Labor’s Annastacia Palaszscuk is preparing to take over the Premiership of Queensland against all the odds.
While the election is still officially too close to call with three key seats still unaccounted for, it is looking increasingly likely that Labor will win enough seats to form government.
Labor currently holds 43 seats and requires 45 to form government. The three seats still in doubt are Mansfield, Maryborough and Whitsunday. Based on the current vote count, Mansfield willlikely be retained by its current LNP candidate, with Labor ahead in Maryborough and the LNP ahead in Whitsunday.
If Labor manages to win the two extra seats they need, Saturday’s election will become one of the largest swings in Australian political history, with a 12% swing against the incumbent LNP.
In the 2012 election, Queensland rejected the Anna Bligh government so strongly that Labor ended up with only seven parliamentary seats. Campbell Newman became Premier with a 14.5% swing to the LNP. The LNP won a total of 78 seats to Labor’s seven.
When Palaszscuk replaced Bligh and took the party leadership in 2012, it seemed almost impossible for Labor to come back and win a majority in Saturday’s election.
But what seemed impossible is looking increasingly possible as Palaszczuk gears up to take control of the government.
Palaszczuk’s campaign focused on promises to retain public assets and oppose the sell-offs Newman’s premiership became tainted by, as well as focusing on job creation and increased funding for public education. She promised to reduce Queensland’s debt through revenue raised by these state-owned assets, a plan that seemed to win over a large number of voters.
“We all know that counting is still underway, we are still hopeful, we are optimistic,” she said on Saturday.
“It’s just been absolutely amazing,the support right across the length and breadth of Queensland, it is extremely humbling and we are going to restore good governing to this state,”
“Clearly Queenslanders have sent a message.”
So who is Annastacia Palaszscuk? Daughter of Labor heavyweight Henry Palaszscuk, she decided to run for election in her father’s seat of Inala 2006 when he announced his retirement from politics. After winning the seat, she served as the parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Roads and Local Government, Minister for Disability Services and Multicultural Affairs and later Minister for Transport for Multicultural Affairs. A lawyer by training, she has had a decorated political career in the nine years since she was first elected to parliament.
When Anna Bligh retired in 2012, Palaszczuk was elected to the Labor leadership unopposed. She became one of Australia’s youngest ever female party leaders. The strength of her leadership and the strength of her whirlwind month-long election campaign have meant she has resurrected the Labor party against odds that seem insurmountably long.
But the Labor leader isn’t the only heroine in Saturday’s election story. Labor’s Kate Jones booted Premier Campbell Newman out of his own inner-Brisbane seat of Ashgrove on Saturday. The Premier, who had always enjoyed popularity in his own electorate, suffered a 9.5% swing against him in Saturday’s polls. Jones won the seat with a comfortable 53.8% of votes.
Newman conceded his seat at 8.15pm on Saturday evening, announcing the loss also signaled the end of his career in politics.
This win was almost as unexpected as Palaszcsuk’s, with Newman widely projected to retain the Premiership and the parliamentary majority, to say nothing of retaining his own seat.
Jones was first elected to the seat in in 1996, making her the youngest woman to be elected to the Queensland parliament. She retained her seat in the 2009 election and was appointed Minister for Climate Change and sustainability in the Bligh cabinet, making her the youngest ever MP to be run a ministry.
She exited politics in 2012 when she lost Ashgrove to Newman, but has run an impressive political comeback campaign at just 35 years old.
In her victory speech, Jones said she decided to recontest the Ashgrove seat when she increasingly saw Newman turn the state into a Queensland she did not want to raise her children in.
“The vote here in Ashgrove sends a very clear message that we want a better way going forward. We want a way where we work together,” she said to a room of “Team Kate” supporters on Saturday evening.
“The resounding message that I have heard loud and clear is that trust is something that cannot be bought but is something that is earned.”
With the remaining votes currently being counted, a final result is expected to be announced early this week.