IT’S A TOUGHER
WHAT are sitting members and candidates doing in electorates which have lost their old, hard copy newspapers now that the state election campaign is in full swing?
With the switch from hold-inyour-hand newspapers to digital platforms comes the challenge of making sure all those gold-plated promises of roadworks, hospital upgrades, boat ramps and sporting fields reach the eyes and ears of the great unwashed.
Pushing a political barrow has never been harder. Social media is seen as the quick-fix alternative but, as many candidates are finding out, it isn’t the magic potion they thought it might be. Without those “likes” and “shares” among people living in the electorate they are hoping to win, it doesn’t count for much.
The likelihood is that from now on political parties will be building up social media networks among their members in order to saturate targeted electorates with “likes” and “shares” come election time.
Wow, isn’t this something to look forward to?
POLITICAL analyst at the University of Queensland Chris Salisbury thinks that most incumbents as well as candidates will struggle to get their message out in seats that have seen their local newspapers move to a digital presentation.
They might think it’s just a matter of getting something out on Facebook and Instagram but, of course, there is so much more to do if you want to reach an audience bigger than mum and dad and your best mate. As Dr Salisbury says, these are “challenging times” for anyone wanting to win an election.
THE three Townsville seats are the sitting ducks the two major parties are lusting over. Can the ALP hang on to them? With Coralee O’rourke pulling the pin in Mundingburra and a strong LNP law and order candidate in the form of ex-police officer Glenn Doyle standing in the seat, the ALP is looking like the skinny kid trying to make the footy team.
In Dr Salisbury’s estimation, the other two seats are still very watchable, although he offers the rider that voters in a pandemic are likely to stick with the status quo.
Faced with what looked like a strong Pauline Hanson One Nation candidate in Thuringowa, ALP incumbent Aaron Harper appeared destined to be reapplying for his old paramedic’s job. But, with One Nation’s Troy Thompson being disendorsed by the party, Mr Harper must now be feeling more confident going up against the LNP’S Natalie Marr.
She is no slouch and Mr Harper, who is widely seen as being “all talk and no action” by Townsville Bulletin letter writers when it comes to youth crime, will still have to dig in to keep the seat.
If Dr Salisbury’s “status quo” contention is correct, the ALP might at least hold two seats in Townsville. The LNP’S Dale Last would stay put in Burdekin and Nick Dametto would still have his face up on billboards in Hinchinbrook.
THERE is an expectation within the ALP that it could lose seats in North Queensland. But Dr Salisbury says the party is hopeful of taking Currumbin and Burleigh from the LNP on the Gold Coast.
Surfing great Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew is hanging 10 for the ALP in Burleigh. Dr Salisbury thinks Annastacia Palaszczuk’s tough border closure measures will bolster her stocks on the Gold Coast where residents feel more at risk from infection from across the border. This is not a sentiment necessarily shared outside the south-east corner of the state.
Ms Palaszczuk’s border closure strategy, while working in her favour for much of the pandemic, had lost its lustre by July-august. This is when regional Queenslanders started wondering why she wasn’t throwing another shrimp on the barbie and at least opening the borders to most of COVID-FREE regional NSW. It didn’t make sense then and it doesn’t make sense now.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in regional seats hotly contested by the ALP and the LNP.
THE ALP needs 47 seats to stay in power. It now has 48.
Interestingly, Dr Salisbury is not writing off Labor’s Jackie Trad in West End. The former deputy premier has been invisible during the pandemic and in the lead up to the campaign.
“Invisibility” on the part of the trouble-prone Ms Trad is a ploy that would help her party, but behind the scenes she has been burning the shoe leather. Dr Salisbury says she has been campaigning hard and could still come in ahead of the Greens in West End.
He doesn’t think the minor parties such as KAP and One Nation will play a pivotal role in this election
Political analyst at the University of Queensland Dr Chris Salisbury. which, if true, would mean either Labor or the LNP would be able to govern in their own right.
JASON “Costo” Costigan, from North Queensland First, has been in more strife than Burke and Wills over the past couple of years.
Watching him trying to keep a grip on Whitsunday is like watching a kid trying to climb the greasy pole at the Prossy rodeo.
Both Labor and the LNP smell dead meat and are going all-out to win this vital seat. One Prossy cane