Enormous swings against Queensland Labor in two by-elections have highlighted Premier Steven Miles’s difficult challenge to retain power in October.
The Miles government appears certain to have lost the safe seat of Ipswich West after an 18 percent swing gave Ipswich Show Society president Darren Zanow and the Liberal National Party a 2.9 percent margin.
The LNP also cannoned through a 28 percent margin former premier Annastacia Palaszczuk built up in Inala before retiring in 2023.
Labor’s primary vote fell to a historic low of 36 percent but projections on Sunday had candidate Margie Nightingale retaining the seat in Brisbane’s southwest on a 7 percent margin, beating out the LNP’s Trang Yen.
Federal Nationals leader and north Queenslander David Littleproud said everyone in federal and state Labor should be very concerned about the results.
“This is a big ‘up yours’ to the Queensland Labor government,’ he told Nine’s Today on Sunday.
“But I wouldn’t be measuring up the curtains just yet.
“If I was [LNP leader] David Crisafulli, there’s a lot of work to do between now and October.”
The Queensland state election is set to be held in October, with an opinion poll released on Friday indicating Mr. Miles faces defeat.
The premier’s rivals, the LNP, led the two-party preferred vote 54 percent to 46 percent in the poll published by News Corp.
Mr. Miles told reporters on Saturday he expected swings against the government “in the double digits.”
“It’s usual to expect swings against governments in by-elections,” he told reporters at Ipswich High School on Saturday morning after polling booths opened.
The pain continued for Labor as it suffered a 5.5 percent fall in primary votes in Brisbane council elections and 800,000 electors kept the LNP in power at City Hall.
Contested for the first time in 1992, the Inala electorate was initially represented by Ms. Palaszczuk’s father Henry.
He went on to become a senior minister before being succeeded by his daughter who resigned in December.
Inala is considered Queensland’s safest Labor seat but Ms. Palaszczuk took no chances on Saturday, stopping by a polling booth in the electorate to show her support.
Until Saturday, Labor had only once needed preferences to win the seat, winning more than 50 percent of primary votes at all but the 2012 election when Ms. Palaszczuk won 46 percent.
Her replacement, Ms. Nightingale, appears to have won about 36.5 percent of primary votes in Saturday’s election.
An Ipswich West by-election was triggered by Labor MP Jim Madden departing in January.
He will run for Ipswich council election in Saturday’s Queensland local government elections.
Since 1992, the average swing against Labor at by-elections when they are in government is 5 percent.
