Miles finally concedes election defeat

Outgoing Queensland premier Steven Miles has officially conceded Labor’s election defeat, with the Liberal National Party winning enough seats to govern with a majority government.

Despite facing criticism for not officially conceding on Saturday night, and stating the count was “too close to call,“ Mr Miles called his successor David Crisafulli on Sunday.

According to Sky News, the LNP have secured 49 seats, to Labor’s 34 with six seats remaining in doubt.

While Labor’s election defeat was expected, Mr Miles has faced criticism over his election night speech and questions as to whether he will continue to lead the party in Opposition.

The Murrumba MP, who ascended to the top job following the retirement of Annastacia Palaszczuk 10 months ago, also failed to congratulate Mr Crisafulli.

Mr Miles also appeared to cement his intentions to continue leading Labor from opposition.

“Whatever the final number of seats, I will keep doing what matters for Queensland,” he said.

“I will never stop fighting for our Labor agenda and I will never stop holding the LNP to account.”

Appearing on Insiders, former deputy premier Cameron Dick refused to confirm whether he’d back Mr Miles as Opposition Leader – a position which will be decided by the state party room.

“I think that it is too early. I’ve been reaching out to my colleagues and candidates,” he said.

“There’s a lot of people who are feeling a lot of hurt.”

Mr Dick also dodged questioned as to whether he would consider taking on the position.

“I have honestly not made a decision yet. I do want to talk to my colleagues,” he said.

“I want to hear from others first and want to think through that and think through that with my family.”

However, senior federal Labor minister Murray Watt, who is also from Queensland, defended Mr Miles’ performance and said his concession speech was “terrific”.

“I thought he talked about the great effort from Labor and its volunteers acknowledged what Queenslanders had had to say through their voting patterns,” he said.

“I think to be fair to Steven, at the time that he gave that speech last night, the result was pretty unclear. The LNP hadn’t reached a majority at that point in time, so I thought that his comments were valid.”