Readers Note: All polling figures used in this diary are from Newspoll unless noted otherwise.
By June 16th of next year (Queensland does not have fixed parliamentary terms), the people of the Australian state of Queensland will go to the polls to decide if they should put their trust in the 13 year old Labor state government led by Premier Anna Bligh (ALP-South Brisbane) or put their trust into the relatively new and untested Liberal National Party (LNP) led by former Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman.
From left to right. Premier Anna Bligh and Opposition leader Campbell Newman.
And if the polling is correct, Labor in Queensland is about to suffer the same political fate their counterparts south of the border in New South Wales suffered three months ago. Ever since Bligh led Labor to its fifth straight victory in 2009, the party has consistently trailed the LNP by double digits in the polls except for a brief honeymoon in the aftermath of the Queensland floods earlier this year where Bligh was universally praised for her handling of the disaster.
Bligh's approvals have not fared better with her approval ratings all through last year scraping near rock bottom in the 20's while her disapproval ratings peaking at a whopping 67% last year. Even then NSW Premier Kristina Keneally who led Labor to its worst defeat in Australian political history wasn't that badly loathed by the electorate.
Primary vote polling:
Two party preferred polling:
Bligh herself was universally blamed for Labor's dismal performance in Queensland in last year's Federal election where Labor lost seven seats (many of them gained during the 2007 election) and suffered a 10% swing in the primary vote and a 5.65% in 2PP. The Liberal party took advantage of Bligh's almost universal unpopularity and aired attack ads in Queensland Julia Gillard to her during last year's Federal election.
Anna Bligh approval ratings
At the same time the LNP has executed one of the boldest moves in Australia politics done for a while. (Well maybe more bold than Mark Latham trying to rip off John Howard's arm after a debate.) They've made former Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman their opposition leader. There's one problem with this arrangement, Newman doesn't have a seat in parliament. Newman will be contesting the Labor held seat of Ashgrove come the next election while the party is led in parliament by Jeff Seeney (LNP-Callide). If Newman wins in Ashgrove and the LNP wins government, Newman will become the next premier. Though Newman will have to beat a very popular Labor MP in order to claim the seat and its not hard to imagine the LNP winning the election but Newman falling short in Ashgrove.
Kate Jones (ALP-Ashgrove). This woman could dash Newman's hopes of becoming premier. Credit to the Courier Mail.
All of this is promising to make the next state election the most exciting Queenslanders have experienced since the 1998 election where Labor scrapped back into power after two years in opposition.
In this first installment, we will be covering the political history of Queensland starting from the early 20th century until the 1998 election which saw Labor claw back to power after its loss in a 1996 by election. The second installment will cover the political developments under the premierships of Peter Beattie and Anna Bligh and the key seats that will make or break the Bligh Labor government come the election this time.
One thing that separates Queensland from the rest of Australia politically is that since 1915 the state government has rarely changed hands. Premiers may of come and gone, but the state government would not change parties literally for decades. For example from 1915 until 1957, except from 1929-1932 Labor was in control of Queensland until the party split apart under Premier Vince Gair in 1957. From 1957 until 1989 Labor was locked out of government as the Country party and its successor the National party held government.
That long period of non-Labor rule was most notable for the premiership of Joh Bjelke-Petersen (1911-2005) who was best known for turning Queensland into a virtual police state and leading a government that was corrupt to the core. The latter of which was not revealed until he was forced to step down after an abortive attempt to become Prime Minister in 1987.
The 1989 election would see Wayne Goss (ALP-Logan) lead Labor back to government after 32 years in the wilderness. The campaign was marked with the release of the Fitzgerald Inquiry's findings which found widespread corruption among the Queensland police during the Bjelke-Petersen years. Labor campaigned on the theme, "The only change for the better" while the Liberal party which went into the election as a single entity after the Coalition was terminate in 1983 campaigned on the theme, "Let's put it right."
Labor constantly led in the polls while the Nationals didn't get above 30% during the campaign with the Liberals stuck in the 20%'s (only in Queensland did the Liberals play second fiddle in any Coalition arrangement). Of course there was widespread skepticism that Labor could win. They had been locked out of government for the better part of 30 years after all.
Primary vote polling for the 1989 election:
Meanwhile the Nationals were locked in factional infighting with Bjelke-Petersen's successor Mike Ahern being deposed in favor Russell Cooper who was closer to the Bjelke-Petersen wing of the party. During the campaign the Nationals aired several controversial advertisements including one claiming Labor's plan to decriminalize homosexuality would unleash a flood of gays coming from other states. Labor responded by airing ads mocking Cooper as a puppet, a wild-eyed reactionary and a clone of Bjelke-Petersen.
Come election day Labor won in a landslide taking in a record 50.3% of the primary vote and picking up 24 seats with the Nationals losing 22 and the Liberals a net loss of 2, losing seven seats but gaining five from the Nationals. 1989 also served as a realigning election in the metro Brisbane area with Labor picking up the Liberal held seats of Ashgrove, Mount Coot-tha, Nundah, Redcliffe, Stafford, Yeronga.
Except for Redcliffe which the Liberals gained in a 2005 by-election before Labor regained it in the 2006 election all of these seats have remained firmly in Labor's grip frustrating the Liberal party (and the LNP) election after election. Though Nundah and Yeronga have since been abolished in various redistributions (redistricting).
The Goss years.
One of the reasons why the Nationals were able to remain in power for 32 years was because of something nicknamed the "Bjelkemander" which was one massive gerrymander that benefited the Nationals because seats in country Queensland where only required to have about half as many voters as seats in metropolitan areas like Brisbane needed to have. This resulted in some mind boggling results like the 1972 state election as shown in the table below:
Source. Note: For some reason the vote percentages round to 101.5
Labor took 46.7% of the vote while the Country (Nationals) and the Liberals took a combined 42.2% of the vote but thanks to the Bjelkemander the Coalition held 47 seats to Labor's 33.
Bjelke-Petersen's successor Mike Ahern attempted to get rid of the Bjelkemander but was stopped by elements within his own party. When Wayne Goss led Labor back to power in 1989, his goverment introduced several electoral reforms, the most notable was introducing optional preferential voting and getting rid of the Bjelkemander.
With the Bjelkemander gone, Labor won the 1992 election holding the same amount of seats as it did in 1989 but it's vote slipped below the 50.3% it took in three years earlier. Then came 1995....
Borbridge, Beattie and Hanson.
Besides decriminalizing homosexuality and other social legislation, the Goss government was a very cautious administration. Probably too careful as fate would reveal.
The Goss government made managing the state's finances and spending as little money as possible a top priority. The problem was they had ignored the problems in the state's health system, problems that continue to haunt the Bligh government to this day. And the government had blundered by building a toll road in south east Brisbane that happened to run through the habitats of Koalas. Nicknamed the "Koala tollway" it caused a massive backlash against the Goss government especially in the seats where the tollway ran through.
And they had angered the Greens who in retaliation had their supporters direct their preferences against Labor. Coupled with the growing anger towards the Keating Federal Labor government and disapproval with Goss' authoritative governing style, the reformed Coalition led by Rob Borbidge (NAT-Surfers Paradise) took 53% of the 2PP vs. Labor's 47% on election day. But Labor held government by a narrow 1 seat thanks to a 12 vote victory in the seat of Mundingburra.
Unfortunately for the Goss government, the courts threw out the results in Mundingburra and ordered a do over after serious irregularities were discovered and the Coalition won the subsequent by election which was held during the first week of the 1996 Federal campaign. Independent MP Liz Cunningham announced she was throwing her support behind Borbidge and the Coalition and the Goss Labor government fell on its sword shortly after.
Weeks later Labor lost the 1996 Federal election in a landslide, the swing being so violent in Queensland the party was left with only two seats. With Labor back in opposition both in Queensland and Canberra, it must of been very depressing to be a Labor supporter in Queensland in 1996. Little would any one know that the political winds would shift again thanks to this woman:
Meet famed racist, Pauline Hanson.
In 1996, Pauline Hanson was swept in the Coalition landslide and won the Federal Labor seat of Oxley which was at the time Labor's safest seat in the state. She had been endorsed as the Liberal candidate but was disendorsed when she told a local newspaper she advocated slashing aid for Aboriginal families below the level of regular Australians. This cause an uproar but because it was so close to the election, the Liberal party could not select another candidate and ballots had already been printed with Hanson as the Liberal candidate.
In Hanson's madden speech to the Australian parliament she attacked the idea of immigration, multiculturalism and said that "I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians." The parliament quickly passed a resolution condemning Hanson's views on multiculturalism and immigration. The resolution was supported by all but one MP.
In April 1997 Pauline Hanson formed the One Nation party which campaign on the platform of economic protectionism and against the government's multicultural and immigration policies which it argued were "Asianating Australia." The immediate effect of One Nation's arrival on the political scene would be seen in the 1998 Queensland state election.
By the time One Nation came upon the scene. The Borbidge government was in trouble in the polls. They had led Labor in the polls throughout 1996 but the government had been battered over a scandal involving the police, the unpopularity of John Howard's plans to institute a Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the rise of One Nation. In the latter half of 1997 and for the rest of the campaign, Labor led by Peter Beattie (ALP-Brisbane Central) opened up a consistent lead in the polls as the Coalition's support base was being pulled away by One Nation.
Primary vote polling for the 1998 election:
Note: Due to the exceptionally strong performance of One Nation, it was impossible to determine a statewide 2PP vote.
Party officials in both the Liberal and National parties in Canberra saw One Nation as an opportunity to direct preference votes away from Labor. But people in Queensland including Borbidge himself knew the dangers of rural populism and tried to place One Nation last on the Coalition's how to vote cards, but were rebuffed by the organizational wings of both parties in the Coalition who made sure Coalition preferences were directed to One Nation.
The 1998 election would turn into one of the most chaotic elections Queensland had in recent memory as One Nation out polled both the Liberals and Nationals separately while Labor more or less withstood the One Nation surge. 18 seats changed hands with Labor taking six seats from the Liberals, One Nation taking six seats from Labor and five from the Nationals while an independent picked off the National held seat of Nicklin.
Seats changing hands:
Red = ALP, Blue = Liberal, Orange = One Nation, Green = National. Sources located here and here.
Labor was just one seat short of a majority and it was up to Peter Wellington, the newly elected independent MP for Nicklin to decide whether Borbidge or Beattie would have the right to form government. Wellington decided to throw his support behind Beattie and Labor. The only other alternative would be a ragtag Coalition made up of the Nationals, Liberals and One Nation. And seeing how One Nation spectacularly imploded in the years after 1998, it was probably the wiser choice to support Labor.
After two years in opposition, Labor was back in government, albeit a minority government. Beattie and Borbidge swapped titles with Beattie becoming premier and Borbridge becoming opposition leader. And so began the era of Peter Beattie who would become one of the most electorally successful politicians in Australia.
Coming in Part 2: Peter Beattie would lead Labor to three consecutive landslide wins while the Coalition under the leadership of Lawrence Springborg would struggle to get back into electoral relevancy. But Labor's luck shows signs of running out when Beattie's successor Anna Bligh faces off against a reinvigorated Coalition unified under the banner of a new party. Plus the key seats that Labor must win to hold government this time.
Bonus: You can watch Labor's campaign ads aired during the 2009 state election at the links listed below. Notice how many times President Obama was referenced in Labor's attack ads.
http://www.youtube.com/...
http://www.youtube.com/...