Bill Shorten didn’t see the Queensland devastation coming, but Scott Morrison did

The Opposition performed shockingly in the state’s regions, leading to swings towards Coalition incumbents who had been viewed as easy targets. It also suffered in the southeast, where city candidates hopeful of snatching seats were easily thumped.

Labor figures on the ground in Queensland grew increasingly concerned about worrying signs of an impending voter backlash, sources told news.com.au, but their messages weren’t relayed to Mr Shorten’s team by those at campaign headquarters.

In contrast, Scott Morrison and his strategists felt the winds of change and seized on an opportunity for the Coalition in the Sunshine State, spending considerable time there during the election.

Labor’s internal polling had it confident of picking up six seats — Dickson, Dawson, Herbert, Flynn, Capricornia and Leichhardt. In the end, it failed in all of them and lost its own key electorates.

Mr Morrison spent one-third of the five-week campaign in Queensland, visiting pubs, worksites, sporting clubs, markets and retirement homes, contributing to Labor’s shock result there — its vote collapsing to just 27 per cent.

To put it in perspective, Queensland was the PM’s second-most visited state behind New South Wales, beating Victoria by a day, despite a belief the Coalition was in for a hiding in Queensland.

He visited Capricornia, held by Michelle Landry, a week out from the poll and told voters there Labor’s tax and climate change policies would come at the expense of their jobs and financial stability.

Ms Landry was seen to be a beatable MP for several months leading up to May 18 but received almost 41 per cent of the primary vote and a two-party preferred count of 62 per cent.

Ms Landry enjoyed an 11.4 swing towards her. Labor hopeful Russell Robertson never stood a chance.

His campaign manager Robert Schwarten, a former veteran state MP, attacked Richard Marles — set to become the ALP’s new deputy leader — for the damage caused by his anti-coal stance.

Mr Marles had commented it was “a good thing” that global demand for coal had collapsed, which Mr Schwarten told The Australian had “absolutely helped wreck our agenda in Capricornia”.

“Russell Robertson, a coal miner, had his message destroyed by the sort of stuff Marles said and could never get back on track with his message,” Mr Schwarten told the newspaper.

Union officials in the region were furious about Labor’s flimsy attitude towards the coal mining industry, and many abandoned Mr Robertson as a result, news.com.au has been told.

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Mr Morrison paid three separate visits to neighbouring Flynn, where Mr Shorten made his disastrous comment to a local port worker he would “look at” tax cuts for high-income earners.

Labor had no intention of extending tax cuts and had repeatedly attacked the “top end of town” it said the Coalition was favouring. It perpetuated the view Mr Shorten couldn’t be trusted.

Senator Matt Canavan helped the Coalition execute attacks on Labor’s policies in the state’s regional areas, including its wishy-washy position on the Adani coal mine.

In Herbert in Townsville, where Mr Morrison made two visits, Cathy O’Toole faced repeated criticism for not saying where she stood on the project.

The Labor MP, who lost the seat to the Coalition’s Phillip Thompson, offered an embarrassing performance in an interview with the ABC where she refused to say several times whether she supported the mine.

Outgoing deputy leader Tanya Plibersek also made comments about the coal industry, which frustrated internal critics say damaged Labor’s chances in Queensland.

Ms Plibersek told the ABC people “can’t rely on an Indian mining company to bring jobs to central and north Queensland”.

Mr Morrison seized on the remark, telling reporters: “Now we’ve got Tanya Plibersek, the would-be deputy prime minister of the country, saying that Indians can’t create jobs.”

Meanwhile, during a visit to Forde in the Logan region, in what’s dubbed the southeast’s mortgage belt, Mr Morrison drive home the message Labor would hit people’s hip pockets.

Changes to negative gearing would make house prices plummet and rents rise, Mr Morrison said.

Bert van Manen previously held Forde on a wafer-thin margin of 0.6 per cent but had a significant 8 per cent swing to him on May 18.

Similarly, Labor had high hopes for the north Brisbane electorate of Petrie, which was one of Mr Morrison’s first stops on the campaign trail.

Luke Howarth retained it for the Coalition, with a 6.9 per cent swing to him, comfortably defeating Labor’s Corrine Mulholland.

And in the central seat of Brisbane, first-term government MP Trevor Evans comfortably saw off a challenge from Labor’s Paul Newbury.

Veteran MP Warren Entsch held Leichhardt and the Coalition won back Longman from the Opposition, which won it at last year’s Super Saturday by-election.

On Tuesday, new Labor leader Anthony Albanese conceded there would be much soul-searching over the poor showing in Queensland.

Speaking to reporters in Caboolture, north of Brisbane, Mr Albanese said the policies taken to the election would now “lapse”.

He also pledged to appoint a number of Queenslanders to shadow portfolios.