Highlighting Queensland's importance, both the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the Opposition Leader Bill Shorten spent the first day of the campaign in the state.
After Labor's trouncing at the last federal election, there is expected to be some swing away from the Coalition.
Of the 30 seats in Queensland, Labor holds just six and they will need to double that number to have a chance of forming government.
"I think the campaign will be around the south-east and a lot of that will be around the transition to the new economy and the cities and housing agenda, housing affordability is such an issue in Queensland, and jobs and growth," said professor Anne Tiernan, from Griffith University’s School of Government and International Relations.
“There are about 10 or 12 seats in play with marginal seats on both sides of politics.”
Candidates were out waving from street corners on Monday as commuters headed to work in Brisbane.
Brisbane is a key Queensland seat won with a margin of 4.3 per cent last election but with the retirement of the LNP's Teresa Gambaro, it could return into Labor’s hands. If it does, Labor would be on the way to taking office.
“Queensland has a disproportionate number of marginal seats and Brisbane is one of those seats, Brisbane is definitely one of those seats,” said freshly preselected LNP candidate and former CEO of the National Retail Association, Trevor Evans.
“In order to keep Brisbane moving we really need to focus on the infrastructure and investment. Innovation is also a really important part of the process, and that’s why I’m a real big fan of Malcolm Turnbull’s innovation agenda.”
Former Army major Pat O’Neill is his Labor opponent.
“I’ve left the Army for good because I think this is a really important election,” he said.
“It’s going to determine the future, how much we invest in education, whether we address housing affordability, making multinationals pay their fair share, and start transitioning the economy to where it’s going to be in 50 years time, which is a renewable energy economy.”
It is also the first time that two gay, major party candidates have stood in the same seat.
“I don’t think it is an issue when I walk around the electorate, it’s not an issue that comes up,” Mr Evans said.
“Maybe it’s a nice thing to think about for some. Mainly I’m going to be the candidate that’s going to talk about growth, investment and innovation.”
“It's unfortunate that there are other candidates out there starting their press releases describing themselves as 'openly gay'".
It comes as the Coalition promises a plebiscite on marriage equality and after Mr Shorten’s vow it would be Labor government priority in the first 100 days.
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Mr O’Neill is more than happy to make an issue of it, including on his campaign posters.
“I don't think it's an issue that there are two openly-gay candidates standing, I think the issue is that we have a Parliament so out of touch with the general population,” he said.
“I think the plebiscite is decisive and offensive. Malcolm Turnbull and the LNP want people like me to door knock and ask to be treated equally under the law.”
“That’s what I’ve been fighting for for the last 18 years in the Army.”
Labor will also be targeting Petrie, just north of Brisbane and Australia’s most marginal seat. Held by just 0.5 per cent, it has changed hands eight times in the last 13 elections.
Also considered vulnerable to Labor are the LNP seats of Capricornia (0.8 per cent), Bonner (3.7 per cent), Forde (4.4 per cent) and Leichhardt (5.7 per cent).
Professor Tiernan also warned that Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s seat of Dixon could be at risk.
“Peter Dutton is a pretty pugnatious character in the immigration portofolio. Get Up are including him as one of ‘Tony’s Tories’ who they’re marshalling resources and social media around and he’s running against the former Queensland attorney-general Linda Lavarch,” she said.
“Dutton has been a bit trouble prone.”
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The Coalition has designs on former treasurer Wayne Swans seat of Lilley (1.3 per cent), Moreton (1.6 per cent) and is certain to take retiring, one-term MP Clive Palmer's seat of Fairfax.
Also targeted by the conservatives is the seat of Kennedy in north-west Queensland. Bob Katter holds it by a 2.2 per cent margin over the LNP after a heavy swing in the last election.
Mr Katter once claimed if there were homosexuals in his electorate he would walk backwards from Bourke. His opponent is gay LNP candidate Jonathan Pavetto.
Opinion polls show the major parties neck-and-neck but there was another indicator just over a month ago.
“I think the Brisbane City Council and the council elections generally are a better bellwether, and the LNP did pretty well in those and Labor didn’t,” said professor Tiernan.
“I think the Coalition is likely to hold it’s regional seats. I think the independent and the Greens are the real unknown. In the regional areas, the independents, and in metro areas, the Greens."
The first-ever Queensland Greens senator Larissa Waters hopes to be joined by another, former Democrats senator Andrew Bartlett, campaigning on issues that appeal to city and regional electorates.
“There's a lot of talk of jobs and growth, but unfortunately it's just growth in carbon emissions and definitely not growth in the Great Barrier Reef, which has the worst coral bleaching we've ever seen,” Senator Waters said.
“It’s clear the Queenslanders want clean energy and the jobs that it can provide, protecting the reef, tackling inequality and the divided between the haves and the have-nots, and also looking after and showing better compassion to asylum seekers.”
