The polls show that a change of government in Queensland next month is all but certain. Will Noosa’s lone Independent Sandy Bolton hang on, or will ex-Mayor Clare Stewart be swept in on the rising LNP tide?

If you get out and about in Noosa, you will know there probably aren’t two more social media savvy, retail politicians to be found.  To apply the old political joke, the most dangerous place in Noosa is standing between either of these two and a camera. 

But selfies aside, how will voters go about their task of comparing the two frontrunners for Noosa?  One of our starting points is the style of their campaigns, and the differences here are stark.

The Stewart campaign is a copybook example of how the big political party machines work.  The LNP messages and talking points emanate from campaign HQ, right down to the cheesy pictures copied by candidates far and wide.

But there’s one significant local add-on; the relentless recycling of the trauma Ms Stewart suffered in Sydney 24 years ago when her legs were crushed by a garbage truck as she was out jogging. This version of the “what drives me” story has been posted to every voter again this year, stuck to the top of her social media pages and at the front of her LNP website, including a video produced about the incident replete with emotional piano music. If there are any voters out there unaware of this back story, the LNP is determined to find them and ensure they read or watch it.

Out on the hustings one of the LNP’s standard devices in this campaign is its ‘issues board’, a kind of conversation starter designed to push LNP talking points as their candidate does the rounds trying to attract attention wherever people gather.

Early campaign versions pushed the LNP buttons of youth crime, cost of living, housing and the Noosa hospital. Noosa Matters has previously reported on the weaponising of youth crime by both major parties and the Murdoch press in a race to score political points.  There’s no doubt this is an issue in parts of Queensland where a tiny, hard-core cohort cause big problems. Some political players are riding this issue for all its worth, deliberately avoiding the complexities, nuance and long-term intervention programs required to gradually turn the problem around.  The ‘quick fix’ is a fiction of campaign slogans.

Having taken the poisoned chalice of chair of parliament’s Youth Justice Reform committee, Sandy Bolton is acutely aware of how this issue has become a political football.

And in Noosa, the LNP concocted its biggest local non-issue, a suggestion that a drawn-out lease process for Noosa Hospital (complicated by expansion plans and local resident zoning, but with absolutely no threat to the hospital itself) was somehow the fault of Sandy Bolton.

Belatedly, the LNP added “environment” to its sandwich board list, no doubt after prodding from bemused locals, but this remains one of Ms Stewart’s weakest campaign points after a term as Mayor that saw her dividing the Council and voting against major environmental projects like the Oyster Reef program to filter and improve the health of our ailing Noosa River.  In every Council poll, Environment (and lifestyle) rates head and shoulders above every other issue, but in a state election this is clearly not an LNP strength. The party view is the less said about this the better.

Voters getting lost in the roundabouts

One of Noosa’s biggest bottlenecks is known as the Tewantin bypass. After more than a decade of delays, the first stage – a dual-lane roundabout at the Cooroy/Beckman’s Road intersection – was finally delivered in 2022.  Stages two and three are the roundabout at the Beckman’s/Eumundi road intersection and then widening Beckman’s road between the two.  

Another unedifying stoush has taken place over the next stage, with Clare Stewart trying to blame Sandy Bolton for the State Government failing to commit to detailed planning of the second roundabout.

Ms Bolton responds that the first stage was delivered under her watch after long delays when big party MPs were in power. 

Nothing was done about this most important arterial road, despite Noosa residents crying out about it for years, regardless of which party has held power.

Sandy Bolton. Noosa MP

Sandy Bolton points out that despite the attack on her, the LNP has – to this date – not made any promises of its own on this issue.  

Along with concocted issues, there’s a strong sense of the local LNP campaign seeking out Noosa threads to statewide campaign talking points and trying to make them fit those wider narratives.

But really there’s only one, genuine point of difference the local LNP are campaigning on and it’s made this clear from the outset.  They know there’s a mood for change across much of the state, and they hope to float their local candidate in on this tide.  Voters will either believe the line that the LNP needs this to be one of the 14 seats required for it to form majority government, or they will assume that will happen anyway…and stick with the hard-working Independent MP who’s seeking her third term representing Noosa.

And as more than a third of voters across Australia migrate away from the big parties, the local claim that “only an LNP member can deliver for Noosa” rings hollow.

The Bolton campaign came out of the blocks late, launching some three months after her main competitor.  And what it’s lacked so far is a coherent and well-constructed narrative of what she’s managed to achieve in two terms of Independent representation.  Many voters have short memories and little interest in local politics. Our MP’s list of achievements is considerable for those not wearing LNP glasses, but you have to know where to search for it.  This is the list and, trust me, it’s not easy to find.

As Alan Lander details elsewhere in Noosa Matters, one giant issue just dropped into this campaign – and on the eve of the caretaker period before the election – is the state’s move to fast track unit development projects, including high rise, that could spell an end to any notion of local planning control and to the low-rise that we know as part of the Noosa ‘difference’.

This High Rise bombshell arrives just in time for Sandy Bolton to take the fight to the Government, while both big parties are going along with the idea…effectively gagging their candidates’ on this crucial issue for Noosa.

Finally, there are two wild cards that we hope will not play a big part in the result.

The first is the use of so-called ‘associated entities’ or groups that closely fit the definition.  In Noosa this includes political lobby groups like the LNP-friendly Noosa Boating and Fishing Alliance that mobilised its grey-shirted supporters to confront undecided voters at the polling booths in the recent Council election.  This is an unfortunate, American-style addition that’s muddied the waters of local politics in the last year or two. 

The second wild card is the increasing need for cold, hard cash…another unwelcome, American style trend in our politics. 

Locals will remember an unknown LNP candidate, with no career achievements to speak of, becoming Mayor in 2020 with a record local spend of $70,000, ten times that of incumbent Mayor Tony Wellington.  It was enough to get her over the line by a few hundred votes.

In this election, Independent candidates (like Sandy Bolton) are capped at $90,748.

Parties, on the other hand, can spend $95,964 per electorate, PLUS a further $60,499 for an endorsed candidate (like Clare Stewart)…a total of $156,463. 

Don’t expect a level playing field with rules drawn up by the big parties.

As we have seen, running on your record – even a really good record – is not enough. You need to be able to raise a lot of money.

This is another wild card that could shift this Noosa election to a much closer race than some expected just a few months ago.