Annastacia Palaszczuk first woman to win three consecutive terms – as it happened

And that is where we will leave you tonight.

To recap, Annastacia Palaszczuk has become the first woman to win three consecutive terms.

At the end of her four-year term, Palaszczuk will have been leader of Queensland for longer than Peter Beattie.

Palaszczuk all but claimed victory – she stopped short and said she was “confident” – but she stood up to speak before her opponent conceded, which is a bit weird, and a massive break in tradition.

Jackie Trad, the former deputy premier, has lost her seat to the Greens.

Labor has 47 seats. There is the potential for 50 – and majority government – but we won’t know the outcome of that for some time.

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The LNP may have gone backwards – we need to wait and see how some of those contests pan out.

The LNP leader, Deb Frecklington, says she is staying on as leader of her party – but that is a decision for the party room. Anyone can call for a spill, so keep watch on that one.

(And Sean Connery died.)

I had previously written that no one should be surprised if the LNP snatched (minority) victory – neither the Labor nor LNP campaigns could get a handle on what was happening in individual electorates. And as I reported at the time, that is because the sheer number of early voters made it difficult to get a handle on where the vote was taking them.

The LNP reports were the same. No one could tell. And we saw that play out tonight –there wasn’t exuberance from Labor, just exhaustion. It has been a very tough campaign. Hopefully everyone can now sleep for at least a whole night – maybe even a sleep in.

We’ll continue to follow what happens – and a very big thank you to our poll interpreter extraordinaire, Ben Raue, for his expertise, Ben Smee for his work this entire campaign and Graham Readfearn for standing sentry at Labor’s election party in Inala in these very strange socially distanced times. And of course, thank you to everyone in the Guardian brains trust – there is a lot of work which goes into these blogs, from editors to producers, to subs – and without them, I’d never get this project off the ground.

I’ll be on a news shift tomorrow, so stay tuned to the website for updates. Thank you again for spending your evening with us. Queensland has once again lived up to its reputation as being deliciously unpredictable and I love it.

If you were in those storms today, I hope you’re OK. And I hope you all have a lovely night’s sleep.

Take care of you.

31 Oct 202008.55 EDT

Graham Readfearn

Seconds before Annastacia Palaszczuk walked in, the Queensland state Labor party president, John Baddams stood on the stage and stuck three fingers in the air.

“Three, three, three,” he shouted, as the Tom Petty track Won’t Back Down shot over the PA system at Inala’s Blue Fin Fishing Club.

Before Palaszczuk had finished pledging to keep working for another four years in what will now be her third term as premier, the LNP leader, Deb Frecklington, had conceded.

The theme from Labor party elders here tonight has been pretty consistent. Palaszczuk was a leader who stood up to a concerted attack over her border stance. And she would not back down.

She’s gone home for the night. So have most of the party members.

31 Oct 202008.38 EDT

Ben Raue

We aren’t going to have every seat finalised tonight, although we have a pretty good picture of what has happened.

Tonight we’ll get a large portion of the pre-poll and postal votes, but it will take some time to get all of those votes counted, and that may mean a handful of seats remain undecided.

I suspect Cooper and McConnel will remain unclear until all votes are counted and preferences are distributed, and we find out if the Greens make the top two.

Labor has managed to hold on to those urban seats in north Queensland, in particular in Townsville, which were seen as vulnerable before tonight.

Labor also looks likely to pick up some extra seats on the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast.

They’ve won Pumicestone, and are in the lead in Caloundra, Coomera and Hervey Bay further north. Those specific seats may change, but Labor is also not far behind in a number of other LNP marginals in the south-east of the state.

The Greens have made substantial gains in terms of their primary vote in the inner city.

They have at least won a second seat in South Brisbane, with a chance in two others, but they have also gained substantial swings in other seats surrounding those core Greens electorates.

We may not know the final seat count, but it is clear that the LNP did not gain the anti-government swing they hoped for.

Deb Frecklington:

There’s so many people to thank through this campaign, and so many of you are here in the room tonight.

Thousands of you who have stood out on the polling booths, who have done pre-poll, who have knocked on doors, who have made the phone calls, who have helped us with policy ... because you are the Liberal National party, and I am so proud of you.

And I very much appreciate, to each and every party member, from Cynthia Hardy down, our president, every single person within and involved within the Liberal National party, thank you so very much for holding the morals and the values that we hold so dear on behalf of the people of Queensland. Thank you.

Frecklington apologises for “not getting there”.

I’m sorry we didn’t get there, but I’m just so grateful to each and every one of you. I’ve been almost everywhere in Queensland over the last four weeks, and I know how hard all of you have worked and how hard our volunteers have worked, and how hard our candidates and our MPs have worked. Now, no other party has worked harder than the Liberal National party. You’ve given it everything, but this was not our time. But our time will come. And we will get Queensland working again.

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Going back to #qldpol now

Just breaking into the Qldpol coverage for a moment – Sean Connery, the best Bond (don’t fight me), has died aged 90.

Deb Frecklington says she is not going anywhere, saying she will “continue to play my part, as the leader of this great party”.

That is going to be a decision for the party room though – and as with all political parties, there are people eagerly waiting in the wings.

Deb Frecklington has taken to the stage – she stood up around the same time as Annastacia Palaszczuk, her campaign tells me – so she had conceded (I missed it though, as I was watching Palaszczuk).

Frecklington:

I’d like to congratulate Annastacia Palaszczuk on her victory tonight. Now I may not agree with the premier a lot of the time, but I respect her as an opponent and as the leader of our state. But most of all I respect the voters of Queensland. And we are so privileged to live in this democracy.

Deb Frecklington gets a mention.

So far, Annastacia Palaszczuk’s former deputy, Jackie Trad, has not got a mention:

I also want to commend the leader of the opposition for what I think has been a very good campaign. It is the first time that two women have gone head to head, and I think people might comment that it was a much more respectful debate than we have seen in times gone past.

Annastacia Palaszczuk is not claiming victory here – stopping just short of it.

Deb Frecklington has not conceded.

(You might remember Bill Shorten went quite late into the count before he conceded the federal election.)

Palaszczuk:

We go through tough times and we work together and we listen and we get through it. But I also know that we need to have a strong recovery plan. This has been a tough year and we’ve got to get people back into work. I give my commitment to the people of this state that my team will roll up our sleeves and we will get back to work as quickly as possible for you.

And I’m confident we will do it with a majority Labor government!

Annastacia Palaszczuk:

But most importantly, can I acknowledge the people of Queensland. It has not been an easy year for many, many people.

For many Queenslanders, I know it has been an incredibly tough year. It has been tough not being able to see your family and friends in other states, or even around the world, as we’ve been in the midst of a global pandemic.

But here in Queensland we’ve all stood strong and united, and together we are on top of the pandemic, and if we continue to work together we will stay strong.

I grew up a few streets away from here and as a young child, education was important and family was important. There is nothing more important than family.

There is nothing more important than the dignity of work and people being able to get up every morning to be able to provide for their family. And this year has been tough because of Covid. Many, many people have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.

I know that during this election, there are many people out there in Queensland who have voted Labor for the very first time. I thank you from the bottom of my heart and I will return that respect every single day.

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Steven Miles and Cameron Dick get special thank yous – as does the federal MP Milton Dick, who is Cameron’s brother and one of Annastacia Palaszczuk’s closest and oldest friends.

“Good evening Queensland, and good evening Inala,” Annastacia Palaszczuk says.

She thanks Queensland, Labor leaders, volunteers, community workers, the “mighty union movement” and voters.

A victorious Annastacia Palaszczuk, wearing pink, has entered her party’s election night gathering to cheers, hugging her family.

She has shunned the traditional Labor red for pink – the colour she also chose to wear to vote.

Deb Frecklington has not conceded.

Annastacia Palaszczuk has become the first woman to win three consecutive elections.

She was the first woman to win an election from opposition in 2012.

Her first ministry had a majority of women, another first in Australia.

She was the first woman to win two elections in 2015.

And now she is the first woman to win three.

At the end of her fourth year in power, she will have been the leader of Queensland for longer than Peter Beattie.

31 Oct 202008.13 EDT

Ben Raue

At the moment these are the seats I’m watching:

• McConnel – The Greens candidate, Kirsten Lovejoy, is just 2.6% behind the LNP candidate. If she can jump into second she can benefit from preferences and potentially overtake Labor.
• Cooper – The Greens candidate, Katinka Winston-Allom, is just 1.4% behind the LNP, although the postal votes that knocked down the Greens in McConnel are yet to be reported. The order of elimination will be crucial.
• Coomera – Labor’s Chris Johnson is in the lead on the raw preference count but the ABC computer projects a 0.2% LNP lead.
• Hervey Bay – Labor’s Adrian Tantari is in the lead, but the ABC computer expects that lead to narrow.
• Caloundra – The ABC has called this seat for the ALP but with a margin of just 2%.
  
• Chatsworth – The LNP is projected to win 52% of the two-party-preferred count here.
• Glass House – The LNP is just slightly ahead here.
• Nicklin – The ALP has just taken a slight lead in this LNP seat.

In addition, Labor has gained Pumicestone with a healthy majority.

Labor is currently sitting on 47 seats, and is leading in a further four. That includes Cooper, Hervey Bay, McConnel and Nicklin. The LNP has won 33 seats, and is leading in a further two: Coomera and Glass House.

For Labor to not win a majority, it would probably need to lose Cooper and McConnel to the Greens and then lose three other seats it is currently leading in: Nicklin, Hervey Bay and Caloundra are the most likely seats to be in this position.