Independents key to win Crucial new seat will go down to the wire

QUEENSLANDERS will all be looking to Bonney on polling day to determine who wins government, with the seat hanging on a knife’s edge.

Just a handful of votes is expected to split the two major parties after a Galaxy Research Gold Coast Bulletin poll recently revealed both parties were polling at 50 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.

The LNP’s Sam O’Connor and Labor’s Rowan Holzberger have both been hitting the streets to try to clinch the win, but the seat is still too close to call.

Bonney is also Labor’s best chance to win a Gold Coast seat and break the LNP’s “blue block”.

The seat is one of 27 marginal seats across the state. It has been widely speculated that whoever wins Bonney will also win government.

With the two major parties so close, Greens candidate Amin Javanmard and the two independents, Robert Buegge and Ron Nightingale, have the opportunity to be “kingmakers” with preferences.

Mr Javanmard has directed his preferences to Labor. Mr

Nightingale and Mr Buegge are asking voters to make up their own minds.

Mr Holzberger said Bonney voters needed to realise how important their vote was.

“The message I would like to get out is that people should be voting as if they are deciding who wins government.”

Mr Holzberger said that while on the hustings he had found concerns centred around health services and traffic congestion.

“There is a real feeling of change,” he said.

“People are feeling they are being ripped off by the LNP.”

The LNP’s Mr O’Connor said that while doorknocking he had found crime was a constant issue. He has promised to establish a police beat in Labrador.

“People are concerned about the cost of living, rising crime rates and worsening traffic congestion,” he said.

“The M1 is a constant headache for locals and Labor have done next to nothing in their three years in office.”

The LNP has promised a second motorway to ease congestion.

Mr O’Connor also promised a kiss ‘n’ ride at the new Parkwood East light rail station.

Bonney is one of the four new seats created from this year’s seat redistribution and was made by splitting Southport and Broadwater.

The seat includes the blue collar suburbs of Labrador, Arundel, Parkwood, Biggera Waters and parts of Southport.

Bonney was named after Brisbane-born pilot Maude “Lores” Bonney, who was the first woman to fly solo from Brisbane to London in 1938.