Editor’s View: Labor and LNP must end their race to the bottom

Just months out from the state election, it’s an indictment on both major parties appears that neither seem likely to rustle up the required number of votes to form a majority government, writes The Editor.

JUST over four years ago, a majority of Queenslanders voted to lengthen the terms of state parliamentarians.

It was the first referendum to pass in the Sunshine State since 1910 when 74,228 voters backed a push for principals to hold regular Bible lessons in state schools during class time.

In exchange for an extra year in office, Queenslanders were lured by the arguments about fixed election dates and greater political stability leading to better public administration.

Support for the change stretched across the political divide with Queensland Council of Unions secretary Ros McLennan saying “Queensland workers want more government and less politics” and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland expressing the view that “a three-year term is not sufficient time to allow the State Government to facilitate good economic planning”.

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The Courier-Mail also supported the shift because Queenslanders weren’t even getting three-year terms because of governments that called early elections to suit their political imperatives.

However, just months out from an election that will herald the start of our state’s first four-year term, the political stability that Queenslanders voted for appears like a pipe dream.

Our latest YouGov poll indicates neither of the major parties appears likely to rustle up the required number of votes to form a majority government.

That might mean for the next four years Queensland is ruled by a minority Labor government supported by Greens and independents or a minority LNP government beholden to Katter’s Australian Party and One Nation.

In the history of Queensland, there probably wouldn’t have been a worse time to have a minority government than the term to come.

In the wake of the coronavirus crisis and because of the damage it has done to our economy, Queensland will desperately need a government that is stable, one that governs for the many and not one that is beholden to the outlandish whims of a few.

LNP Leader Deb Frecklington may be forced to form a minority government with One Nation and the Katter’s Australian Party. Picture: Glenn Hampson

It would be unfair to categorise all minority governments as ghoulish incarnations of democracy that are incapable of delivering sound decisions in concert with their crossbench.

And when forced to compromise, sometimes minority governments resist the ideological flights of fancy that the major parties indulge in.

Having a big backbench also doesn’t guarantee good government either, as Queenslanders know only too well.

However, this is the next four years we are talking about, a time that will either set our state on a course for a bright future or put us in such a hole that it will take a generation to dig us out.

We are going to need a government that will make the big calls, not one living in constant fear of toppling over because it is beholden to a few populists.

The fact it has been over four years since either Labor or the LNP has scored more than 40 per cent of the primary vote in any of our polling is an indictment on them.

Queenslanders gave them more time in their jobs to ensure stability.

Now it’s their responsibility to stop trying to establish themselves as the “least worst” option and come up with proper policy platforms that appeal to the majority of people.