The writing appears all over the wall; in the opinion polls and the exit polls, in the leaders’ debate, and in the homes of voters across Queensland.

David Frank Crisafulli, 45, is set to be Queensland’s 41st premier, knocking Labor off its perch, and returning the LNP to government for the first time since its electoral drubbing in 2015.

Indeed, with 500,000 Queenslanders having already lodged their vote, it seems few are keen on waiting until October 26 to cut Labor adrift, and appoint Crisafulli, a former journalist, to the top job.

With a litany of failures lighting up Labor’s nine-year performance, he probably deserves to be premier.

Perhaps in the same way Steven Miles doesn’t deserve to have it taken from him.

Palaszczuk’s legacy

And that’s because this election was lost by former Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk, before her successor Miles even moved into her office.

Palaszczuk, the premier between 2015 and 2023, has leant no visible support to Labor’s chances this time; preferring to post Insta photos of her dog Winton and what she plans to eat.

Many in her party think that’s a good thing; that the party’s best chance is to carve out a post-Palaszczuk era, devoid of the drama that enveloped her leadership.

And while Crisafulli is going from journo to premier, it seems Palaszczuk is keen to travel in the opposite direction, joining the Sky News Australia team to lend her “intuition” on what Queenslanders are really thinking.

If only that same intuition hadn’t deserted her, and her party, over the past few years.

Late run

Of course, Miles is culpable for not forcing a showdown earlier. But his efforts since his former boss disappeared from view have moved the dial.

If October 26 is an electoral armageddon for Labor, it would have been worse if Palaszczuk had stuck around.

Labor will lose this election on the back of a handful of issues, all front and centre during her leadership.

Rampant youth crime, where many people do not feel safe in their homes any more, tops the list. A cost-of-living crisis, which prompted Miles’ laughable idea of free school lunches this week. And ignoring regional and rural Queensland, with a focus on both 50 cent fares and an Olympics for the city.

Will Crisafulli do any better here? It’s hard to judge. And even harder to imagine he has the magic bullet to end the suburban crimes that have some voters leaving their keys in the car overnight, in the hope criminals will be satisfied with that – and not want to venture inside.

It’s also hard to imagine how a Crisafulli government will reverse the cost-of-living crisis, aided and abetted by interest rates, fuel prices and grocery monopolies.

But hope is a big motivator, and voters are banking on the fact that any chance is better than no chance.

The candidates

Both Miles and Crisafulli are hard-working and decent. Miles is no different to the politician he was a decade ago; the daggy dad who still holidays in the same caravan park he has since year dot.

Crisafulli eschews the impromptu, and his buttoned-up and contained campaign is aimed at delivering no drama and certain victory.

That discipline won’t always be easy – and his inability to answer questions about whether his party would overturn abortion law reform is a timely illustration of that.

It’s hard to imagine Queensland’s abortion laws ever being overturned. Many women in the LNP strongly support the pro-choice laws as they stand.

But Crisafulli continues to make this an issue by acting like a drunken fish trying to escape a fishing line.

If he shuts down any chance of an overhaul of current laws, he enrages the conservative clique within his party. Their reaction to that could cost him the unlosable election.

On the other hand, if he tries to control it – as he has been doing – it weakens his authority from day one. And that might prove costly, in the longer term.

History on LNP’s side

Then, days out from the election, it all seems a bit academic; exit polls show the party he leads will soon move to the treasury benches.

When history is written, though, it won’t be that Crisafulli won government. Or even that Miles lost government.

It will be that another premier, who won the trust of the electorate in 2015, forgot how to listen to those who put her there.

And that’s a lesson Crisafulli needs to heed.