Before the formal election campaign starts when Parliament is dissolved on February 19, I’m going to keep people updated with a series of Queensland election roundups. The big question, of course, is how politicised things get before the campaign kicks off.
Premier Anna Bligh is touting the announcement of the election date as something of an experiment in fixed terms, suggesting that she will be in government mode until the campaign begins. Naturally, though, she hopes to benefit from a scenario where she can continue to set government policy. She’s wrong-footed the LNP already, with Campbell Newman tying himself in knots trying to explain why the date of March 24 is now some sort of political calculation, while he himself had repeatedly been calling for the poll to take place on that day. Similarly, his attempt to argue that Bligh was misusing government resources backfired when it was revealed that Jeff Seeney had written to the Premier asking for $305 000 in funding.
LNP Leader Newman has spent most of the last week on the defensive, fending off claims that he would seek to take back the Mayoralty of Brisbane from Graham Quirk if he is unsuccessful in Ashgrove, and reports of further divisions in LNP ranks as rural backbencher and former Minister Vaughan Johnson nominated himself and Lawrence Springborg as Cabinet Ministers.
Meanwhile, polling shows slight movement in Labor’s favour, and Anna Bligh gaining on Campbell Newman, but still points to a very comfortable LNP victory. Newman’s rhetoric, warning that folks should not vote for local ALP members who they think are good members, suggests that the LNP might be having trouble piling up the votes in the right seats, and I’d venture a guess that the swing back to the ALP is stronger in Brisbane than elsewhere. Similarly, reports that the LNP is hoping to ensure itself two terms by ‘decapitating’ Labor and running hard in promising Ministers’ and MP’s seats have the whiff of hubris about them.
Conversely, the meme that the LNP may lose Ashgrove and win the election, leading to uncertainty about who would lead a government, has already raised its head.
This really is the LNP’s problem. Everyone expects them to win, so the focus is squarely on them and not on the Bligh government. Anna Bligh’s delay of the caretaker period will be designed to maximise that contrast, and the LNP is playing into her hands with reports of its own internal shenanigans dominating press coverage over the last few days.
As Mark earlier pointed out, there is often significant volatility during campaigns in Queensland. In the lead up to the 2009 state election, for instance, Labor first lost 4 points, but then swung back a point in the last week to eke out a narrow victory. If the trend in favour of the ALP continues, and the government recovers by 3 or 4 points, we might see a real contest. That would have the LNP on a primary of 45 or 46, and the ALP on 36 or 37. That’s before we factor in any possible loss of LNP votes to Katter’s Australian Party, and I would not be surprised if the preference flow from The Greens to the ALP is better than usual under OPV as Greens voters confront the reality of an LNP government.
So the LNP’s status as frontrunner is a millstone around its neck, I’d suggest.
NB: Antony Green’s ABC Queensland Election page is now up, and his post on the battle for Ashgrove well worth a read.
All LP coverage of the Queensland election can be accessed here.
Not a single post (until now). What if they held an election and nobody came?
Indeed! I meant to add that I think that people don’t really engage with state elections til the last couple of weeks!
Newman’s carping about the election announcement will do him no favours, IMO. He can’t complain the government is outstaying its mandate, and has in fact been demanding that the government call an election for months. The stuff he’s been spouting about caretaker conventions is just hot air both intellectually and electorally. It makes him sound like a whinger. At any event, caretaker conventions are about an outgoing administration fettering an incoming government with new financial commitments and appointments. Bligh is entirely within her rights to implement measures announced in the 2011-12 budget. The idea that government should be paralysed for an additional month is preposterous and insisting that it be so will attract not one voter to the Newman cause.
Meanwhile, I note that the Gladstone fisherfolk are taking the government to court over the extraordinary coincidence of mass fish deaths and dredging the harbour to allow LNG vessels access. This and some other resource-related environmental issues will be prominent in the campaign in the absence of significant areas of policy difference between the Bligh ALP and the Newman LNP on promoting rapid growth in extractive industries. Those fisherfolk and the demise of their livelihoods will make good media. Expect the likes of Katter and Messenger to play it up. I’m not aware that Liz Cunningham has taken a position as local member – she could lose support whichever way she jumps on this one, and sitting on the fence is not going to be an option for her.
AFAIK, primarily they are about ensuring that the executive remains accountable to parliament by limiting what the executive can do during a period when there is no parliament. In this case parliament is continuing to operate until Feb 19th so there is no breach of the conventions, however unusual it might be.
Personally I find it hard to see how Labor can win. The further Health Department scandal must have been damaging, both of itself and as a reminder of previous scandals.
Antony Green effectively disposes of the argument that the LNP might win power but lose Ashgrove. The swing needed for the LNP will give Newman a win too. Friends in NQ say that the LNP has done itself few favours there by selecting poor or compromised local candidates. This may assist Bob Katter’s party to win a few seats. However I think the best case outcome for Labor will be a minority LNP – Australian Party government. I can’t imagine Katter would side with Labor.
“What if they held an election and nobody came?”
There’s a great novel called “Seeing” by the Portuguese Nobel laureate Jose Saramago, with exactly this premise.
@5 Socrates I don’t think Anthony Green actually says what you claim. He says that a statewide swing of 4.6% will deliver government to the LNP but Newman will need 7.1% to win Ashgrove. The further argument in that article is merely hypothesising that Newman will win if he continues to poll over 50% of the first preference votes. I don’t think its valid to suggest a win for Newman on the basis of results in the last Federal election.