Queensland election 2017: Tim Nicholls happy to work with crossbenchers to form government
LNP Leader Tim Nicholls has given his strongest indication yet that he would be happy to form government with One Nation.
QLD Votes
Don't miss out on the headlines from QLD Votes. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Nicholls hands Palaszczuk a win
- Gun lobby pushing One Nation return
- You are the weakest link ... goodbye
- Premier’s mileage makes the difference
LNP Leader Tim Nicholls has given his strongest indication yet that he would be happy to form Government with One Nation.
Speaking in Charleville this morning, Mr Nicholls admitted he could have “done better” during last nights Sky News/Courier Mail People’s Forum, saying he struggled to get some parts of his message across after he attracted the support of just 12 per cent of the crowd.
Mr Nicholls today attacked Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, saying he “wouldn’t pull the wool over peoples eyes” by saying he would refuse to form government with the crossbench.
“The reality is, we are the servant of the people and we have to accept the will of the people and I have said we will work with the parliament that the people of Queensland provide,” he said.
“I think it would be the height of arrogance to hold a gun to the people of Queenslands head as Annastacia Palaszczuk has said and say I wont respect your views. I will and I will work with whatever the people of Queensland of provide.
“I am happy to work with whoever is there — it’s not just One Nation, there are potentially many other people depending on how the vote goes. We have got the Katter Party who are already there and there are a plethora of independents, we have something like 460 candidates in this election.
“I think the job of the leader of any party is to say we will respect the views of the people of Queensland, not simply to arrogantly dismiss it.”
The former treasurer also changed his position on debt after he was tripped up by the issue last night, today saying he would si
mply lower expenses to stop the figure reaching over $81 billion as projected.
“We will go for a fiscal balance meaning we will manage our expenses and manage our revenues so that we earn more than we spend,” he said.
“I can certainly make it very clear that under the LNP debt will be less than Labor’s current $81.16 billion.
“I was trying to say that last night, perhaps I didn’t get it across as clearly as I should have.”
When asked about his poor performance at the People’s Forum, Mr Nicholls said he had taken the advice and “copped the result on the chin.”
“We always are happy to have the feedback, we got that feedback, sometimes you don’t like it but you have to be able to cop it on the chin and get out there and develop the policies that are actually going to address some of those issues,” he said.
JOHN HOWARD: GREENS ARE ‘REAL EXTREMISTS’
FORMER prime minister John Howard has waded into the Queensland election campaign and lashed Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk over her mixed messages about the Adani coal mine.
Mr Howard also branded the Greens the “real extremists” of Australian politics and urged the LNP to challenge One Nation on economic policies.
The Liberal Party elder statesman visited LNP incumbent Tarnya Smith in her Brisbane electorate of Mount Ommaney today.
Mr Howard said it was not a good idea to support someone like Ms Palaszczuk, who he said didn’t appear to know where she stood on such a “fundamentally important” issue like Adani’s Carmichael coal mine.
“The first requirement of effective leadership in politics, whether you’re Labor or Liberal or National Party or LNP or whatever, is to know what you believe in and where you stand,” he said.
“The problem Annastacia Palaszczuk has is that I don’t know where she stands on the Adani mine.”
Mr Howard said the Premier’s views had changed based on where she was in Queensland.
“In one part of the state she’s for it, in another part of the state she’s sort of against it and in another part of the state (she’s) right against it,” he said.
“Now that is unimpressive irrespective of what your politics are.”
The premier has come under fire during the election campaign over her handling of the Adani issue after she vowed to veto a $1 billion federal taxpayer-funded loan to the mining giant.
She initially said the decision was to avoid the perception of a conflict of interest following revelations her partner Shaun Drabsch worked on the loan application with employer PricewaterhouseCoopers.
But Ms Palaszczuk later said it was to meet a 2015 election commitment.
Mr Howard said it would be challenging for the LNP to win the election and he backed the party’s preference arrangements for the Greens and One Nation.
“I think the LNP are absolutely right to put the Greens last,” Mr Howard said.
“In my view the Greens are the real extremists of Australian politics, whether it’s in Queensland, NSW or anywhere. My starting proposition would be you’d put the Greens last. Now I think what (LNP leader) Tim Nicholls has had to say about One Nation preferences and so forth is spot on, and I support what he says.”
Mr Howard, who was Prime Minister during One Nation’s high water mark in the late 1990s, said the party had “plenty of rhetorical phrases on social and cultural issues” but struggled on mainstream economic issues.
“I think it’s incumbent on the public to analyse the policies of One Nation as they would the policies of the LNP and the Labor Party and ask questions such as will One Nation policies contribute to more jobs, will One Nation policies be better than other policies in relation to economic growth,” he said.
“I’ve found in the past that whenever One Nation was analysed on what I call mainstream economic issues it fell short and it got into difficulty.”
BEMUSED PREMIER FOCUSES ON HER OWN
PREMIER Annastacia Palaszczuk has been hit with a barrage of questions from local media after turning up in Toowoomba during an LNP campaign launch.
Ms Palaszczuk touched down on this afternoon to join her Toowoomba North candidate and former attorney-general Kerry Shine and Toowoomba South candidate Susan Krause to inspect a new data hub and a quarry that will be turned into a garden.
But fiery local media hit her up about the timing, with her trip coinciding with Toowoomba North MP Trevor Watts’s local launch, where Federal Resources Minister Matt Canavan was in attendance.
Mr Watts had accused her of planning her trip to draw local media away from his event and said it showed she was nervous about Labor’s chances.
A bemused Ms Palaszczuk said she has no knowledge of Mr Watts’s diary.
“I’m travelling right across Queensland, we’re in the middle of an election campaign,” she said.
“I didn’t even know he was having a campaign launch.”
While there, the Premier pledged $45,000 to fund a trip to Vancouver Island in Canada for the Friends of the Quarry Gardens to inspect the Butchart Gardens.
The Canadian gardens are built on the site of a former limestone quarry and are the inspiration behind a project to transform Toowoomba’s disused Bridge Street quarry.
NEW RAIL STATIONS ANNOUNCED
THREE new rail stations would be built for Gold Coast commuters under Labor’s Cross River Rail plan, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced.
Visiting the Robina rail station this morning, Ms Palaszczuk said $3 million had been set aside to plan and design the new stations at Pimpama, Helensvale North and Worongarry/Merrimac from next year.
But construction won’t begin until 2021, ahead of first services on Cross River Rail from 2023.
Ms Palaszczuk said each station would cost up to $40 million each and funding would need to be set aside in future Budgets.
The promise comes as Labor attempts to win over the Gold Coast seats of Gaven, Coomera and Theodore, which are all currently held by the LNP.
It also follows multiple promises by the LNP to relieve traffic on the M1 by building a “second M1” and fixing off-ramps to prevent queuing on the freeway.
“These three new stations will mean more Gold Coast residents can benefit from the 3150 extra peak hour seats on the Gold Coast line under Cross River Rail, helping to take pressure off the M1 as well,” the Premier said.
“Better public transport is critical for the Gold Coast, with the population expected to grow by an extra 350,000 residents over the next 25 years — taking the population to almost 1 million people.”
Deputy Premier Jackie Trad, who made a rare appearance on the campaign trail for the announcement, said neither the Cross River Rail, nor the extra stations would go ahead under an LNP Nicholls Government.
PREMIER CALLS FOR HELP TO FIGHT ‘SCARY’ ONE NATION
ANNASTACIA Palaszczuk has emailed supporters asking them to contribute $5 to help her stop the “scary” rise of One Nation.
“The polls are showing that Hanson’s One Nation might hold the balance of power in the next Queensland government if we don’t stop them,” Ms Palaszczuk’s email states.
“This is scary stuff.
“So can you contribute $5 today and help us get the resources we need to reach key voters across the state?
“We know where this election will be won or lost, and we know who we need to talk to. But we need your support to reach them before voters go to the polls.
“Unlike the LNP who can rely on their big business mates, we’re running a grassroots campaign supported by everyday people like you.”
ONE NATION: MAJOR PARTIES WILL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO GOVERN
One Nation has scoffed at the Queensland premier’s claim she’d rather send Labor into opposition than work with Pauline Hanson’s party to govern the state.
The party’s Queensland leader Steve Dickson says Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and her LNP rival Tim Nicholls will do whatever it takes to form government.
“You know, and I know, and the people of Queensland know that both Tim Nicholls and Annastacia Palaszczuk would drag themselves over broken glass to sit in charge of the Queensland government,” Mr Dickson has told ABC radio.
He said the Premier promised no deals before the last election, but went on to do exactly that by accepting the support of independent Speaker Peter Wellington, and granting the Katter party concessions in return for supply and confidence.
“She said she wouldn’t do a deal with anybody before the last election, and she did at the last election,” Mr Dickson said.
He made the comments after he and the Labor and LNP leaders participated in a forum of 100 undecided voters, with the Premier declared the winner after convincing 60 per cent of them to vote for her.
Just 12 per cent said they’d support Mr Nicholls, with 10 per cent backing Mr Dickson and 18 per cent remaining undecided.
The Premier told the audience she would stand on her principles and there was no way she’d ever do a deal with One Nation if there was a hung parliament because the party would bring chaos and confusion to Queensland.
“And if that means going into opposition, we’ll go into opposition,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
Mr Nicholls drew howls from the audience when he failed to say if he’d work with One Nation if the party ended up holding the balance of power.
“We will deal with the parliament and the elected representatives the people of Queensland put forward,” he told voters.
Deputy Premier Jackie Trad on Friday said voters could trust Ms Palaszczuk’s no-deals pledge, and downplayed what happened after the last election.
“What Annastacia did is she entered into an arrangement with Peter Wellington ... who came to the premier and said he wanted to provide stability to the people of Queensland going forwards,” Ms Trad told the ABC.
She said Mr Wellington had sought Labor’s support for reasonable issues that were important to Queensland.
“The things that One Nation are on about are not things that we are prepared to deal with them on.”
PLANE TROUBLE GROUNDS MEDIA ON POLL TRAIL
TRANSPORT trouble has again plagued the Queensland election campaign, this time with a plane due to take media following the premier to Toowoomba breaking down. Annastacia Palaszczuk will still make an appearance in Toowoomba North on Friday afternoon, with the government jet still functional, but the charter plane due to take media has a flat tire and can’t take off.
It follows Pauline Hanson’s campaign bus breaking down during the second week of the campaign, and an unsavoury smell causing trouble for journalists travelling on the LNP’s bus in Townsville earlier this week.
‘LITTLE HEART’ FROM FORUM WIN
PREMIER Annastacia Palaszczuk says she takes “a little heart” from her win at the Sky News/ The Courier-Mail’s people’s forum last night.
But she said she took nothing for granted.
“Of course I take a little heart, however, this election is going to be about a clear choice.
“Now, what I’m offering the people of this state is good, decent government.”
Again ruling out any arrangement with One Nation, the Greens or any other crossbench members, she said she would rather go to Opposition than govern with any other parties.
She said the alternative was a government of chaos under LNP Leader Tim Nicholls and a One Nation crossbench.
‘We need a Barnaby of the North’
A LNP MP has slammed his own party for failing to take advantage of Labor’s struggles in regional Queensland ahead of its imminent election loss.
Labor not rushing to declare victory
QUEENSLAND Labor says it’s waiting on the final results of the state election before declaring victory, as the electoral commission urges patience.