This Saturday’s Queensland State Election will see the LNP not only with top weight, but a wide barrier draw and no gate speed. 

As far as campaign launches go, they missed the start. 

The person who advised the LNP to hold their campaign launch at the glitzy Emporium Hotel at Southbank is, surely, a Labor Party operative. How else do you describe the move by a party which is fighting for regional votes, on issues like harvesting water and land clearing laws, to have their upper echelon sitting, slouched in their seats, at one of Brisbane’s five-star hotels? 

It reeks of elitism. Who the hell advises these people? 

Their strategists should be on JobSeeker. 

Perceptions are everything in politics and that was, by far, the worst perception one could imprint on Queensland voters. 

The Labor Party nailed their launch by being in a warehouse in Beenleigh. The vision was ideal for a party which has, as we all know, lurched to the left with their wild energy and anti-farmer policies but, nonetheless, the perception was there. 

Labor’s charm offensive of blue-collar workers is false. Their incandescent love for the worker happens once every three years, at election time. After that, Labor flirts with job-destroying climate change policies and promotes Soviet-style industrial laws which mean fewer jobs for workers.  

We know to keep a sceptical eye peeled when it comes to opinion polls but how, after preferences are allocated, does Labor lead in the latest two-party preferred polling? 

This Labor government have a rap sheet as long as your arm. 

Under Labor’s reign, Queensland, a state of five million people, is headed towards $100 billion of debt. Voters seem to not care about the D-word. It goes unnoticed. 

Under Labor’s reign, Queensland farmers like Dan McDonald from Charleville have been persecuted and fined for feeding their own starving cattle with mulga. It offends the “environment”! 

Under Labor’s reign, Queensland taxpayers forked out $320,000 to fly out former vice president Al Gore, who has a carbon footprint the size of Godzilla, to deliver lectures at Queensland’s inaugural Climate Week.  

Under Labor’s reign, the name of a distinguished Queensland medical pioneer, Lady Cilento, was banished from a Brisbane hospital in an orchestrated vote by Health Minister Steven Miles. Honour Queensland greats? Not under Labor! 

Under Labor’s reign, Queensland’s Coal Mining Safety and Health Advisory Committee had lapsed and not been in deliberation due to the failure to fill its gender quota, only surfacing after tragic deaths in the mining industry. 

Under Labor’s reign, Queensland’s former Deputy Leader and Treasurer Jackie Trad purchased a $695,000 property at Woolloongabba, right next to a station for the $5.4 billion Cross-River Rail. It just so happened that not only was she the Minister in charge of the project but, buying a house next to a brand-new piece of infrastructure would reap a big financial gain. She offered the habitual excuse, I forgot. 

Under Labor’s reign, if the LNP had any sense of strategy, the Paradise Dam should be front and centre. This is a massive betrayal by Labor of farmers and a vibrant agricultural sector. 

When Peter Beattie built the dam, it was to prosper agriculture in the region. Now, in what can only be described as a massive cover-up, farmers are being denied water which is central to their viability. The argument is that the dam wall is unsafe, an argument unsustained by experts. Nonetheless, the wall has been lowered and a much-needed resource for the area is flowing into the ocean. I know it is an overused word in election campaigns, but this is a scandal. 

There it is. The incompetence of Labor is the only game in town. 

But despite the LNP having more ammo than an army to play with, their attacks are flimsy. 

Even worse, both sides offer a vista of lame policymaking which fails to energise Queenslanders. Simply smiling and saying the words “bold” and “vision”, on repeat, is just pollie speak.  

Queensland is a state which should be rolling wealth and greatness in all areas – sporting, resources, tourism, agriculture and development. 

Queensland is Australia’s playground for big ideas. 

I hear them yelling, “What about the ‘New’ Bradfield Scheme!?” 

Yes, but it must be told that the LNP have only committed $20 million towards a feasibility study. In terms of getting it built, we are talking in the never-never. 

The path to victory for the LNP is a tough one. 

The LNP must hold the seats of Burdekin, Pumiscestone and Lockyer. 

Then, let us not forget the Gold Coast seat of Currumbin where locals have been at the coalface and are totally distressed about border closures which have crippled the whole tourist region north of Coolangatta. 

Still on the Gold Coast, the LNP not only need to hold Currumbin but also need to hold onto Bonney which has a slim margin of 1.7 per cent and also the Gold Coast corridor seat, Theodore, where Labor has a seasoned candidate. 

Votes on the Gold Coast are there for harvesting; but, unfortunately, both major parties have been on a unity ticket with these draconian border closures. To whom can these unrepresented Gold Coast businesses and workers turn? 

The three seats which the LNP must win are Barron River, Keppel, Mundingburra and Townsville; then there are three other seats in play for the LNP, Cairns, Rockhampton and Whitsunday. 

All these going to the LNP may get them to a minority government at the very least. The compulsory preferential voting will play a large part in these North Queensland seats. At the last election, One Nation was in the final two for 20 seats. So, you will have the preferences of One Nation, the Katter Australia Party and Clive Palmer’s mob, all flying around like plates at a Greek wedding. 

The path to victory for the LNP will be a hard-fought one. I cannot help but think it should have been one of greater ease. 

But let me be clear. As we reach the crescendo of this state election, another four years of Labor will only inflict more economic pain onto Queenslanders and allow the alarmist Dr Jeannette Young to continue to call the shots whilst livelihoods are crushed. 

Remember, Labor in government has plunged Queenslanders into this recession and not parted with a single cent of their own money, yet they are the very same people who are asking us to trust them with the response. 

It is time to retire Labor from its too long innings in charge. 

The only way to do that is to vote for the LNP, even if your hand quivers over the ballot paper to do so. 

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