My series of posts setting the scene for the Queensland state election due this year is being re-published this week on Crikey. The first instalment is here. In my last post, I looked at the ALP and its chances, and I’ll be following that up with a piece on The Greens and minor parties tomorrow, and the likely shape of the campaign on Thursday.
In the meantime, William Bowe at Poll Bludger has an informative post with a number of interesting links, including to a piece by former Premier Peter Beattie in the Weekend Australian. I think there’s a bit of special pleading in Beattie’s claim that the 2009 election was effectively a walkover, given that the ALP was behind for much of the time, and it was really only won in the last couple of days as voters focused on the GFC and the actuality of a Lawrence Springborg government. But Beattie does make some reasonable points, though his prediction that Campbell Newman would run for the federal seat of Brisbane if defeated is quite bizarre, and an interesting parallel to rumours that Beattie himself may be interested in being the Labor candidate.
Bowe also links to Ben Raue’s seat guide at The Tally Room, and to Antony Green’s informative post on how the state election result would look based on the last federal election (at which, of course, the ALP’s position was somewhat better in Queensland than the polls show now).
Green comments:
On state boundaries the Federal results would see Labor losing 26 seats, though Federal results also reveal an underlying Labor vote in the Independent held seat of Gladstone as well as in LNP-held Mirani. When you take account of Queensland using optional preferential voting at state elections, Labor would find itself short in several other seats courtesy of exhausted preferences from the Greens.
However, federal results have been a poor guide to state results in Queensland for the past two decades. Labor has governed Queensland for 20 of the last 22 years and out-polled the LNP/Coalition on first preferences at seven of the eight elections in the period. The reverse applies at the eight federal elections held since 1990, where Labor has trailed the LNP/Coalition on first preferences on every occasion.
He notes, however:
… federal elections are a poor guide to state results in Queensland. Conversely, with state Labor now polling badly, perhaps those bad federal results will give us a guide of where the Bligh government is set to do badly at the state election.
There’s probably something in that, in the sense that the federal figures may be a reasonable proxy for the base level of generic Labor support in that state. It should also be observed, and here Peter Beattie is spot on, that there’s little question that the ongoing backlash against Kevin Rudd’s deposition and the severe unpopularity of the Federal Labor government in Queensland is lead in state Labor’s saddlebags.
Mark
Looking at Antony Green’s analysis, swings on the Gold Coast and in North Queensland are enough to deliver the LNP government before Brisbane is even factored in.
Do you think that resentment towards the sacking of KRudd is likely to be a factor in whether people who voted ALP in 2009 switch to the LNP this time around?
Yes, Terry.
And the flipside is, dumping Rudd doesn’t look to be doing Gillard any good in the other mining State at all – Labor is down to 3 seats in WA out of 15, and all three are marginal (Brand 3.3%, Fremantle 5.7% and Perth 5.8%) – if 2013 is the wipeout that some are predicting, the Coalition could end that election in control of all 15 of WA’s seats (not to mention that Rudd’s seat is the safest ALP seat in Qld, at 8.3%).
If Gillard pulls her socks up and actually, consistently acts like WA means something (the first major-party leader to actually do so for several elections), there are several seats easily classified as low-hanging fruit (Hasluck, on a margin of 0.5%, stands out here, although Swan and Canning both count), and others that have deceptively-high Liberal margins (For example, Cowan (6.3%) was an ALP marginal seat at the 2007 election, and could be regained by the right candidate).
Seems like the Federal ALP was stuck in a lose-lose situation after Rudd botched the mining tax rollout. If they kept him on, they risked a wipeout in Qld and WA. As it was, Gillard’s habit of doing all by halves (her compromise was reasonable policy, but extremely poor politics, and she didn’t make any real effort to improve that) cost Labor dearly in the two States anyway – a situation not helped by the fact that the first banana-bender in decades to be PM (You’d have to go to Andrew Fisher to find the last Queenslander who held the job for more than 6 weeks) had just been rolled by his own party.
Can’t speak for Qld, but WA’s not that inherently conservative: we had a State Labor Government through to 2008, and even today, Barnett’s Coalition Government is a minority Government (although no-one’s predicting a Labor victory at the next State election). If Labor were prepared to invest time & effort, they could make holding Government much, much easier at the next election. 14 of the Coalition’s 27 “marginal” seats (per the Mackerras pendulum) are in these two States, yet Gillard keeps running to NSW and Victoria – not to mention that as Federal Labor becomes less on the nose, State Labor’s prospects in these States improve. I, for one, just don’t get it.
“[Beattie's] prediction that Campbell Newman would run for the federal seat of Brisbane if defeated is quite bizarre”
Why? He can’t go back to City Hall and nor would he just loll about on boards. Abbott would have him in a second, particularly as a counterfoil for Mal Brough.
I would have thought that whoever loses the race for Premier takes on “Stinky” Gambaro. If Bligh loses, Gillard will offer her a Cabinet seat and Brisbane would have to be a seat Labor would win (her only other choice would be to shirtfront Rudd in Griffith). If Newman loses his seat and Bligh loses the election, he wouldn’t want to run for Brisbane to risk losing to Bligh and thus wrecking his reputation for all time.
I tend to suspect Andrew, if Newman loses, he’ll just slink away. It would be worse than Hewson losing in 93. He’ll be looking to the private sector.
If it looks like he is in serious danger of not winning Ashgrove, the LNP campaign will implode, and he’ll have a finger pointed at him.
I live in Brisbane, and Gambaro is beatable (in part because she is one of the laziest members of federal parliament), but the way to go is a local candidate prepared to do the hard yards on the street, not a high flyer.
If Labor loses, Bligh will bow out, perhaps remain in Parliament, but Andrew Fraser will lead state Labor, *if* he holds his seat.
Do you think that resentment towards the sacking of KRudd is likely to be a factor in whether people who voted ALP in 2009 switch to the LNP this time around?
Ah, the old State of Origin effect.
Only in Queensland.