Queensland ALP assistant state secretary Terry Wood has taken the fall for Labor’s poor election campaign, following a secret internal report on the conduct of the campaign. Wood is set to be replaced after a number of “systemic failures” during the campaign saw a 5% swing against Anna Bligh’s Government.

Wood was criticised by both senior ALP figures and branch members during the campaign, with the belated dispatch of postal vote material a particular irritant. The votes were still being counted when ALP sources began suggesting Wood’s days were numbered.

Bligh survived the swing, partly a consequence of a disastrous last-week performance from Lawrence Springborg, but the national ALP, which is used to the clockwork Queensland campaigns of the Beattie era and which has a number of Queensland marginals to protect in next year’s Federal election, immediately commenced a review examining issues like the postal vote fiasco the and breakdown in communications between the party’s central office and both Anna Bligh’s team and local campaigns. The Prime Minister and Treasurer were said to be deeply unhappy with the campaign performance of their home state machine.