Inside Queensland Labor’s scramble to protect the next generation of leaders as election defeat looms

If you follow the leader, Labor's election campaign in Queensland looks unremarkable. The premier, Steven Miles , has set up camp in north and central Queensland, touring regional tipping-point seats that historically decide who forms government.

But out on the hustings, with polls suggesting Labor is on track for a heavy defeat, a fallback strategy is already playing out. Labor's volunteers have been clustered in places like Waterford – margin 16% – sandbagging to protect the party's next generation of leaders.

Members of the Young Labor left faction have spent significant time in recent weeks mucking in for progressive star Shannon Fentiman, the health minister, who is considered a frontrunner to become opposition leader should the polls hold true until 26 October.

Waterford, in the Logan suburbs, is the sort of very safe Labor seat that would only be lost in a 2012-scale landslide defeat. But Fentiman is understood to be nervous, evidenced by the volume of red shirts and Young Turks from the Labor left seen in the electorate in the past week. A poll in the seat, revealed by the Australian, suggested a nerve-inducing 13% swing against the government.

Labor sources say resources are being sent to Gaven, at the northern end of the Gold Coast, where Australia's youngest housing minister, Meaghan Scanlon , is facing a tough campaign. Ditto in Aspley where the Labor right's rising star, Bart Mellish, is defending a slim margin.

Labor MPs say the need to protect safer seats in the outer suburbs and city fringe – in addition to the regions and the inner-city – has meant resources have been stretched thin.

"It's like we have sandbags but just no one to put them out," says one campaign worker who was doorknocking in the inner Brisbane suburbs this week.

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An uphill battle in the regions Paul Williams, a political scientist and commentator from Griffith University, says different campaign tactics are required in the inner city compared to the outer suburbs and the regions.

Miles has spent most of his time in regional and north Queensland , despite polls suggesting these seats are write-offs, partly because it's expected of him. "To do anything else is like waving a white flag," one Labor figure says.

"[Miles] went to Townsville on the first day because that's what you do. If you don't go to Townsville straight away, the people of Townsville notice ."

Williams says that if Miles were to spend too much time in Brisbane it would "confirm the suspicions" of regional people, who tend to turn on leaders seen as too heavily invested in the south-east. "You need to show the flag," he says.

Labor sources believe the party is likely to lose up to a dozen seats in regional Queensland – alone enough to hand the LNP a majority – including former strongholds like Mackay and Rockhampton.

Polls show that Labor's support in the outer suburbs, where they hold some seats by comfortable margins, is also flagging.

Williams says he did not believe Labor was at risk of losing Waterford, like it did during the 2012 election wipeout, but that there were "some cranky blue-collar voters out there".

"In many respects, the political culture out there might be more like Ipswich West [where Labor was beaten via a huge byelection swing ] and regional Queensland. Blue collar workers, self-employed tradies are all very much LNP rusted-on voters these days."

Do the Greens have a lock on doorknocking? Closer to the city, Labor MPs face a different threat.

After the success of the Greens' field campaigns at recent federal and state elections, Labor MPs have been advised to go back to basics and knock on doors. Some have spent months on the ground with only a handful of local volunteers, even putting up election signs themselves; Miller MP Mark Bailey says he's been to more than 8,000 homes.

One MP says they had been buoyed by the response to the government's 50c public transport fares , describing it as "the most popular policy I've seen in 30 years".

Another says Miles was "popular among young men, but young women seem to be more likely to support the Greens".

In places where the Greens are targeting wins – Cooper, McConnel, Miller and Greenslopes – the minor party has reactivated and broadened its army of volunteers from the 2022 federal election.

Labor MPs say the ground efforts of its candidates in inner Brisbane has been an attempt to respond to the Greens' strategies , but Labor did not seem to have the sheer number of volunteers to cover the same ground.

"They [the Greens volunteers] are all young, probably students, and seem to have time during the day to doorknock," one Labor MP says. "We are outnumbered."

Williams says doorknocking was an "underrated activity" and that human contact with voters was very effective.

"But if the tide's out, no amount of doorknocking will retrieve it," he says.

'Crisafulli is going to inherit some poisoned chalices' David Crisafulli's proclamation this week – that he would resign if crime victim numbers did not decrease under an LNP government in the next four years – might have upped the stakes for Labor's defensive efforts. Williams says if Labor can avoid a rout and keep some of its best talent, the party could be leading in the polls again within 12 months.

"Crisafulli is going to inherit some poisoned chalices, not just youth crime but health, which he has made a tier one issue, and infrastructure for the Olympics. These are not things that can be fixed overnight.

"[The promise to resign] will be something Labor will raise in question time for the next four years."

He says the deputy premier, Cameron Dick, or Fentiman – both considered effective communicators – would be opposition leader after the election.

Fentiman was at Loganlea train station on Friday morning spruiking the 50c fares to commuters. She and other candidates in the Brisbane suburbs have shifted their "high-visibility" campaigning sessions – tactics that usually involve standing at the roadside, holding signs and waving at passing traffic – to more personal meet-and-greets outside rail and bus hubs.

"That policy will be responsible for saving quite a few MPs," says one Labor source.