Labor’s Kate Jones is looking likely to unseat Premier Campbell Newman in tomorrow’s Queensland state election.
Jones and Newman have been fiercely campaigning against each other for the inner-Brisbane seat of Ashgrove since Newman called the early election three weeks ago.
The latest comprehensive poll shows Jones at a comfortable eight points ahead of Newman, leading the primary vote 46.5% to his 42 %. If these numbers were borne out in tomorrow’s election, it would mean a 9.7% swing against the Premier which would see him unseated. It would also leave the LNP without a leader if they do win the election.
Brisbane voters’ increased confidence in Jones may be related to the persistent local campaign she has been running in Ashgrove since the election was called. While Newman has been traversing the state to defend his Premiership and has therefore been relatively absent in the eyes of local Ashgrove voters, Jones has been running a very locally focused campaign.
It also seems the spike in polling numbers for Jones could be protest votes against Newman, given the number of voters who rate his performance as an MP negatively has jumped from 35% to 41% in the last fortnight.
Roles have been reversed since the last Queensland state election, where Jones was the incumbent MP for Ashgrove and Newman unseated her with a 5.7% margin and a 13% swing, becoming Premier. Jones lost her seat in Ashgrove against the backdrop of one of the largest landslide election wins in Australian history, with Labor winning only 7 seats statewide after what was widely considered a poor performance by Anna Bligh as Premier.
But Jones is determined to win the seat back this weekend. She has already enjoyed a decorated political career, and at only 35 is very young to be making her return to politics after a three-year hiatus.
Jones studied politics and journalism at the Queensland University of Technology and also holds a Masters of Environmental Law from the Australian National University. Her career began with a role as senior media adviser to Robert Schwarten, the then-Queensland Minister for Public Works, Housing and Racing. She also worked as a media adviser to former Queensland Treasurer David Hamill.
She was first elected as the member for Ashgrove when she was just 27, and became the youngest woman to enter the Queensland parliament. She then retained her seat in the 2009 election, at the age of 30, and was appointed Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability in Anna Bligh’s new cabinet. This appointment made her the youngest Minister in the history of the Queensland government.
She is married to a former chief media adviser to Anna Bligh and Peter Beattie and has two young children.