Malcolm Turnbull, George Brandis seem determined to lose next federal election

CAN Malcolm Turnbull really be that stupid? And I don’t mean the practical stupidity we see so often from “very clever people”, but actual, you know, basic, stupid stupidity? Apparently, yes, writes Terry McCrann.

CAN Malcolm Turnbull really be that stupid? And I don’t mean the practical stupidity we see so often from “very clever people”, but actual, you know, basic, stupid stupidity?

Apparently, yes.

Now this is not just another all too easy and all too frequent exercise in commentary abuse, but how else is one to interpret his response to the Queensland election result?

Broadly, and I obviously paraphrase: I am absolutely determined to lose the next federal election in Queensland, and I won’t waste a single minute in every day until the federal poll to achieve my ambition.

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For his response was, and again I paraphrase: to all you Pauline Hanson voters, I sympathise with the fact that you are all morons, so next time please vote for me. And I’ll be telling you every day till polling day.

Unstated: I really, really want to lose at least a dozen seats in Queensland alone.

Yesterday, the PM set about gratuitously lecturing One Nation voters in Queensland that they had played into the hands of their political enemies, because, you know, they are sunshine state hicks.

“When we come to the federal election, we will be making that point very, very strongly.

“If you want to have a Coalition government, then you should vote for the Coalition,” he thundered.

Earth to that part of the universe in which the PM resides: does he have the slightest understanding that people are voting for Pauline Hanson — and they are voting for Pauline Hanson the person, not some disembodied political party — because they are pissed off, absolutely and thoroughly pissed off, with the Liberal and National parties, and the Liberal Party of YOU, Malcolm Turnbull in particular?

Malcolm Turnbull gratuitously lectured One Nation voters in Queensland.

Pompously lecturing them that they are, first, just too dumb in not sticking with the Coalition; and then, secondly, incapable of understanding that when they give their second preferences to Labor they are not, well, helping the Coalition, is NOT the way to win back “lost friends” and influence the people you have to, in order not to lose a dozen seats off the top in Queensland?

It doesn’t help that you have someone who is even dumber as your main Queensland adviser: Attorney-General George Brandis who — fresh from his outstanding performance in the High Court over the citizenship fiasco — went out of his way to say yesterday, that it was “poison” to “flirt” with One Nation, and Pauline Hanson’s party had “nothing to offer Queensland”.

Perhaps not Senator, but what it has to offer the Coalition is votes and seats.

Brandis is clearly “arithmetically challenged”.

On Saturday the Coalition got less than 34 per cent of the statewide vote. Hanson got a little under 14 per cent.

It is all but impossible for a party to win enough seats with only 34 per cent of first preferences.

It is utterly impossible to win them with less than 50 per cent AFTER preferences.

Presumably Brandis as a senator doesn’t understand that.

ON behalf of his Lower House colleagues, Brandis has told Hanson to take her 14 per cent — actually, probably closer to 20 per cent — and to stick it.

And we have a PM who seems to think that’s inspired. Turnbull and Brandis might as well sew signs on the backs of every suit they have: Don’t vote for me, I’m a complete dolt.

Why do I say closer to 20 per cent?

The result has been broadly hailed by the media and the political class as a “failure” and indeed an outright “disaster” for Hanson — certainly, fuelled by Hanson’s own exaggerated expectations of seats to be won.

The media should look at the actual numbers. It should also try understanding the preferential voting system.

For starters, the 13.7 per cent (with 75 per cent counted) her party got statewide was nearly 50 per cent more votes than the Greens’ 9.7 per cent.

Further, Hanson got those votes in only 61 seats. The Greens stood candidates in all 93 seats. In simple terms, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation averaged more than 20 per cent in the seats in which it stood candidates, double the Greens’ average vote.

Indeed, it got 20 per cent or more of the vote in six out of every 10 seats it contested. In seven seats it got close to one third of the vote. In only two did it poll less than 10 per cent. In only three where it went head to head was it outpolled by the Greens.

It didn’t win seats because it didn’t get preferences. But it gave preferences and seats to others and in the federal poll they will be utterly determinative.

George Brandis says it is “poison” to “flirt” with One Nation

Now, a major reason why it didn’t stand candidates in those other seats was that it would not have polled as well; but it is very clear that if it had stood candidates in those seats — a third of the state’s total — it would have recorded a statewide vote approaching 20 per cent.

For a party which has gone from a standing start and rests entirely on the shoulders of one person, that is extraordinary and unique, but for the same result in 1998.

The election actually showed that Hanson has without contradiction the strongest individual political brand in the country, and indeed it has lasted for over 20 years through thick and a lot of thin.

Would anyone doubt that the overwhelming majority of people who voted for her party last Saturday were voting for her, as they did in the last WA state election, even though in both cases she wasn’t a candidate?

The only similar situation is Nick Xenophon in SA. But SA, frankly, does not matter in a federal election; Queensland does.

As I warned in July, the next election would be won or — with Turnbull continuing as PM — lost in Queensland.

In effect Turnbull announced to One Nation and to the entire nation yesterday: I am totally committed to making it so; that, I promise you.

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