Well, for starters, there's no way the LNP is winning this election, but if they play their cards right they'll be within a stone's throw of winning the next one.

Their position can't get any worse.

Provided they improve their position, they'll be able to make a case for the LNP configuration. It depends on the scale of their improvement. This election shouldn't be viewed in terms of victory or loss, but by the scale of LNP gains.

If Warren Buffett's recent commentary regarding the US stimulus package is anything to go by, tough times are sticking around.
Bernanke's 2010 comments seemed optmistic. They came with so many caveats they're easily dismissed.
Given the US economy is most likely in for a tough five years at least (which of course, has similar implications for the rest of the world) during the next State election, voters will still be unimpressed with Labor. The halcyon days of our resource boom will be over and Queensland voters will want to sink the boot in to Labor again.

The LNP will have a stronger position next term. At the moment, their ranks are so thin there's no quality talent, but the circumstances may attract recruits, depending on how brutal the recession is on Labor.
This will be Springborg's final test.
He's faring well, but he doesn't really have any significant contenders for the LNP throne.
Seeney was never going to last. His reputation was for being the attack dog of the Nats. Sure, all parties need an attack dog, but for heavens sake, you don't make it leader.
It'll also depend on whether Springborg has the desire to stick around for yet another election.

My forecast? LNP make significant gains, Labor maintains a decent majority. The gains are enough to warrant the continuation of the LNP configuration.
Springborg either steps back almost immediately after the election, or keeps the throne warm for his successor.
He won't contest the next election, instead remaining until a replacement he likes shows his or her face, then he'll step down and back them amidst a nasty political scuffle.

If Lawrence Sprinbourg takes a leaf out of Kevin Rudd’s book, and comes out as a Christian, and promotes Christian Government which until 1991, and the Supreme Court of Queensland Act 1991, was firmly established in Queensland, he could just repeat the unlikely win in 1996. After all the Moore Government in the 1930’s interrupted a continuous Labor regime.

It was not the Work Choices campaign that won KR the 23 seats he achieved, it was his realization that Australia is still 65% Christian, and an atheist could not become PM. He was published in this forum in December 2004, claiming Christian roots for the Labor Party. Traditionally Federal Labor results in conservative governments in the States. Whitlam with his atheist government annihilated the Labor Party in Queensland. Sadly Fraser was an atheist too, and continued to dismantle Christian Government and the Commonwealth.

In 1995, Queensland restored its Supreme Court to its Christian roots, but the atheist Judges of Queensland, in the Supreme Court and District Courts right down to the Magistrates, refuse absolutely to accept the law as made. S 51 of the Supreme Court Act 1995, says a judge must get consent to sit without a jury. S 259 say jury trials are a right in Queensland. Not one Judge in Queensland obeys that statutory command.

From 1984, lawyers like David Russell QC dominated the Nationals, and increasingly isolated and neutered the courts. They are now an extension of the State Government, and absolutely useless to the common man. The Courts of Queensland are the lawyers private mint. Access is difficult and justice non existent.

If Sprinbourg comes out and claims Christianity, and paints the present Government as the atheist quagmire that it is, and promises to abolish the atheist 1991 Supreme Court Act, he will be surprised just how many people will come out of the woodwork to help him win. With a fair, just and impartial Supreme Court, abominations like the festering sore that are now Queensland Hospitals become instantly accountable. Public servants will have the fear of God and start to work properly.

Peter, I'm afraid your cause celebre is clouding your judgement yet again.

Springborg's long been a christian type, indeed, he's led the National Party who have long been stalwart conservative Christian types.

Entrenching himself as a pro-christian country conservative would only alienate the many new migrants to Queensland who are concentrated in the South East corner, who already view the National party with suspicion, as Prasser points out. These are the people Springborg needs to win over.

All around the world, religious governments have a habit of buggering things up, because their concept of accountability stems from supernatural (read, unquantifiable and for all intents and purposes, non-existent at least in this lifetime) sources.

Christianity isn't the oppressed group you continuously make it out to be and you're grasping at straws to try and tie it to this topic, with which it has only the shakiest relevance.

Gough Whitlam was an atheist Prime Minister, and one who has been elevated to a sort of cult status amongst many Australians. Bob Hawke is an agnostic. Australia seemed to forgive both of them and allow them to be Prime Ministers. I suspect that an atheist could easily be voted in as Premier of Queensland, as well.

You may all be right and true Christianity may be irrelevant to todays Queensland. When politics is left to idiots with half an education, a bent for wholesale theft, and a burning desire not to have to account to anyone, except at elections, we are in deep caka.

Queensland was a Christian State until 1991, although the atheists started to dismantle it when they added S 102A to the Justices Act 1898, so that the Magistrates Court lost its clout when calling criminals to account. This happened to stop Sinclair of Fraser Island fame, calling Sir Joh before a jury.

They say the global meltdown is going to hit Queensland in a big way. The exposure through Suncorp to the sub prime fiasco has not really become an issue, and just as Queensland lost its own bank in the 1930s meltdown, it is highly likely that Rudd is going to have to take over this adventure into State Capitalism.

When Howard, for his own purposes encouraged the States to pretend thay were independant countries within the Commonwealth,just as they are in the US, nobbled the High Court and stacked it with Liberal Party hacks, and refused to elevate a woman to Chief Justice, he gave the green light to unbridled State capitalism. Having abolished Christian principles, there has been no stopping the theft and pillage by the corporate State from its citizens.

In a Christian Commonwealth the separation of powers should be universally observed. The Judiciary should not be yesboys for the State Government,and KR probably knows this as a regular attendee at an Anglican Church.

The cards will fall where they will, but Springbourg has about as much hope as a snowflake in hell, unless he proposes a return to the Federation, and the Christian government intrinsic in the Australian Constitution. Springbourg needs to accept KR is committed to that. A week is a long time in politics.