Who’s who in Qld’s fierce Senate fight and how it is likely to play out

Amid the intrigue of the looming federal election outcome is the often more drawn-out Senate contest. In Queensland, voters are faced with a crowded field — particularly on the conservative side of the ballot.

With six of the 12 seats up for grabs in a half-senate poll, Labor (after winning only one in 2019) and the Liberal National Party are expected to see the return of two seats each. But beyond these, the likely result gets more difficult to predict.

Senator Pauline Hanson is widely expected to return to the upper house, alongside One Nation colleague Malcolm Roberts, amid a fierce contest for Queensland’s six Senate seats up for grabs in 2022.Credit: Matt Dennien

The field is skewed to the right of the political spectrum, and features well-known identities including One Nation figurehead Pauline Hanson — vying for another six-year term — alongside mining magnate and former federal MP Clive Palmer, and past premier Campbell Newman.

Here’s a look at the state of play before results start rolling in from Saturday night.

How the Senate vote works

It’s worth a quick sidebar to recap how the slightly more-complex federal upper house vote count operates.

Unlike in the House of Representatives, where voters are electing a single candidate in each electorate, the half-Senate elections which usually occur alongside lower house polls place six of the state’s 12 Senate seats up for election.

To win one of these seats under the partial preferential system, a party or candidate must get enough to fill quotas — a proportion of the electorate’s votes based on the number of available seats).

This can either be done in their own right from first preference votes above or below the line, or through the complicated flow of voter-directed preferences (see the above graphic) which can sometimes take days to work through.

Who is running

Let’s start with the major parties, who generally take the lions share of senate spots. This election, Coalition government senators James McGrath, Matt Canavan and Amanda Stoker are all up for re-election.

McGrath and Canavan, who has been outspoken against COVID restrictions and Coalition net-zero commitments, both sit on the backbenches after stints as assistant or cabinet ministers. Stoker, a rising star in the party’s religious right and serving assistant minister — who fronted an anti-abortion rally this month — lost a hard-fought preselection race against McGrath last year.

For Labor, sitting upper house members Murray Watt and Anthony Chisholm are both vying for their place again. Watt is a former state MP and now shadow cabinet member, Chisholm a former party state secretary.

While the major parties are running six senate candidates each, some who have courted controversy, those not already sitting (often further down the grouped “ticket” on ballot papers) are unlikely to see success for reasons we will get to later.

Further to the left, the Greens have placed Gladstone-based public school teacher Penny Allman-Payne at the top of its Senate ticket, followed by Caloundra veterinarian Anna Sri and former Brisbane lord-mayoral candidate and Stop Adani figure Ben Pennings.

There are also offerings from the Animal Justice Party, Socialist Alliance, Legalise Cannabis Australia and Federal ICAC Now. The Australian Democrats, a force in the 1990s, will run two candidates. Anti-Chinese Communist Party activist Drew Pavlou is also seeking to swap the University of Queensland student senate for its Canberra counterpart.

On the right, beyond the LNP, the field is crowded. Hanson, Palmer and Newman are all running multiple candidates for their respective One Nation, United Australia and Liberal Democrats parties. (Including former LNP lower house member George Christensen, in One Nation’s largely unwinnable third place).

Other contenders include The Great Australian Party, former One Nation members Steve Dickson and Rebecca Lloyd now running as independents, special forces veteran Heston Russell and his Australian Values Party, along with the anti-vaccination Informed Medical Options Party.

What is the likely outcome?

After Labor managed to gain only one Queensland Senate seat in the 2019 election, the party is expected to see both Watt and Chisholm returned — particularly if there is a swing Labor’s way. The Greens are also widely tipped to gain a seat as they have at the past three national polls.

The LNP had three senators elected in 2019, two (Susan McDonald and Paul Scarr) on primary votes and the third (Gerard Rennick) after preferences. Though with such a crowded field on the right, the sixth seat is expected to be a fierce contest.

Several political analysts who spoke to this masthead expect Hanson to get another term over Stoker, with Palmer and Newman less likely — though still possible — options. Hanson has the name recognition and history in Queensland, more so than the more divisive Palmer, amid a dissatisfaction with major parties.

“That sixth spot is between Amanda Stoker, who has the ability to man all the booths [through the state-dominant LNP]; Palmer, who can fund a name and brand recognition of ‘freedom, freedom, freedom’; and Hanson, who is a well established brand name since 1998,” said former state Labor minister John Mickel, now a politics lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology.

“My hunch is Hanson will take the sixth spot, just through name recognition.”

Jacqueline Maley cuts through the noise of the federal election campaign with news, views and expert analysis. Sign up to our Australia Votes 2022 newsletter here.