After a deceptively intriguing election night in which early counting hinted at a dramatic upset, Saturday’s Queensland result largely played out the script to deliver a Liberal National Party majority built on a backlash against Labor in the state’s regions .

Steven Miles’ closing speech may not have been the most graceful specimen of the genre, but we can at least be thankful he didn’t pretend he was robbed of a well-deserved win when they were tainted early and votes were added by post. count, as Donald Trump did under similar circumstances in 2020.

The reason for Labor is that the scale of the defeat was much smaller than it faced in mid-year, when a group of polls showed David Crisafulli and the LNP leading by about 57-43 in terms of two-party preference.

By the end of the campaign, the polls were down to about 53-47 — respectably close to a final result that should land around 54-46 when the dust settles.

While this was undoubtedly a less-than-glowing result for Labour, at least its elected members will not be able to travel to Parliament in a shared Tarago, as was the case when the party was last voted out of office in 2012 .

So it seems clear that some good things must have happened in the months leading up to the day of reckoning — some of which may even have federal implications, which pundits are generally too eager to attribute to state results.

Particularly surprising was the emergence of abortion as an issue—though perhaps it shouldn’t have been, given the apparent contagious nature of US political trends.

When a number of LNP candidates suggested they would vote in favor of Rob Katter’s proposed bill to reverse the state’s abortion deregulation, David Crisafulli was presented with a fire he could not easily put out, given the party’s formal position to allow a conscience vote on the issue (not that this would have prevented the three PNL members who supported the 2018 reforms having their preselections threatened).

For the federal Coalition, the issue was an instructive indication of the trouble that can be caused by its more doctrinaire element, which is increasingly rising within party membership.

Another pleasant surprise for Labor was the benign attitude of the state monopoly Murdoch newspaper.

Normally, the Coalition can rely Courier-Post to supplement their campaigns with a parade of anti-Labour hit pieces, but this time the front pages included favorable splashes on a series of Labor policy ads and a flattering photo of the former prime minister pumping iron a week after the day the big one.

Nor has Crisafulli been spared the fire for his party’s divisiveness over abortion and the evasiveness that the low-target strategy entails.

Labour, the federal party, can take encouragement from the apparent success of flashy initiatives on public transport fares and free school lunches to give it something to campaign for, despite the useless message the former delivered to already alienated regional voters.

By contrast, it was a disappointing night for the minor parties: One Nation emerged empty-handed, talk of a North Queensland sweep by Katter’s Australian Party proved far-fetched, and the Greens dropped one of two seats after who entered the campaign with high hopes. to repeat its extraordinary federal successes of 2022.

None of this should be exaggerated, however. The combined vote of the major parties continues to decline, however slightly on this occasion, and the Greens would likely have retained South Brisbane if the LNP’s ballot card had recommended that Labor be pushed last, as it did in 2020 .

The result in South Brisbane was another sign of the times, in that Labor held up quite well in inner urban areas while collapsing further afield.

The party’s exodus from Townsville, Rockhampton and most of the state’s far north is a play on federal trends in Herbert and Capricornia, where the party could now be shut down for good after historically being competitive or better.

Instead, Labor remained undisturbed in the suburban stalwarts of Mansfield and Mt Ommaney, offering at least a glimmer of hope it can still win federal seats in Brisbane that held out against the tide in 2022.

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