

“Keep an eye on this Crisafulli,” Lindsay told me.

“He’ll be premier one day.”

Lindsay said this with an obvious note of pride. He had helped recruit Crisafulli into politics from the world of television journalism.

And if the polls are correct, Lindsay’s prediction will come true on Saturday.

Labor Premier Steven Miles has run the better campaign. It probably won’t matter. The groundswell for change in the Sunshine State has been building for two years.

When Queensland swings, it swings hard.

All indications are that it will do that this weekend.

Miles has run a populist campaign, appealing to voters through their pockets and their children’s stomachs.

He has also executed a dominant social media game, succeeding in drawing the attention of eternally distracted younger voters with a quirky, often daggy series of videos on TikTok.

He has paired that with a big-spending, hip-pocket appeal for their parents’ votes.

Miles has cut public transport fares to 50 cents, introduced free school lunches and handed out $1000 household electricity bill rebates.

He has shoved dirty folding stuff into the pockets of every voter in the State.

It has been the most shameless vote-buying campaign in recent political history.

And it has worked. But only to an extent.

It has drawn Labor’s primary vote out of the toilet, although probably won’t prevent its hold on government being flushed away.

On the other side, Crisafulli’s small-target strategy has put him firmly on the back foot defending a lack of detail.

His biggest threat, though, has come from left field.

Katter’s Australian Party leader, Robbie Katter, son of Bob, lobbed a huge bomb into the campaign early this month by promising a private members’ Bill outlawing abortion.

It instantly wedged Crisafulli, who had voted against the decriminalisation of abortion in 2018, and now struggled to articulate a clear position as some of his LNP colleagues voiced tacit support for Katter’s proposal.

Crisafulli eventually put an emphatic position in this week’s final leaders’ debate, unequivocally supporting a woman’s right to choose.

But campaign watchers say many women have already begun to rethink their votes.

A combination of all those issues has seen Labor’s primary vote jump 10 points during the campaign and the LNP’s fall 4 points.

The LNP, though, still commands a 53-47 lead after preferences.

Voter anger is a big factor.

Campaign operatives from both sides tell me they can hear voters whacking baseball bats into their palms across the State.

That is never good for a government.

Federal strategists will be watching the results with interest.

Labor holds just five of the 30 Federal seats in Queensland. All of them are in Brisbane.

Anthony Albanese had hoped he could pick up a couple more to buy some insurance in what is shaping as a close Federal election next year.

But party strategists fear Labor’s State brand issues will spill over to hurt them.

They don’t place much faith in the theory that voters will get their anger off their chests by smashing the State Government.

Cost of living and housing have been rated highly in the State campaign. Both are Federal issues.

And Peter Dutton is constantly commuting concerns over youth crime — the other main State issue — into the Federal sphere.

An LNP victory would have a strong symbolic benefit for Dutton but little practical impact on his ability to win more seats there.

His party holds 21 Queensland seats. It lost two to the Greens in 2022. It is unlikely to win them back.

But if Peter Lindsay’s prediction does come true this weekend, it should help the federal LNP retain those Federal Queensland seats it does hold.

It will also give the Coalition a winning feeling.

And Peter Dutton will take that any day.