The prime minister started his unofficial re-election campaign in Queensland. It’s a telling political calculation

Queensland’s Bruce Highway is a bit like a 1980s family sedan: dated, worn in places, and often more than a little dangerous. But it’s also a necessary part of life for people just trying to get from A to B.

Indeed, the Bruce remains the sunshine state’s most vital road artery. Running 1,700 kilometres along the eastern seaboard, it connects and keeps alive cities and towns between Brisbane and Cairns – a distance farther than Brisbane to Melbourne.

Little wonder, then, that the Bruce Highway perennially features in state and federal election campaigns. In 2020, for example, the Liberal National Party state opposition boldly promised $33 billion – without prior federal agreement – to upgrade the beleaguered Bruce over 15 years.

It’s also no surprise an increasingly unpopular prime minister, with a tiny parliamentary majority and facing an election within months, should weigh in with his own road commitment. Anthony Albanese pledged $7.2 billion after the freshly minted Queensland LNP state government demanded action.

But what does Albanese’s cash splash tell us about the coming federal election?

Election anxiety

First, it suggests the Clayton’s campaign is genuinely underway.

Australians in a digital (and social) media age are well accustomed to the permanent campaign, in which every politician’s word and deed is a calculated ploy for re-election. But the fact Albanese has come out swinging in early January (usually a holiday-period taboo for politics) underscores Labor’s anxiety at what looks increasingly like a looming hung parliament.

The anxiety is well-founded. Last week’s Roy Morgan poll saw the Coalition lead Labor 53% to 47% – the opposition’s biggest lead in more than three years.

That constitutes a 5% after-preference swing to the Coalition, or enough to secure 15 of the 21 seats Peter Dutton needs to form majority government.

In short, while majority (or even minority) Coalition government seemed impossible just a few months ago, a minority Dutton government is now a real possibility.

The government’s only good news is that Labor’s primary vote is up 3.5 points since early December.

But that news is tempered by the fact Greens voters are souring on Labor, with just 55% intending to preference the government, compared with the 85% who would have done so in December.

Albanese has restored the 80/20 federal-state funding model, overturning Roads Minister Catherine King’s 2024 edict to the states to fund local infrastructure projects on a 50/50 basis. We can only assume Labor is genuinely fearful of cranky regional voters everywhere deserting the Labor ship.

No low-hanging fruit

But the Bruce announcement sends a cryptic message that’s not easily decoded.

Superficially, it appears to be some old-fashioned pork-barrelling designed to win back LNP seats in Queensland or, at worst, to prevent Labor losses.

But a closer look at the electoral pendulum suggests neither is Labor’s principal aim.

Put bluntly, the electoral tide is out for Labor everywhere north of the Tweed River, even in Brisbane. Federal Labor will win no new seats in Queensland, regardless of largesse.

At the 2024 Brisbane City Council election, Labor suffered a 6% primary swing across the city and, at last October’s state election, a 7% after-preference swing across the state.

Given the LNP’s most vulnerable seat is Dickson (held by an Opposition leader, Peter Dutton, well regarded in his home state), there is no low-hanging fruit for Labor in Queensland.

The only exception is the remote possibility of Labor recapturing Griffith, in inner Brisbane, from the Greens. Indeed, Labor has organised a “Get Max” committee to unseat Greens Housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather.