Ousted Queensland state MPs Kate Jones and Murray Watt are dipping their toes back into political waters, overseeing Labor's efforts to reclaim the seat of Brisbane at next year's federal election.
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The two defeated Bligh government MPs are managing former teacher Fiona McNamara's campaign to wrest back the inner-north Brisbane federal electorate from the Liberal National Party's Teresa Gambaro.
The LNP holds the seat with a 1.1 per cent margin and Labor considers it a must-win seat if the party is to hold onto government in Canberra.
Voters dumped long-term Labor MP for Brisbane Arch Bevis at the 2010 federal election and installed Ms Gambaro, who had previously served as MP for the northern suburbs seat of Petrie.
Mr Watt, who lost his seat of Everton at the March state election, told supporters at a campaign launch on Sunday night that 2012 had been “one of the more interesting years” but argued there were “brighter prospects for us at a federal level”.
Federal Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten paid tribute to Ms Jones at the launch event, saying she was seen as a “hero” in the Labor party following her attempts to prevent the election of Campbell Newman in Ashgrove.
Both Ms Jones and Mr Watt are managing Ms McNamara's campaign. Ms McNamara, who has previously run for the federal seat of Dickson, oversaw Ms Jones's Ashgrove campaign in the lead up to the 2012 state election.
Ms McNamara, an organiser with the Queensland Teachers' Union, said she felt Brisbane was winnable in the federal election due next year.
The electorate includes the inner-city, New Farm, Hamilton, Eagle Farm, Hendra, Clayfield, Wooloowin, Lutwyche, Stafford, Enoggera, Ashgrove, Paddington and Milton.
Ms McNamara said people were interested in the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Gonski education funding reforms and were “concerned about what Campbell Newman and the LNP are doing” in Queensland.
Ms McNamara signalled that the campaign would try to link Mr Newman and Mr Abbott.
“I don't think you can separate them; they are very similar and people are raising that with me all the time,” she said.
Ms McNamara said she would run a grassroots campaign, going door to door to promote Labor's policies.
She said she had dedicated her life to education and for the last eight years had worked as an organiser for the Queensland Teachers' Union focused on Brisbane's northside.
“I am from a family where neither of my parents had a lot of education but they saw the value of education,” she said.
Speaking at the campaign launch at the New Farm Bowls Club, Mr Shorten said the Labor party needed to work hard to win back the trust of Queenslanders and Australians.
“It is the case that the last few years for Labor have been very hard for our party. We lost, as you are acutely award, a series of state elections,” Mr Shorten said.
“We've had to govern in Canberra since 2010 with a minority where every piece of legislation has been a hard fought battle to get through.”
Mr Shorten said there was also “a mood indeed of some pessimism even within our own ranks about our prospects next year” at the federal election.
But he said anyone who questioned the ongoing need for the Labor party should speak to someone living “in Campbell Newman's Queensland”.
Comment has been sought from Ms Gambaro.
