Queensland seats impacted by Adani will be key in May poll
The front trenches in the looming federal election campaign will likely centre on five key Queensland electorates all impacted by the Adani Coal Mine, writes Michael Madigan.
Opinion
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THE battle for the Queensland regions will be fought on many fronts, but the front trenches in the looming federal election campaign will likely centre on five key electorates all impacted by the Adani Coal Mine.
And Barnaby Joyce, former deputy Prime Minister and still the Coalition’s best recognised regional face, will be front and centre of the fight.
Joyce, who launched his political career in Queensland, believes coal mining is central to the increasing polarisation of the Australian electorate, with the city voter having far less to lose than the regional Queenslander if projects like Adani don’t go ahead.
“This has become like bacon and eggs politics,’’ he says.
“For the chook in Melbourne, it might all just be a passing fancy.
“For the pig in regional Queensland — his arse is on the line.’’
The Mackay-based seat of Dawson represented by the LNP’s George Christensen and the Rockhampton-based seat of Capricornia owned by the LNP’s Michelle Landry are at the centre of the “coal election’’, with the Adani coal mine in the northern end of the Galilee Basin the most potent symbol of the clash.
At the northern flank is the Townsville-based seat of Herbert, taken from the LNP at the last election by Labor’s Cathy O’Toole, while to the south is Flynn represented by the LNP’s Ken O’Dowd and taking in the Central Highlands town of Emerald as well as the port city of Gladstone, and Biloela to the west of Gladstone.
Further south is Hinkler, represented by LNP MP Keith Pitt and taking in Bundaberg, Hervey Bay and Childers.
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Still heavily dependent on agriculture, Hinkler also relies on the resource sector for much of its wealth and, according to the former Labor Member Brian Courtice, is still very much a mining seat which will join in the coal election.
In fact Courtice, who lost the seat in 1996 after two terms, agrees with Canavan that the fight for the Queensland regions will be all about Adani, and believes his own party will suffer because of its increasingly Green tinge.
“It’s not so much a tale of two cities as the tale of two regions — city and country,’’ says Courtice. “To many voters north of Wide Bay, coal is king.’’
With the Federal Government last week giving approval to Adani’s two groundwater management plans the tick, the role of Commonwealth in the project is finalised, leaving the ball firmly in the court of the Queensland regulator to green light construction.
Yeppoon-based Senator Matt Canavan, the LNP’s emerging face of regional Australia, will be shoulder to shoulder with Joyce, building on the momentum created by Adani — a project he sees as symbolic of clashing opinions on the importance of nation building.
“We have people now literally engaging in political campaigns behind stop signs,’’ he says.
“They want to stop mining, stop logging, stop fishing, stop farming, stop everything.’’
Yet Canavan sees the passion for nation-building still burning in the hearts of ordinary Australians.
“And these are people not only in the regions — you go to Western Sydney and people want to see nation-building because they want people to have an option to live in other places outside our cities.’’
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The LNP’s challenge will be not merely to hold the four keys seats already in its hands, but to go on the offensive and take the marginal Townsville seat of Herbert back off Labor.
Canavan will have one wary eye on One Nation in the coming contest, and suspects the recent controversy surrounding One Nation representatives engaging with the American gun lobby and looking for donations may shake the confidence of some One Nation supporters.
But the chief adviser to One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, James Ashby, is looking gleefully at the result of the recent New South Wales election.
In the NSW contest last month the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidate Roy Butler wiped out the National Party MP Andrew Schier in the seat of Barwon in a crushing defeat which Ashby believes graphically highlights a growing reality — in the regions, the National Party is on the nose.
Ashby, one of the One Nation reps secretly filmed while engaging with what he believed were gun lobby representatives in the US, is confident his party will scoop up the votes of marginalised regional dwellers in Queensland — the most decentralised state in the nation.
And he believes One Nation has a rolled gold candidate in Capricornia, billing One Nation hopeful Wade Rothery as the only genuine, bona fide coal miner in the coal election.
Labor’s candidate, Russell Robertson, who drives heavy mining vehicles at the Goonyella mine west of Mackay, says he is also a coal miner and has always maintained he will support Adani if it meets all regulatory requirements.
Robertson, a third generation coal miner, late last week went on the record as supporting not only Adani but several other coal projects mooted for the central region.
But Ashby will exploit voter uncertainty about Labor’s equivocation on coal
Ashby also says One Nation will be vigorously encouraging voters to “own’’ their own preferences, and discard attempts by major parties to manipulate preferences with how-to-vote cards.
“We will be saying ‘own your own preferences’ this election,’’ he says in an echo of Pauline Hanson’s 25 year-long strategy of presenting herself as the “anti-politics politician’’.
“Throw away that how-to-vote-card and make up your own mind.’’
“We will just say, vote in a sequence of trust, just numbering down the ballot paper the candidates you trust most.’’
He argues One Nation’s presence in the Federal Parliament has been seen by voters as a positive, with Hanson using her power to good effect.
“We have supported good legislation and we have withheld our support on bad legislation,’’ he says.
In the regional areas of the state’s south the Inland Rail project between Melbourne and the Brisbane Port will play a role in campaigning in seats such as Maranoa and Groom.
On the fringes of the regional race will be Clive Palmer who has poured millions of dollars into an aggressive advertising campaign which has some of the tenor and subtle messaging of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign.
The wealthy mining magnate has fielded well over 100 candidates throughout the nation.
Katter’s Australian Party will attempt to exploit the win by KAP candidate Nick Dametto in the northern state seat of Hinchinbrook in the last state election by fielding a candidate in the neighbouring Federal seat of Herbert in the form of high school teacher, Nanette Radeck.
Further west, the veteran MP who heads the KAP, Bob Katter, will almost certainly hold the seat of sprawling north western seat Kennedy which he has now owned for more than one quarter of a century.
The wiley old veteran is also eyeing another bout of balance of power possibilities in Canberra if he can pick up another seat or two.
In the far north, Warren Entsch, who holds the seat of Leichhardt with a margin of more than 5 per cent, is also expected to stay put.
michael.madigan@news.com.au
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