Labor failed to heed warning bells in Queensland

I am by nature wildly sociable but election nights are different. For me, the worst possible outcome is the ABC’s chief election analyst Antony Green being drowned out by amateur pundits and drinking games. I want to be left to watch the numbers.

By 8pm on election night, those scrutineering for the ALP already knew Labor would not win. I went to bed just before 10, filled with grief and loss. Australians had believed the endless polls and assumed the Liberal Party’s only path was to defeat.

But there were some polls which told a different story, the internal polls of both parties. The Liberal Party learned Dave Sharma would win the seat of Wentworth from their internal polling. And the Labor Party knew it was in deep trouble in Queensland.

In March, internal ALP polling showed our northern state had begun to turn against the party. It was just after the passing of the Medevac bill, designed to expedite the passage of sick refugees and asylum seekers to Australia for urgent medical care. The government, of course, played on the concerns of so many Australians, that this bill would be a risk to national security. It doesn’t matter whether those who live in the southern capitals agree – this touched a nerve with Queenslanders, a state where the ALP needed to hold not fold. The polls recovered – but not to their former highs. When they slumped again, party strategists thought it was just noise. That noise turned out to be the sound of Queenslanders' support crumbling. Depending on what happens in Lilley, the Coalition will either have the same support it had when John Howard was prime minister or pick up one more.

I can imagine thinking those polls were wrong. In 2015, Queenslanders famously took a punt on Annastacia Palaszczuk and her teeny tiny party when no one predicted it could win (assisted by public servant sacker Campbell Newman). Queenslanders voted for a Labor second term two years later with an increased majority. These voters are not conservatives, climate deniers or racists. It doesn’t help to say Queensland should be towed out to sea. Maybe we forgot that to sell a big vision for the future, you must persuade people to come with you, reassure them that it is possible to replace mining with sustainable industries and safe jobs; that the process will be slow and steady. Inner-city voters support climate action because they can afford to. Those in rural and regional Australia fear climate action will destroy their livelihoods.

Professor of employment relations at Griffith University and distinguished visiting fellow at City University of New York David Peetz watched the election campaign unfold from abroad. He doesn’t believe franking credits had any impact in the key seats (although I’d argue Longman has a truckload of retirees now). Instead, it was the tension between high carbon and low carbon industries which must replace them.

“The hardest thing to do is to deal with the losses of jobs and incomes – it’s the just transition debate,” he says. And it doesn’t help that where we stand now, the market will decide where the low carbon industries will be based. “You can’t leave it to the market to plan economic development.”

Campaigning to those affected requires listening as well as talking. There’s the famous story of physician and epidemiologist Hans Rosling’s visit to the Congo to collect blood, when he was confronted by men wielding machetes, convinced he was using the blood for some nefarious purpose. But he started to talk and eventually the machetes were laid aside. He later said: “You can do anything as long as you talk with people and listen to people and talk with the intelligentsia of the community.”

There wasn’t much talking on Sunday morning where I live in a safe Labor seat, held by the woman I had hoped would eventually become leader. I’ll directly benefit from the election of the Morrison government. Franking credits. Tax cuts. All to my personal good. But the democracy I seek is one which brings everyone along and so I’m gutted because that is not what the Liberal Party plans to do. There are individuals who’ve made comments which have made me optimistic: Arthur Sinodinos agrees that the rate of Newstart should be raised; Josh Frydenberg is at least a believer in climate change and the need to stem its progress; Kelly O’Dwyer made some final changes to ParentsNext that made me think she understood its problems. But I fear the remaining two parliamentarians of that trio won’t be able to drive change. They will support those who "have a go to get a go" but some among us can’t do that.

The voters of Queensland turned against Labor.Credit: Michelle Smith

For so many of us, these have been prosperous times where we could afford to share. Instead, that’s no longer in our future. We've lost the possibility of a kinder, fairer Australia. It's easy to be bitter in the face of defeat and to lack generosity to each other. In the immortal words of Chumbawamba, we need to get up again.

Jenna Price is an academic at UTS and a Herald columnist.