Given that Queensland’s 1.85 million square kilometres make the state Australia’s second largest in area, any meaningful analysis of Queensland politics must be made on regional bases. Moreover, given it is also farther from Brisbane to Cairns than it is from Brisbane to Melbourne, it is unsurprising scholars have argued a ‘two Queenslands’ thesis that divides the state into ‘coast versus inland’1 or, more commonly, between ‘Brisbane and the bush’.2 It has been argued elsewhere, however, that Queensland’s economic, political and cultural variations are far more nuanced, and that a ‘six Queenslands’ model is required for more meaningful analysis.3 Queensland’s population surpassed five million in May 2018, to make the state Australia’s third most populous. Queensland’s capital city houses 2.4 million people and it is the nation’s third most populous city.4 Brisbane, Australia’s largest local government authority since 1924, is just one of 77 councils and shires – down from 156 in 2007 – comprising local government under state control. The fact that more Queenslanders live outside their capital city than within it – the only Australian state or territory where this occurs – indicates the power of Queensland’s regions. More often, however, Queensland is anecdotally referred to as a state divided between the two-thirds of residents who live in the state’s ‘southeast’ and the one-third who reside in the ‘rest’ of the state.5