The win even the Coalition didn’t see coming

WHAT a turnaround for the Liberals.

A party figure speaking late on Saturday morning at a polling booth, dropped an Fbomb while telling the Bulletin about his dire prediction of the party’s fortunes.

But a handful of hours later it was a different story completely, with party strategists stunned at the size of the swing to the LNP. This was not just in the city’s safe seats but in what was supposed to be a loss – the northern seat of Forde.

Going into the election, the electorate was on a knife- edge, held by incumbent Bert van Manen with a margin of just 0.6 per cent.

The mood among the city’s conservative power players was subdued through the day with many admitting they believed the election was already lost in the face of polling that tipped Labor to win.

“I think the momentum went against us in the last week and Bob Hawke’s death stopped things completely for us,” one party leader said at noon on Saturday. “I just can’t see anything but a Labor victory, even a slim one.”

Polls closed at

6pm on Saturday and all eyes turned to the national’s most marginal seats, including Forde.

At 7pm, things were still looking bleak

Then as the numbers were crunched and the smaller polling booths started reporting in, the mood shifted at MP Stuart Robert’s Fadden election party at Labrador Tigers football club. Numbers were showing shock swings towards the LNP across Queensland.

The quiet, pensive atmosphere became one of ecstatic exuberance as the Morrison Government’s victory gained the momentum of a runaway G:link tram.

The opposite was true at Labor’s post-election party in for the conservatives. Forde at the Beenleigh Bowls Club. An air of disappointment descended on candidate Des Hardman’s event by 9pm, when it was clear a returned Coalition Government was the most likely outcome.

But the most excited celebrations broke out at Mr van Manen’s party, held in the Logan suburb of Cornubia.

An army of young LNP volunteers and campaign workers were taking selfies to chants of “Labor sucks”.

In a few short hours the mood had changed from “we’re f---ed” to “we’ve f---ing won”.