Labor’s Townsville slump a “wake-up call” for regional Qld support

Former North Queensland Labor candidates have described the party’s modest decline in the Townsville byelection as a “devastating” reminder of its struggle to attract regional support amid wider intolerance of out-of-town views.

Prime Minister David Crisafulli’s Liberal National Party strengthened its parliamentary majority when it took the seat of Hinchinbrook from Katter’s Australia Party after giving the government more than 13 per cent of the vote.

Labor, which had close to 6 per cent of the primary vote against it with just over 8 per cent of the primary vote, has not held the seat covering Townsville’s northern fringes and large conservative rural areas since the 1950s.

Although the party never expected to pull off an upset victory, by Saturday Labor insiders were hoping the party would pick up the 14 per cent primary vote it recorded in the 2024 state poll.

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The collapse has compounded the former Labor government’s failure to appeal to regional Queenslanders after it conceded large swathes of voters to the LNP last year, particularly in Townsville and Cairns.

The by-election result also dealt a gut punch, given that it fell on the same weekend as the Labor Party state conference in Brisbane, where the need to re-engage regional voters has been heard repeatedly if the party is to have any hope of returning to government in 2028.

Ben Gertz, who is contesting the now abolished state seat of Dalrymple on behalf of Labor, tabled a motion at the conference alongside Emily Mawson, the party’s candidate for the 2025 Capricorn federal seat, imploring the party to rebuild trust and strengthen connections in regional areas.

“Last night’s result is a huge wake-up call,” Gertz said at the conference about the midterm election defeat.