Posted: 2019-05-20 04:39:24

Updated May 20, 2019 14:49:03

After losing at least two seats in Queensland and counting underway to confirm if it will lose a third, the Labor Party is today assessing the damage in its former heartland.

While Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has vowed to help turn back the tide, some of her MPs have broken ranks.

Member for Rockhampton Barry O'Rourke admitted Queensland Labor was worried, saying the handling of Adani played a role in the voter backlash.

"I can assure you we are very concerned, the phones were running hot yesterday," he said.

"We need to take on board what happened here in Queensland.

"The stuff around Adani obviously was not managed well by Labor — we've seen the LNP be able to well and truly capitalise on that."

He said he would take the fight to his senior colleagues.

"I am not a cabinet minister, and I'm not at the cabinet table but I can assure you I'm fighting for the people of Rockhampton and the people of central Queensland on this project," he said.

"I think Labor really needs to come out with a very clear message one way or the other."

As the magnitude of the revolt in Queensland became clearer, the internet began filling with memes, calling for the sunshine state to be axed from the rest of the country.

Queensland Labor hurting the most: Former MP

Former state Labor minister, now Associate Professor at Queensland University of Technology, John Mickel, said the results had sent shockwaves through Labor ranks.

Read analysis about the federal election:

"When the tide goes out electorally in Australia for Labor, it hurts Queensland Labor the most.

"Assuming we will hold Lilley — and at the moment that's got a question mark on it — we'd have one seat from the Brisbane River to Cape York.

"It's just not a great electoral landscape.

"You're giving the Coalition something like a 23 or 24 seat start and in a national campaign that is otherwise tight, that's a huge advantage for any political party to be giving anyone else.

"There is a similar advantage in the other resource state, namely Western Australia where Labor performed quite poorly there too."

'Bipolar' position on coal at the heart of Queensland dissent

Former state Labor member for Rockhampton, Rob Schwarten, said Queensland voters believed Labor displayed a "bipolar" approach to coal.

"They were angry, and disappointed and disgusted — they believe that Labor no longer wants to hear from them," he said.

"We had a great policy on climate change — we said that we believed in reforestation, we said that we believed in renewables and we wanted to get ahead of that market," he said.

"But then we forgot to say to people that by the way, we believe in coal.

"We just simply had a State Government that wasn't getting its message through and wasn't articulating on the ground that it does care about the working people here, and a Federal Labor that was equally torn over the issue of coal. "

Mr Schwarten said Labor would need to "recalibrate" if it wanted to stay in State Government.

"We've got to get out of the environment of George Street," he said.

Topics: federal-election, event, government-and-politics, federal-elections, elections, federal---state-issues, federal-government, parliament, federal-parliament, industry, coal, business-economics-and-finance, brisbane-4000, qld, australia

First posted May 20, 2019 14:39:24

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