From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Wednesday, October twenty four. Treasury Jim Chalmers is off to Washington, DC for meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. He'll spend time with top us economic officials who are forecasting trouble ahead for Australia when it comes to inflation and growth. Former nine Entertainment chairman Peter Costello has made his most high profile appearance since
departing the company. He blasted former Victorian Premier Dan Andrews at a conference in Sydney, saying the state's COVID nineteen restrictions were moronic. Those stories alive right now at the Australian dot com AU. Three sleeps to go until Queenslander's design to kick out a long term labor government and give the LNP a go Today, how the big issues are shaping up as the polls titan.
Here in Queensland. For about a year there was no changes to the polls. Really, it wasn't looking good for labor. In the last few weeks we've seen in a published poll by Resolve the two party preferred scenes to be tightening.
That's Lydia Lynch, one of the Australian's reporters in Queensland.
It still suggests that David chrisop fully and the MP will pull through with a majority government on Saturday, and some of the internal polling from Labor suggests the same thing that the race is tightening in Brisbane.
Lydia and our bureau in the Sunshine State have been churning out the scoops for weeks now in what's turned out to be an action packed election campaign. The vote is this Saturday, October twenty six. The accepted wisdom is this the long serving Labor government has done its dash and won't get another term. The Premier, Stephen Miles had the job land in his lap when the former Premier Anastasia Palichet quit just before Christmas.
I have given it my all and I've run a marathon. Standing here today and standing up for the people of Queensland has been an honor of my life. I don't believe anyone who comes after me will know how humbling it is.
Miles is up against it. He's got major problems delivering his ambitions for renewable energy projects. He came up with a plan to give free lunches to primary school kids, but had to admit it would add one point four billion dollars to the state's debt. He's dealing with widespread perceptions that he's beholden to the powerful union movement, which, thanks to political donation laws, is able to spend much more than the parties themselves to influence votes in individual seats.
But the campaign has also seen the opposition leader, the Liberal National Party's David chris Afuley, struggle at times. One of his battles has been abortion policy. Chris Afuley does not want to be talking about abortion.
I'm not going to join the campaign conversation about this because I've made more positions very clear, and my position is here will be no change.
David chris Afuley, like most other members of his party, voted against decriminalizing abortion back in twenty eighteen, and during Tuesday Night's leader's debate, Miles goaded him into making his stance and his personal position clear.
Give a straight answer.
Okay, there will be no change, none at all. Are your protress or not. There will be no change.
The legislation is there and women will have access to that legislation.
Do you believe in a woman's right to choose?
Yes or no?
Well it probably won't work for his TikTok. But yes, Oh that got you, didn't it. Why you vote against?
Yes? Why you vote against?
My question to you, Bremi.
He also doesn't want to talk about his record in business. Here he is with another of our reporters, Sarah Elks, a few days back.
Why did you leave Southern Edge Training on April one in twenty sixteen.
Because my promise capital encountry. I was in the business performer and I met every single one of my older.
Dat chris A Foley knows the KEDA winning this election is painting labor as tired, bloated and out of ideas. And to tell Queensland is what he's going to do about the cost of living, the price of energy and youth crime. David Chris A Foley has just got a gift one of his bugbears, abortion pol might have disappeared as an issue.
They're scrambling. So it happens with liberal and labor. It's happened with Liberal this time. They've been found ty rot two horses at once.
This is Robbie Catter, an Independent talking on Sky News Australia. He's the son of one of Queensland's most famous firebrands, Bob Catter. Earlier in the campaign, Robbie Catter flagged that if he's reelected, which he will be, he'd introduced legislation to the Parliament, effectively banning abortion in Queensland. As in the rest of Australia, abortion is basically safe, legal and rare.
In twenty eighteen, the Queensland Labor government removed abortion from the Criminal Code, but the then opposition gave its MPs a conscience vote on the issue. The vast majority of them voted to keep abortion as a criminal offense. This is why it's hot for David chris A. Fully many of his own MPs hold strong anti abortion beliefs and want him to take action. And the wild card is Robbie Catter, a Cross bencher who's determined to get this issue back on the table. Kata says the L and
P is trying to ride two horses at once. That is, MPs are concerned about what conservative regional voters think and chris A Fooley is trying to make sure he doesn't get obliterated in the more Progressive Brisbane seats Chris A. Fooley didn't want this election to turn into a referendum on abortion.
He did not want to talk about it. We asked him dozens and dozens and dozens of questions about his personal position on abortion, why he decided to vote against removing it from the Criminal Code back in twenty eighteen, and asking him whether he would allow his MPs a conscience vote if there was a bell brought to the Parliament in this next term, assuming that they won the election.
He repeatedly refused to answer those questions. The thing that really kicked it off with some of his MPs were out there in the community at public forums speaking about their wish or abortion access to be restricted, and some about legislation to be repealed. And then we had a crossbencher, Robbie Catter, who holds one of the safest seats in the state, coming out saying he planned to introduce legislation to the next parliament to restrict access to abortion or to even repeal that legislation.
What I'm determined to do is put back in the Baby's Born Live Bill, which is really just micking what is the Code of Practice code in Queensland Health. Right now, what you're saying, if the babies planned abortion comes out breathing with the heartbeat, I'm probably going to struggle for life, but that they can just give us some care and dignity. It's a human rights issue. It's not an abortion issue to me.
Katter's bill is about babies who after a termination procedure show signs of life. There's not a lot of evidence about how often this occurs, if at all, but it would require doctors and nurses to give the same level of care in this instance as they would to any other patient. There have been some harrowing claims that fetuses have showed signs of life after an abortion.
So I was actually just on the phone to Robbie and what he said to me is that some of the operating guidelines in hospitals changed about a year or two years ago, and his concern is that when a woman has an abortion and the fetus is still viable or still alive after that abortion, that there's not enough medical intervention happening or comfort given to that child. But he is quite passionate about the fact that there should be some changes around this or tightening of these guidelines.
He says to me, this is his first priority and it is a test for him to see if he would be willing to put in more legislation. So say he puts this bill to the Parliament and no lmpmps come out to support it, he says he's not going to hammer a moot point. He will pursue other issues that are important to him and the Cutters Australia Party
around crocodiles and whatnot. But if there is some signaling of support around there, he's willing to go further in terms of looking at counseling arrangements, maybe lowering the gestation limit of when an abortion can be accessed on request and that sort of thing.
Yeah, and it's that broader legislation which creates an issue for David Christa Foley, isn't it, because he'd then be under pressure to offer his MPs a conscience vote on that.
That's right, and so this does take the heat out of it because we saw when the cat has put this bill into the last Parliament, it was killed off in the committee process and nothing really ever came about and then we went into a campaign. So it could be the case that David Christophilli won't actually have to address the issue of abortion during his first term if he wins.
Labour says the bill is unnecessary as medical practitioners already have a duty of care to everyone, and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists actively opposes Katter's bill, saying it would reduce access to abortion because doctors would be afraid of prosecution. On Tuesday, Katta walked back his position, saying he'd reintroduce this bill to Parliament, but he wouldn't immediately attempt laws that would recriminalize abortion.
In fact, he indicated he was doubtful even the Babies Born Alive bill would get through parliament.
That's what we've determined to put back in. We've put it in the last parliament. It didn't even get that didn't even get support from Lebel and Labor in the committee system. I want to put that in first into the next parliament and we'll see. So you're not expecting any progress here. No, we're definitely going to put the Babies Born Live, but I think unlikely given that the committee from Little Light they both hadn't supported even.
Then, abortion was a really intense issue in the sort of middle two weeks of the campaign, something that Labor really seized on and David Chrysophally really didn't want to talk about. But now it seems that the heat has come out of the issue and it's something that David Chrysophally might not actually have to deal with during his next term if he wins.
After the break. Why labor is worrying about seats it's held for more than a century. More than a million Queenslanders have already cast their votes, so what does that mean.
Lots of people have been voting early. We saw that trend really kick off in COVID when people wanted to get their votes out of the way and try to socially distance from people. So we've had more than a million people cast their votes ahead of Saturday's election. One of the things that political commentators and political brains say is that a big turnout in early voting suggests that there's a big swing on against the government. People are so mad they just can't wait to go in and
punish them at the ballot box. That's just some people's theory, but it could be the case.
It's a bit of a last minute scramble for both leaders. Now Stephen Miles seems to be attempting to consolidate some of the Labor seats that have been held by the party for a very long time. What's David Chrysopfully's strategy in the last few days of the campaign.
We've spent the last two days up in North Queensland and Central Queensland visiting seats in Townsville which are really key to David Chrisoffully's final push for government. There's three seats in Townsville, all held by Labor. He is pretty confident he'll be able to pick those up. We stopped into Rockhampton, which is surprisingly become one of the most
interesting seats to watch of this campaign. And the reason I say it's interesting is because it's been in Labour hands for one hundred years, this seat, and I think I've been to Rockhampton maybe four times in the last month with both leaders. There's an independent running there who as a former Labor mayor. It will be really a three way race in rock Hampton as well as mckaye. That's another century seat as they call them, for Labor.
It's been held by the ALP for one hundred and fifteen years, I think, but the l ANDP is increasingly confident that it will be able to win MacKaye from Labor. So we're seeing Stephen Miles running an incredibly defensive strategy up and down the coast sandbagging safe labor seats or seats once considered to be safe for Labor, and David Christoph fully really hitting those regions hard.
Lydia Lynch is a reporter in the Australian's Queensland Bureau. Speaking of elections. In less than two weeks, Americans will vote for a new president. You can keep up to date with all the latest scoops and analysis on the US election campaign right now at the Australian dot com au