Bligh is a fighter, says Paul Keating

Former prime minister Paul Keating has strongly backed the Queensland premier at a major fundraiser for the ALP in Brisbane.

Mr Keating was keynote speaker at the "true believers" function to raise funds to help bankroll the party's state election campaign for the northern Brisbane seat of Ashgrove.

"She is, I think, the most effective premier in the country and she is sitting on a tremendous burst of corporate energy," Mr Keating told News Limited newspapers as he entered the function with Ms Bligh.

"The premier is a fighter.

"People's minds get affected by the combat, not hers."

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd and past Queensland premiers Wayne Goss and Peter Beattie were also at the function.

Deputy Premier Wayne Swan took aim at Campbell Newman and the Liberal National Party in his prepared address to the dinner.

An LNP government would mean "Abbott kneeling at the feet of Clive Palmer ... and Newman on Clive's knee like a ventriloquist's dummy," he said.

Mr Swan predicted Labor would win the election, despite polls suggesting otherwise.

"They wrote Anna off in `09 and Paul in `93 and were wrong both times," he said.