The Bligh factor

  • Jane Goodall

29 July 2010It’s a federal election, but most of the issues in South East Queensland are local, writes Jane Goodall in Inside Story

“BLIGHTED.” This was the Courier Mail headline on 21 July, accompanied by a close-up of Anna Bligh looking weary and overwrought. On the same day, Tony Abbott was getting a “rock-star reception” at a Brisbane primary school, according to the paper, and declaring that the election would be “won or lost here in Queensland.”

South East Queensland has more than its share of marginal seats. In the key population growth areas around the outer fringes of Brisbane, eight electorates are held with margins of less than 5 per cent. Recent boundary changes slightly strengthen the Labor position in the seats of Forde, Petrie and Bonner, but they are certainly up for grabs. Queensland delivered a massive swing to Labor at the last election, and a pendulum effect could…

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