Shorten likely to spend more time in Qld

Bill Shorten continues to base his election campaign around Queensland, declaring his love for the state at a Brisbane rally.

Queenslanders can expect Bill Shorten to spend even more time in the Sunshine State with polling suggesting his presence there is not having a major impact.

The Labor leader has so far spent every day except Friday in Queensland, revealing some of the key battlegrounds mapped out by his party.

Mr Shorten made a point of declaring his love for the state when he arrived in Brisbane for a rally on Saturday.

"By the way, we started this campaign in regional Queensland - Cairns, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville," he told party faithful at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Queensland's Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk mocked the federal government's campaign, pointing out Malcolm Turnbull had spent "five minutes" in her state before Tony Abbott came up for two full days.

"Things must be dire if they're relying on Tony Abbott," she said.

Mr Turnbull spent his first two days in Queensland, blitzing several key Brisbane marginal seats.

Ms Palaszczuk singled out Townsville Stadium, cross-river rail, the M1 motorway at Springwood and Ipswich motorway as key projects Labor has helped build, declaring the state won't be "bullied, cheated and downtrodden" by Canberra.

Mr Shorten has been at pains to focus his campaign on education.

While he was among friends at the Brisbane rally, a single heckler - angry about Labor's asylum-seeker policy - managed to create an awkward end to an otherwise spirited speech.

Queensland is an obvious place to pick up many of the 19 seats Labor needs to win the election but Mr Shorten's continual presence there isn't quite cutting through yet.

A Galaxy poll of 1176 Queenslanders this week showed although Mr Turnbull's support has dropped, the LNP is still ahead of Labor 54 to 46 on a two party-preferred basis.

The Courier Mail poll shows although Labor's support in Queensland has improved to 33 per cent, it's only a few points ahead of its 29.8 per cent primary vote in 2013, when it held just six of 30 seats.

The result, which assumes preference flows in line with the last election, represents a three-percentage-point swing towards Labor.

But this would only see Labor pick up the marginal Brisbane seat of Petrie and Capricornia if the result was replicated across the state.

Griffith University politics lecturer Paul Williams has warned that with 12 of the LNP's 18 seats held by a margin of more than six per cent, Labor will probably fall short of its ambitious goal to win a dozen seats in Queensland.

On day two of the campaign, Mr Shorten said he would be spending "plenty" of time in the state's regional areas.

Should his team be paying any attention to the polls, Queenslanders will likely receive even more of the opposition leader's attention.


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Source: AAP



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