State of the States

The overall result in Queensland, which was predicted to go badly for the government, still hangs in the balance. The seats of Capricornia, Flynn and Herbert are still too close to call.

The Coalition has done well to retain Petrie and Bonner. Trevor Evans, who will replace retiring MP Teresa Gambaro in Brisbane, also achieved an increased margin, recording a swing to the government of 1.6% on a two-party-preferred basis.

Everywhere else, the two-party-preferred swings against the Coalition ranged from 0.4% in the safe seat of Fisher to 8% in Longman, which was enough to unseat Assistant Innovation Minister and Turnbull supporter Wyatt Roy.

At one level this was unsurprising. A correction was inevitable after Labor’s poor showing in 2013. The statewide swing to Labor was 1.6% on primary votes, but aside from the seats still in doubt, it comfortably retained Blair, Oxley, Rankin and Lilley.

Labor’s primary vote in Queensland of 31.4% is — as the Coalition has sought to emphasise — structurally low. And the overall figure masks the worrying decline of the party’s primary vote in the inner-city seats of Brisbane (26.3%) and Griffith (33.8%). Greens candidates in these seats received 19.1% and 16.8% of primary votes respectively.

But there is no doubt Labor’s was the superior campaign. Its grassroots strategy that commenced in Queensland in 2015, and ranged from “Bill’s Bus” to the reported 62,000 calls made by local volunteers in the last 72 hours, vividly contrasted with the LNP’s.

Much of the national interest is in the “the rise” of Pauline Hanson, whose One Nation party received 5.47% of primary votes in Queensland. Most worrying for the major parties is the support it attracted from voters in the outer-western Brisbane seat of Wright (20.9% of primary votes), Maranoa (18.1%) and Wide Bay (14.9%), to the seats of Herbert (13.4%) and Leichhardt (7.5%) in the north.

The low quotas brought about by the double-dissolution election enabled Hanson’s return to federal politics after 18 years and numerous failed attempts. One Nation received 9.03% of the Senate vote, giving it 1.1729 quotas — which translates to at least one seat, and possibly one more.

Much ink has been spilled in the quest to understand whether the shift to One Nation is a “protest” vote that echoes the rise of populists in Europe, the UK and the US, or a cry for attention from voters in regions blighted by high unemployment, job insecurity and falling living standards to the much-loathed “elites” who seem to have stopped listening.

It may be salient, too, to consider the role hard-right MPs George Christensen and Peter Dutton may have played in stoking some of the anti-Islam sentiment that One Nation happily exploited. Within their own electorates, however, both members suffered two-party-preferred swings against them (4.4% and 5.3% respectively) — in part due to the aggressive campaigning by activist group GetUp!

Overall, Queensland lived up to its reputation for volatility and for delivering “strong messages” to Canberra. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has already implored Hanson to be responsible — to temper her language so as to avoid damaging the state’s tourism and international education exports. It would be ironic if the voter backlash yielded a bitter harvest among those who already feel left behind.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ANNE TIERNAN

Professor Anne Tiernan is Director of the Policy Innovation Hub at Griffith University, Australia.

Professor Tiernan’s research focuses on the work of governing. Her scholarly interests include: Australian politics and governance, policy advice, executive studies, policy capacity, federalism and intergovernmental coordination. She has written extensively on the political-administrative interface, caretaker conventions, governmental transitions and the work of policy advising.