QUEENSLAND Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce has been out on the hustings campaigning with the State Opposition Liberal-National Party. The message Joyce is hearing is clear: Queenslanders are "over" the Bligh Labor Government. Incumbency is clearly working against it, and after 11 years, voters are sick of incompetent management of social services and infrastructure.
But Joyce also detects a new source of anger: the economy. "When people lose their job, they look for a dog to kick," he says. "The Labor Party is the dog and they're going to kick it."
Premier Anna Bligh had hoped to turn the faltering economy into an electoral advantage. Her re-election campaign was timed to coincide with the second round of Federal Government hand-outs, and to pre-empt the full force of the economic downturn hitting voters.
Bligh would be cast as a safe pair of hands to manage Queensland through the tumultuous times ahead, with a $17 billion building plan to keep the economy ticking over. It was a message that tested well with pre-election focus groups. Labor's internal polling had also picked up a rebound in support for Bligh since Christmas as the economic situation worsened.
But with the LNP now edging ahead in the polls, spooked ALP politicians and back room operators are jamming the phone lines to Queensland.
"The swing against Labor is going to be bigger than anyone suggested on day one of the campaign. Labor has got to be prepared for a hung parliament," Griffith University political analyst Paul Williams said.
The Queensland Government is led by a competent, likeable woman with a massive parliamentary majority. But even so the Prime Minister's home state is in danger of falling to a conservative opposition that until recently was considered a joke. In an ominous sign for the Rudd Government and its state counterparts, Bligh's fortunes seem to be deflating along with the economy.
When Labor strategists began plotting their campaign to win a fifth term in Queensland, they knew they had some big problems to confront, including incumbency and a unified Opposition. But they didn't foresee that what they considered their best asset — Anna Bligh herself — would almost become a liability.
Worryingly for Labor leaders around the country, Bligh is struggling to convince voters to stick with the Government amid all the economic uncertainty.
Having fluffed the costings of an election promise on the first day of her campaign, Bligh has battled to control the agenda. Constantly on the back foot defending her Government's shortcomings or responding to another LNP policy announcement, she is failing to get Labor's message across. Like Kim Beazley and Brendan Nelson before her, Bligh can't cut through.
"Anna Bligh is not a great natural campaigner," one Labor operative said. "She would rather be judged on her ideas and ideals than have to prostitute herself."
Ten years of Peter Beattie has conditioned Queensland voters to expect showmanship. Beattie would happily swim with sharks if he thought there were a few votes in it, whereas Bligh looked uncomfortable handballing an AFL football on the Gold Coast this week.
Bligh is widely considered a decent person, an able manager of the state with good policy ideas. She was responsible for getting crucial water infrastructure built on time and adding fluoride to Queensland's water. She also reformed freedom-of-information laws.
A symbol of modern Queensland, Bligh has set herself apart from the blokey mates' culture that is endemic up north. It is a marked contrast to the grubby populism of Beattie, elements of whose government in latter years teetered dangerously close to cronyism and corruption. But as the federal Coalition learnt the hard way, substance counts for little if you can't get jaded voters to listen to your message.
Queenslanders switching on the television news at night see a Premier under pressure, rather than the poised Anna Bligh to whom they are accustomed. Voters do not harbour any real hatred of Bligh. Indeed, political focus groups reveal sympathy for a leader left to clean up Beattie's mess. They are simply sick of Labor running their state for the best part of 20 years.
In this atmosphere, LNP leader Lawrence Springborg just has to keep walking in a straight line to next Saturday and not fall over. No one on the conservative side of politics gives the farmer from the Darling Downs especial credit for the swing to the LNP. They know their biggest advantage is voter dissatisfaction with Labor. The worsening economic outlook is also starting to play in their favour.
Once the envy of the rest of the country for its 5 per cent annual growth, Queensland's boom has busted. Mines are closing, tourism is in the doldrums and the top end of the property market has collapsed. Unemployment, which sank to 3.4 per cent in 2007, is now forecast to hit 6.25 per cent next year. This will be a rude shock for the hundreds of thousands of people who flooded over the border from NSW and Victoria lured by the promise of warm weather and plentiful work.
Migration has underpinned Queensland's growth since the late '90s. Although the recent mining boom swelled the state's coffers through royalties, it was not a massive creator of jobs. Mining accounts for just 10 per cent of the state's economy, compared with 30 per cent of Western Australia's economy. But the mounting number of mine closures this year hints at broader economic pain to come.
"Mining is the only sector that has really had a sharp shock. Everywhere else people are looking nervously around," University of Queensland economics Professor John Quiggin said. "(The global financial crisis) still has a bit of an air of unreality for most people."
It's pretty real for Gold Coast property owners and developers. Businessmen who have taken a bath on the sharemarket and mining investments are putting their luxury homes up for sale. Half-finished apartment blocks abound as potential buyers dry up and banks refuse to extend credit to developers. It's only the increase in the first-home owner's grant that is keeping a floor under the lower end of the housing market.
Given the Gold Coast is a leading indicator of the Queensland economy, it's a worrying sign. Meanwhile, the state's second largest industry, tourism, is floundering. Figures released this week reveal Queensland lost more international visitors than any other place in Australia last year, down 6 per cent.
"Queensland has been travelling so well for a number of years. When you're out in front and you slow, you've got further to drop than everyone else," Real Estate Institute of Queensland chairman Peter McGrath said. "Our drop down will be a lot steeper than other parts of Australia before it levels out."
When the state's budget plunged $1.6 billion into deficit last month, costing Queensland its AAA credit rating, Labor strategists decided it wasn't worth risking things getting worse. Ignoring the punishment West Australian voters meted out to Alan Carpenter last year when he went to the polls early, Bligh called a snap election.
That decision to go six months early is now regarded by some as a serious tactical error. One week out from election day, Labor's support is on the wane. The LNP vote has steadily increased and the latest published polls put the LNP ahead 51-49 on a two-party preferred basis.
"It's extremely tight," one of Kevin Rudd's confidants said this week. "If the swing continues, Labor is in all sorts of trouble."
It's a frightening prospect for Rudd, Victorian Premier John Brumby and South Australia's Mike Rann, all of whom must go to the polls next year, when the economic environment may well be worse. They too could fall victim to the toxic combination of a faltering economy and incumbency that threatens Labor in Queensland.
It's a tough ask for any government to get re-elected after 11 years in power — just ask John Howard. And if Bligh is tossed out next weekend, it could further signify the death of the advantage of incumbency heading into an election.
Unlike Howard, Beattie did plan for renewal, grooming Bligh as his successor and retiring 18 months ago. But while Beattie enjoyed successive landslide victories in 2001, 2004 and 2006, it was never going to be as easy for Anna Bligh to become Australia's first female premier elected in her own right.
For the first time in a decade, Labor is facing a credible opposition, which could have ramifications for Liberal and Nationals dynamics around the country. After controversially merging eight months ago, the LNP has defied the sceptics and maintained a disciplined, united front.
"Once they amalgamated, we lost our weapon of mass destruction," one Labor strategist said. There was to be no rerun of the "can't govern themselves, can't govern Queensland" line that worked so powerfully to Labor's advantage in the past.
Largely a spent political force outside of Queensland, the Nationals' well-executed merger with the state's Liberal Party could teach the federal Coalition a thing or two about party unity and discipline.
"Lawrence is doing a very good job as much as he can do," Barnaby Joyce said. "He's just got to keep it all together." This means avoiding too much scrutiny of his vague pledge to save $1 billion — and Queensland's economy — by a 3 per cent cut to the public service.
The LNP's newfound legitimacy is underlined by its vastly increased campaign budget. Much has been made of mining billionaire Clive Palmer's munificence. But Labor fund-raisers turned positively green when they heard that some of Queensland's most prominent businessmen paid $20,000 each to dine with Springborg at Brisbane's Polo Club last weekend.
Even Palmer, who lends his helicopter to Springborg for campaigning, would be surprised by the LNP leader's solid showing. Just before the poll was called, Palmer told business associates: "We're not going to win. Lawrence is a nice guy, but he just doesn't have enough mongrel in him to be leader."
But this has proved to be an advantage in this campaign. Springborg's drawl and laid-back demeanour are strangely comforting. The more harried Bligh appears, the more relaxed Springborg seems.
Some are wondering where the real Bligh went. The former hard-left feminist who would have eschewed make-up now admits to using Botox? The warm, caring, personable woman is now that aloof power-dresser gazing coolly down from billboards?
Federal politicians are watching the Queensland election as a dry run of the competing arguments and strategies each side will employ in next year's national poll.
There are suggestions Labor had a deliberate strategy to stage in Queensland what Griffith University's Paul Williams has dubbed a "zombie election". The campaign would be low-key, built around the single theme of the global financial crisis. "They wanted the electorate to sleepwalk to the polling booths in order for the status quo to be maintained," Williams surmises.
If this was the plan, it backfired. Dissatisfaction with Labor's management is so high that a large protest vote is building. In this context Labor is trying to frame the election as a choice about the future, rather than a referendum on the past.
Already recriminations are brewing within Labor ranks. Bligh's coterie of advisers are being painted as sycophants and questions are being asked about how campaign management is divvied up between the young, inexperienced state secretary, Anthony Chisholm, and Bligh's chief-of-staff, Mike Kaiser.
A former ALP general secretary who was involved in the ill-fated Latham campaign, Kaiser likes to be in control. Federal Labor senator Mark Arbib knows this well — as NSW state secretary he was engaged in a power struggle with Kaiser when he worked for former premier Morris Iemma.
Nonetheless, the LNP shouldn't be sizing up the George Street executive offices in Brisbane just yet. It needs to win an extra 22 seats to form government, and even if the party gets the required 8 per cent swing, it won't be uniform across all electorates. The LNP might just fall short of winning crucial marginal seats in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast, particularly as it hasn't run a particularly targeted marginal-seat campaign.
The nightmare scenario for both major parties is waking up to a hung parliament next Sunday. Relying on the support of a motley crew of independents to govern in a state with only one house of parliament is extremely problematic.
"They hold sway over every legislative decision the state makes. It makes for very bad policy. You can't govern," Joyce observes. "In the middle of a financial crisis you need the capacity of government to make decisions — as hard as they are — and follow them through."
In Beattie's first six months as Queensland premier he led a minority government with the support of one independent, Peter Wellington. All the independents, including Wellington, have indicated they're unlikely to back Labor this time around.
Bligh's performance has picked up in recent days and Labor research shows her "jobs, jobs, jobs" message is starting to resonate with voters. Labor is flooding the airwaves with ads mocking Springborg's economic nous, and others featuring Bligh at her warmest speaking direct to camera.
The official campaign launch tomorrow, with Rudd in attendance and some well-targeted spending promises to be unveiled, will be the springboard for the final week of the campaign. It might just be enough to stem the leakage of votes to the LNP and get Bligh returned with a few seats.
At this point Labor will be happy to scrape back in with a majority of one. "A win is a win is a win," state secretary Anthony Chisholm says.
Cosima Marriner is Brisbane correspondent.