qld politics
20 Mar 2009
Is That A Pig In The Sky Over Queensland?
Andrew Bartlett used to be sceptical that the Libs and Nats could even pull off a merger, let alone poll at 50-50 right before the election. It looks like he got it very wrong
This article was published before Saturday's state election in Queensland, which was won by Labor with a provisional preferential vote of 51.3 per cent.
If the result of this Saturday's election in Queensland matches the remarkably consistent opinion poll findings, it will see the Labor Government's large majority cut back to almost nothing — and a real possibility they could be thrown out of office all together.
While it's tempting to point out trends across election results from different states, and identify messages for the federal political arena from an electoral outcome at state level, each election has its own individual dynamics which don't really translate to other arenas.
Queensland's optional preferential system of voting makes it riskier to translate raw opinion poll data into a two-party preferred vote, especially when combined with the state's diverse geography which means very different issues resonate in different electorates. A popular incumbent member can draw a much larger personal vote than usually applies at federal level, while strong local independent candidates can sometimes fly beneath the media radar.
Even when strong local candidates don't win, the optional preferential system means they can significantly alter the normal distribution of votes between the two major parties, sometimes leading to counter-intuitive results.
Given the closeness of the polls to date, there is a real possibility that these independents could end up holding the balance of power in the new parliament, determining which major party will end up forming government.
While such a result is often portrayed as inherently unstable, Queensland was in this situation twice in the 1990s and the sky certainly didn't fall in. Gladstone-based independent Liz Cunningham tipped Labor out of office after the Mundingburra by-election in 1996. The ensuing National Party-led government in turn lost office after the 1998 election when Peter Wellington, an independent from the Sunshine Coast hinterland, gave his backing to Labor to form government — which they have held on to ever since.
Both these independents are still in Parliament, as are two other conservative-leaning independents, along with a sole One Nation member and former Labor now Greens MP Ronan Lee. Some of these are more likely to get re-elected than others, but there is a high probability there will be at least three or four MPs on the cross-benches after polling day, which would make them king- (or queen-) makers if Labor and the LNP end up marooned with somewhere between 41 and 44 seats each in the 89-seat parliament.
It has been a curiously flat campaign in Queensland. The key messages of both major parties have been negative. The Labor Government has pushed the theme that the state can't risk an untested and non-credible Liberal National Party (LNP) in office in difficult economic times. The LNP have run with the theme that Labor is a tired government that has run out of ideas. Both messages have a degree of truth about them, which means the more these themes are pushed, the more underwhelmed the voter ends up feeling about both choices.
Despite this plague-on-both-your-houses mindset, the Greens have struggled to attract media attention, apart from the usual stories about preference decisions. Trying to break through the lack of media interest is a perpetual struggle for every minor party, and it has not been any easier this time even though the Greens are contesting every one of the 89 seats. This is the first time the Greens have run a full suite of candidates in Queensland — a feat that I doubt has been managed by any minor party in the state since at least the 1950s, if ever.
The party that ends up winning government usually has a good head-start on bragging rights as to who has run the best campaign. But in advance of polling day, the LNP appears to have run a much more effective campaign. This is a bit surprising given the amount of time Labor had to prepare for the campaign, as well as the LNP's undeniable weak spots, both in terms of the economic credibility of their campaign pledges, and the very significant policy tensions between the former Liberal and National Parties that still sit barely concealed beneath the surface of the newly merged entity.
Labor seems to have had greater trouble getting traction on their core message. While criticisms about alleged flaws in their campaign started to appear even before polling day, they have also suffered from the difficulty that occurs once people decide to just stop listening.
As the campaign progressed, Labor tried again and again to put the spotlight on the LNP's very contestable claims to have found $1 billion a year in savings while promising new projects and no cuts to public sector jobs. Research has detected a public perception that the Bligh Government was mostly driven by short-term spin, so by the time they did have a legitimate concern to communicate, people had stopped believing them.
Events such as the oil spill off the south-east Queensland coast, and even the latest round in the Pauline Hanson circus — complete with an extraordinary and truly contemptible decision by the editor of the Sunday Telegraph to publish nude photos of a woman who looked like her — also conspired to suck oxygen away from the Government's messages.
Meanwhile, the LNP stuck to its core message about Labor's wasteful spending very well and were helped along by what seems to have been a very large advertising spend, reinforcing reports that the party's billionaire backer, Clive Palmer had provided a sizeable war-chest for the campaign.
If Labor loses, Anna Bligh's decision to call an early election will no doubt be roundly pilloried by the commentariat as a stupid and cynical move which treated the electorate with contempt and got the result it deserved. This would be somewhat ironic, as a significant part of that same commentariat have virtually been demanding since last year that Anna Bligh call an early election.
In August last year, the Courier-Mail's Craig Johnstone wrote a blog entry called "Another reason Anna Bligh could do with an early election". In December, he wrote that "the idea that governments should always run their full term has been blown out of the water. An early poll is the right decision".
An end of year editorial from the paper on 28 December suggested "Queensland will be well served if, when Ms Bligh returns from leave next month, she calls an election for either February or March."
Instead, the commentators will claim that early elections without very good reason are a recipe for disaster. There may well be attempts to apply this to the federal arena as a warning to Kevin Rudd against going early. However, as I have argued, every electoral contest has unique factors. Rudd is leader of a first-term government and as long he provides a halfway credible reason for going early, he could probably do so without too much damage.
It is usually futile trying to read political implications at the federal level out of election results at state level, but the Queensland election might prove to be a bit different in at least one respect.
The apparent success of the merging of the Liberal and National Parties into the LNP is likely to have wider political implications. There was a huge amount of scepticism, including from me, about the likelihood of the two parties even pulling off a merger, let alone whether they could succeed in getting this merged entity accepted as a credible, united party. Even if Labor holds on this Saturday, the sceptics seem to have been proven very wrong.
This won't necessarily lead immediately to major pressures for similar mergers in NSW and Victoria, but it will certainly impact on the way the Coalition (or coalesced) parties approach the next federal election, especially in Queensland. It could also affect the dynamics in the Senate where the numbers are finely balanced.
Queenslander Barnaby Joyce is leader of the Nationals in the Senate and even turned down a frontbench position so he could retain the freedom to differ from his colleagues. Currently the merged party's Queensland Senate ticket for the next federal election has Liberal George Brandis at 1, Barnaby Joyce at 2, Liberal Brett Mason in the winnable but far from certain number 3 spot and fellow Liberal incumbent Russell Trood in the totally
unwinnable number 4 position.
If Joyce follows through on his public musings to run for a Lower House seat — and I think there are good arguments for him to do so — Mason and Trood will both move up a spot, and the Nationals would undoubtedly lose a Senate spot. As they are now a merged party in Queensland, in theory this shouldn't matter, but the Nationals only reach the five seat threshold that provides official party status in the Senate by the barest of margins. If they lost one, they would lose official party status, unless one of the Queensland "Liberal Nationals" could be persuaded to sit as a National.
I'm sure George Brandis would look good in an Akubra.
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Well, thankfully, the LNP troglodytes were mostly held in their pens for another couple of years, and Queensland is saved for a little longer from being taken back to the 17th. Century, when the world was flat, and witches were burned at the stake. It still has to catch up with the 21st. Century of course, but I do not see Capt’n Bligh as either willing or able to do that. Bill Ludwig and his mates will see to that, never mind that she reckons to bypass them. Bill has heard all that before, and laughs. Queensland is still stuck in the time-warp of a coal burning, coal mining, coal exporting, coal polluting culture but at least we have a couple more years free of uranium mining. Mr. Palmer WILL NOT be pleased. All that money wasted! Or at least, we hope so! I shudder whenever I hear Gordon Brown flap his big rubber lips and encourage us all to GO NUCLEAR! But he is sure worrying the Yanks and the israelis by saying that Iran should be allowed to, also!
Anyway I expect we are going to see a couple more years of Capt’n Bligh wearing any number of hard hats, as she encourages Big Coal to keep on polluting, and also encourages Our Great and Small Religious Leader, ‘Elmer Fudd’, to keep on paying billions of dollars to them to try and find a way to make a silk purse out of a pigs ear! Or perhaps to do the impossible, make the burning of coal, clean! I see the Euros are also giving the Coal Barons a few billions to try this also. Insanity (or perhaps, futility) Rules the Waves!
p.s. I was most upset to see Ronan Lee, the short-term Green Member of the Queenland Parliament apparently outed by the Refuseniks! Queensland and Queenslanders have a LONG way to go! Dazza.
Andrew,I know you are a decent sort of bloke but please leave your Australian Democrat past in the past.They shot themselves in the head through their association with The Rodent.If you wish to remain in politics,join the Greens.
Pontificating on the outcome of the Queensland election is futile.It has the most undemocratic system in Australia.Labor/LNP - Tweedle Dee,Tweedle Dum,Tweedle Dumber.
Writing post event,I am happy that Bligh&Co have prevailed.Now they will be faced with the consequences of years of stupidity,corruption and mismanagement.The coming firestorm will not be kind to "managers"
If Andrew got it wrong, then so did an awful lot of other people. This one stopped the ‘hexperts’. Andrew had some wonderful ideas back in Democrat days, he could not help/stop his leader, Meg Lees, wanting to cozy up with the Rodent. She was a weak woman who got hood-winked by a very nasty, cunning mob. Happens! I guess Andrew, as a fellow Queenslander, feels badly about the enduring situation here in Queensland, where mediocrity, mendacity, and just pure outright corruption has such a hold on the political scene. As with the Federal scene, we could all wish for much better. After Andrew’s time in the Bear Pit, fighting the mediocrity etc. at close quarters, he would probably NOT want to return to that political life, but I see no reason why he should not use his accrued wisdom to make comment upon the situation from day to day, whatever his political affiliations. I suggested to him years ago that he would be better off with the Greens, and the Greens would probably be much better off with him as an active member, but he must go his own way. Keep at ‘em, Andrew! Dazza.
The only way a Greens candidate is going to be elected is if we change our voting system into a preferential one.
And I don’t mean a two party preferred system, but direct proportional representation that treats the state as a single electorate.
This way if the Greens get 10% of the primary vote they get 10% of the State representation.
So if there are 100 seats then the Greens would automatically get 10 seats allocated to them.
This is more like the way Federal Senators are chosen.
And what I like about this system is that rather than going to a local member about a problem they may know very little about, you would go to the relevant State minister or department with your query.
Unfortunately Denise, the chances of a proportional representation system being brought in is minimal.
There was one genuine opportunity for Queensland to go down path, and that was when the Electoral and Administrative Review Commission (EARC) conducted an inquiry into Qld’s electoral system following the election of the Goss government. Although the inquiry was predominantly initiated to look at improvements to the gerrymander / malapportionment that had been in place over the previous 4 decades, the multi-member electorate proportional representation model was put forward by a lot of people. Even though the lack of an Upper House provided an even greater justification, EARC unfortunately didn’t recommend such a model. There was no obligation on the Goss government to accept a recommendation like that of course, but in the post-Fitzgerald ‘new broom’ atmosphere of the time, it would have been problematic for them to reject it.
Anyway, it didn’t happen and no major party is going to bring it in voluntarily. Which means that like it or not, the Greens are going to have to start winning seats through winning contests in single member electorates if they want to have more clout.
I appreciate (very much I can assure) how incredibly difficult this is for a minor party, but that’s the way it is.