Federal Labor wants Queenslanders to send Tony Abbott a big message on January 31, even if it thinks Premier Campbell Newman is desperate to keep the prime minister away from his re-election campaign.
Acting opposition leader Tony Burke says the prime minister remains "box office poison", a term Victorian Liberal strategists used to describe Mr Abbott before their state election loss in late 2014.
"Campbell Newman is doing everything he can to try to time an election in a way that has people thinking about Tony Abbott as little as possible," he told reporters in Canberra.
Mr Abbott and his first-term government are on the nose with voters across the country as his government grapples with several electorally-damaging issues.
Topping the list are budget cuts to public hospitals and schools.
Then there's the plan for an "optional" Medicare co-payment and more debate inside the Abbott government about broadening the base of the GST to include fresh food, healthcare and education.
Queensland public servants have been hit with state and Commonwealth job cuts at the same time the end of the resources boom affects sluggish local and national economies.
As a result, the federal coalition has gone backwards in Queensland.
A Newspoll analysis of its surveys between October and December last year shows voter support for the coalition dropping nearly eight percentage points since the 2013 election.
If the Victorian state election campaign is a guide, the Liberal-National Party will be happy to limit any federal appearances to more popular Abbott government figures such as Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and one of its own, Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce.
Ms Bishop says she has already been invited by LNP MPs to join their campaign.
Mr Abbott appeared early in the Victorian campaign to spruik federal backing for the controversial East West Link project in Melbourne and criticise Labor's vow to tear up construction contracts if it won government.
After that, his contribution was limited to question time attacks on Victorian Labor and its link to the dodgy practices of some trade unions.
Just as he does in Canberra, billionaire MP Clive Palmer plans to take advantage of voter disaffection with the coalition.
"The sneaky @theqldpremier is running scared calling an election in the holiday period. What's he got to hide?" the Palmer United Party leader tweeted.
The state poll is likely to provide a pointer to Mr Palmer's chances of holding his own Queensland seat in the federal parliament and adding to PUP's two seats in the Senate.
At the 2013 federal election, PUP polled just more than 11 per cent of the primary vote in Queensland, drawing voters away from the coalition, Labor and Katter's Australian Party.
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