‘Grumpy’ voters will cost Labor in Queensland election, Miles government ready to ‘take the blame for everything that goes wrong’

With less than a month to go before the polls open, the Miles government is fighting an uphill battle to convince residents they deserve a chance to serve a fourth term.

Labor is ten points behind the Liberal National Party, according to the latest Newspoll, while Premier Steven Miles is also trailing state opposition leader David Crisafulli by 46% to 39% as the preferred leader.

A massive swing of 8.2% against Labor is predicted across the state, which would see the PNL claim a comfortable 55-seat majority in the 93 unicameral Parliament.

Speaking on Sky News Australia on Sunday, Mr Bowe explained that the most “optimistic” scenario for Labor would be to prevent the opposition from securing that majority, although he suggested the PNL’s path to victory could be more complex than it appeared.

“I think the best Labor can hope for is that it will be really close,” he said.

“The more optimistic scenarios for Labor realistically I think involve the loss of the mandate, but without the PNL coming to power with a majority.

“(This) is a big hurdle for the LNP to clear, it’s going to be quite a crossbench.”

Polls suggest up to 28 per cent of Queensland voters will vote for a minor party or independent candidate in October, with support for the Greens at 12 per cent and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation at 8 per cent.

As a result, the PNL will need to make significant gains in Labour-held electorates to ensure it does not rely on backbench deals to form a minority government.

Despite this, Mr Bowe argued that the state opposition was in a strong position ahead of the election, with the party perversely benefiting from Labour’s historic dominance of the political landscape.

“Labor has absolutely dominated at the state level, certainly not at the federal level, since 1998,” he explained.

“So they’re taking all the blame for everything that’s going wrong, and that’s in an environment where, you know, voters are feeling pretty grumpy on a number of political fronts.”

The cost of living, crime, housing and access to regional healthcare are the key issues on voters’ minds ahead of the October election, with the Miles government announcing a series of measures targeting each to convince the electorate it can be trusted to improve results. .

Most importantly, Labor gave every voter a $1,000 energy rebate and cut the cost of public transport in the state to just 50 cents, while also doubling down on efforts to build more affordable housing.

Despite this, polls suggest the measures, while popular, have done little to persuade the electorate, Labour’s core support stagnant at 30% since March.

This figure is only marginally above the 26.7% primary vote recorded in the disastrous 2012 election sweep, which saw the party reduced to just seven seats.