IF ANYONE CAN BEAT THE ‘SWING’ IT IS KIM RICHARDS
Election pundits are predicting that the Miles Queensland Government will be in for a major landslide defeat in October.
There have been several stories across all the major media and internet areas predicting a Miles defeat.
Polls (which aren’t always accurate) have been uniform in saying there will be a ‘swing’ of 9% away from the Labor Party, mostly heading to the LNP and to a smaller extent, the Greens.
At the last State election four years ago, the Palaszczuk Government won that election by just 3.7%
According to the Courier Mail, the Labor Party will suffer something ‘far worse’ than defeat in the October election, reckoning several ‘bright young performers’ to be pushed over the electoral cliff”.
Pundits say there is a long queue of ALP backbenchers and ministers who now face political oblivion,
Several Labor bright lights’ are then mentioned, including our own ALP Member for Redlands, Kim Richards.
If she was to experience such a monumental swing from the Redlands electorate in October, Kim Richards will be gone.
However, Kim Richards tells us she has every intention of ‘bucking the trend’.
There are examples in the past of some tenacious politicians who have been able to hang on to their seats in such circumstances, and negate the ‘swing’ that may prevail elsewhere.
To be fair, we reckon Kim is one of the hardest-working politicians we have ever seen.
She has achieved much, aided by her being a member of the Government.
Funding for our jetties, the satellite hospital, and recently the yet-to-be-built Weinam Creek car park station are among her many achievements.
The Miles Labor Government does seem to be ‘on the ‘nose’ electorally.
However, the LNP’s David Crisafulli admitted to us in our exclusive interview with him in our May edition, that historically, Labor Governments are ‘hard to remove’ in Queensland.
He prefers the LNP to be ‘underdogs’ and says the fight for power in Queensland in October will be a ’tough battle’.
The LNP have a first class candidate for the seat of Redlands in Rebecca Young.
She is undoubtedly a woman with credentials and skills.
Two very talented women will be fighting to represent the Redlands and our islands in October.
Clearly, our islands have benefitted from our elected representative being a member of the Government of the day, which was also the case when Peter Dowling was our elected LNP member and the Campbell Newman LNP Government was in office.
Whoever wins the prized seat of Redlands at the October State election, from and islands perspective we hope the successful candidate also happens to be a member of the Government, and not the Opposition.

• KIM RICHARDS
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