FLAG BEARERS: Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard. Source: AP
QUEENSLAND is set to become an electoral battleground again in 2013.
The state that last year overwhelmingly turfed Labor out of office will be crucial to the dreams of both Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott of forming a government in their own right.
The next federal election, due between August and November, will be a contest between two unpopular leaders.
In some ways it will also be a fight between two oppositions. Even though Gillard has been able to govern with the support of Independents and Greens, Labor strategists describe their task at the as one where they have to win government rather than defend it.
Both sides will need to win seats in Queensland if they are to have a chance of picking up the minimum of an extra four they will need to form a majority government after the poll.
Until recently, this looked like an easy task for Abbott. The Opposition Leader faces an unpopular opponent weighed down by her broken "no carbon tax" vow and an administration that seems to swing from one self-imposed crisis to another. But in the past six months, federal Labor has slowly clawed back public support.
If the majority of published opinion polls are to be believed, the Liberal-National Coalition are still likely to win the next election but the result will be close.
Queensland will be central to Labor's bid for another term in office. The party will struggle to win federally if it cannot hold all of its eight seats in the state.
Labor will also target some LNP-held seats that it considers vulnerable, including Brisbane, Bonner, Forde and Longman.
A win in any of these could offset possible losses for Labor in ultra-marginal seats such as Moreton.
The Opposition meanwhile will need to put more attention on NSW, where many consider they lost the past election by failing to pick up seats that should have been theirs for the taking.
But the LNP must also try to hold all of their seats north of the Tweed and pick up a couple as a buffer.
This may not be as easy a task as it looked only a few months ago. There has been a significant slump in public support for Campbell Newman's LNP Government.
It is unclear how much of this may translate into a pro-Labor sentiment at the next federal poll, but Gillard will certainly try to capitalise on the drop in popularity of a Premier from the opposing side of politics.
The Opposition will pursue problem areas for Labor such as border protection and the cost of living.
The rise in asylum-seeker boat arrivals, despite several policy backflips by the Government, will probably play a large part in the political debate leading up to the election. So will the deteriorating state of the federal Budget, where Labor's abandoned commitment to deliver a surplus this financial year is likely to haunt the Government and undermine its claims to being a good economic manager.
While the cost of living is a perennial hot-button election issue, it will be interesting to see how prominently the carbon tax plays in the election campaign.
Another challenge for both sides of politics is to inspire voters who have been turned off by the bitter personal attacks that have characterised the national political debate over the past two years.
Both sides are preparing to go to an election with leaders who are unpopular with the public and many voters are also sick of the vindictive tone of what has passed for political debate in Canberra - much of it designed by each side to exacerbate the lack of appeal of their opponent.
The 2012 political year began with Labor tearing itself apart over Kevin Rudd's failed leadership challenge and ended with a nasty debate over vague allegations about Gillard's actions as a lawyer two decades ago.
In between, significant parliamentary time was swallowed up by scandals over the past indiscretions of Labor MP Craig Thomson and more recent ones by former Speaker Peter Slipper.
One of the most memorable moments in the 2012 parliamentary year was the vicious speech in which the Prime Minister branded her opponent a misogynist.
The speech seemed to rile Abbott, who has since made awkward attempts to show how much he understands the concerns of female voters, but it is unclear how much that speech resonated with the voters in marginal electorates that both sides need to woo in the race to the next poll.
Steven Scott is The Courier-Mail's national political correspondent.
steven.scott@news.com.au
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