POLL POSITION

Queensland’s Labor government will go into tomorrow’s election with a spring in its step. A final-day poll from Galaxy, published in the Courier-Mail ($), puts Annastacia Palaszczuk’s government ahead of Tim Nicholls’ Liberal-National Party opposition — 52-48 on the two-party preferred measure.

While the Mail declared that Labor was on the cusp of a “historic election victory”, the big unknown remains the flow of One Nation preferences. The poll found a precipitous drop in One Nation’s state-wide vote from 18% to 12%. Concentrated in regional areas, that vote could yet snag the party a number of seats.

If Labor does scrape over the line on Saturday it will be largely thanks to its strength in the state’s southeast.

As the campaign entered its final day, Labor announced a series of new taxes on luxury cars, major land holdings, and foreign land purchases.

The future of Adani’s Carmichael coal mine has been the dominant campaign issue. Today, the company has taken out advertisements in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age decrying “propaganda” put out by activists against the project.

FLEE DEAL

Myanmar and Bangladesh have penned an agreement to begin returning some of the 620,000 Rohingya refugees who have fled across the border since violence and ethnic cleansing erupted earlier this year.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited Myanmar last week and said on his return to Washington that the treatment of the Rohingya in the country’s western Rakhine state “constitutes ethnic cleansing”. The US will now pursue narrow, targeted sanctions.

Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali described the agreement as a primary step. A working party will now be set up to help but the agreement into effect.

Rights groups have warned that a requirement that refugees produce ID documents is problematic given many Rohingya have none (they are not recognised as citizens by the government of Myanmar).

Even if the returns begin, massive questions remain unanswered. How does one return to a village that has been burnt to the ground?

THE DATA, THEY FALL

Thousands of staff from the Department of Social Services may have had their data breached by a government contractor. Credit card information was among the information left exposed.

The breach was detected by the Australian Cyber Security Centre and has since been fixed. The department has pushed blame onto the contractor.

READ ALL ABOUT IT 

Super funds need to unlock billions for corporate sector ($)

Josh Frydenberg to seek NEG nod by April, final design settled by end of 2018

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Queensland: Final day of campaigning before tomorrow’s state election. An advertising blackout is now in place.

Hobart: State and territory energy ministers meet with Federal Energy and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg to discuss the government’s proposed national energy guarantee.

Perth: A funeral will be held for Anita Board, the eight-year-old killed in a drag racing crash.

Canberra: Behind the Lines 2017 opens with the awarding of Political Cartoonist of the Year.

Melbourne: Greens federal MP Adam Bandt joins an anti-Adani protest organised by the National Union of Students.

THE COMMENTARIAT

What we got right: Kevin Rudd’s top 10 Labor triumphs in office — Kevin Rudd (The Australian $): “My challenge to Abbott and Turnbull is to produce anything comparable to this list of achievements for their own period in government.”

Citizenship crisis set to rain on Malcolm Turnbull’s same-sex marriage parade — Andrew Probyn (ABC): “Processing and digitising MPs’ citizenship declarations will take at least 24 hours, sources tell the ABC, pointing to the earliest publication of the disclosure log as Wednesday night.”

Malcolm Turnbull entering dangerous waters as crucial Bennelong by-election looms — Sharri Markson (The Daily Telegraph $): “Arguments about the dangers of the transactional cost of overthrowing a prime minister are heard less and less among Liberals discussing the future of their party.”

CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF YESTERDAY

Trouble In Paradise: Fees, FIFO, scum? How we got regional Australia wrong. — Guy Rundle: “Queensland, for more than a century, was work; slavery-work, peonage-work, forced-labour, day-rate wage-slavery, then for a while, and after much struggle, good wages, good jobs. Now it was going, the change a product of vaster forces, and only path for survival and flourishing was beyond the religion of work, of the brute and relentless transformation of the landscape.”

Defamation payout might sideline The Spectator for good — Emily Watkins: “The Wagners and the The Spectator settled the case just weeks before a trial was due to start. The brothers have also taken out two more defamation actions on similar grounds, which they say will go ahead, involving broadcaster Alan Jones and Nine’s 60 Minutes. Cater has been named in all three defamation actions.”

Manus: new Human Rights Commissioner pales against Triggs — Greg Barns: “It might be said however, in the context of the callous indifference shown by Mr Dutton and his colleagues, the AHRC’s message should have been much more forceful.”

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