Interim premier to be sworn in as Labor soul searches
The Liberal National Party leader will be sworn in as interim premier as the final votes are counted while Labor will be soul-searching over their loss.
The final votes to determine in-doubt seats will be counted as a new dawn begins for Queensland with the Liberal National Party forming government.
Meanwhile, the former government will be soul-searching on their election loss after losing some regional seats for the first time in a century.
Premier-elect David Crisafulli and deputy Jarrod Bleijie will be sworn into interim leadership roles when they meet with Governor Jeannette Young on Monday morning.
Young formally invited Crisafulli to form the next government of Queensland after the pair visited Government House on Sunday to claim they had enough seats to make a majority.
The full cabinet will be decided later in the week, and Crisafulli is leaving the door open for changes despite announcing before the election that his shadow ministry would follow into government roles.
“I’m determined to make sure that we take a team into the future that reflects Queensland, that people can see those changes across the portfolio,” he told ABC Radio on Monday.
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Crisafulli went to the election with a plan he wanted implemented within the first 100 days of government which he says the timer will hit go when the ministry is sworn in.
Counting of the final votes will begin again at 9am on Monday with almost 70 per cent already complete, the LNP was on track to claim 48 seats ahead of Labor’s 30, with 10 still in doubt.
Premier Steven Miles conceded defeat on Sunday and visited Government House to tender his resignation formally.
He said that he couldn’t have run a different campaign given the number of Queenslanders who had already made up their minds, especially on crime issues.
“I think in hindsight, the government was too slow to respond to the escalating crimes that we saw in 2021 and 2022, particularly in places like Townsville,” he told ABC Radio.
“When we did respond with a plan that worked and was pushing back down those crime rates but by then, too many people had experienced it, and they had made up their mind.”
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Miles still had hoped for a different outcome in the polls.
“I did everything I could … It’s just a bit a bit sad to be moving on to do something else,” he said after hoping to win his mandate following Annastacia Palaszczuk’s resignation in 2023.
Labor had governed for the last 30 of 35 years with Mr Crisafulli becoming the LNP’s first Queensland premier since Campbell Newman’s 2012-2015 stint.
Labor’s priority will be regaining trust in regional areas after losing significant ground to LNP outside the southeast.
“I really want to get out to those regions and hear more from locals about what they would have preferred to see us do,” Miles said.
“When I took over, I made community safety a real priority and made sure that we were responding.
“But I think by then it was, it was too late.”
Labor lost all of the seats in Townsville, its Rockhampton and Mackay electorates which had been red for more than 100 years.
Miles said he would wait until all seats were decided and until a caucus was formed to then ask to remain party leader.
“People have a right to get elected first and then elect their own leader, and that’s what we’ll do over the next week or so,” he said.
On Sunday, Miles said it was unlikely Health Minister Shannon Fentiman and Treasurer Cameron Dick would contest the leadership.
