By David Crowe
Queensland voters have booted Labor out of power with an energetic kick that should worry Anthony Albanese and his federal colleagues when they put their own behinds on the line in an election within six months.
The Labor spin about a good state campaign will be forgotten within days when the federal government digests the emphatic victory for the Liberal National Party, which has a clear majority. A few smart tactics do not mean much if you lose.
The LNP election party explodes with energy after Saturday’s majority victory.Credit: William Davis
But everyone knows that projecting federal numbers on state results is a fool’s errand when history shows that Queenslanders can easily install one side in power in Brisbane and sweep another to victory in Canberra.
Peter Dutton will clearly want to make gains in Queensland, and the Resolve Political Monitor, published each month in this masthead, shows the opposition leader has a big personal lead in his home state.
Even so, this state election highlighted two factors that should worry Dutton and his allies in the federal election. And it revealed two other factors that could easily cause trouble for Dutton.
First, the Liberals made a mess of the campaign when they let abortion become part of the debate. The LNP leader, David Crisafulli, said he had no plans to change the law. At the same time, he could not stamp out the idea of a conscience vote led by his conservative colleagues. This helped Labor.
Queensland premier-elect David Crisafulli, with his Liberal National Party deputy Jarrod Bleijie, at Parliament House on Sunday.Credit: Cameron Atfield
In an extraordinary moment last week, the same problem flared for Dutton when Coalition senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said she wanted a debate on late-term abortions. Colleagues such as Liberal deputy leader Sussan Ley and Liberal senator Jane Hume tried to move fast to shut this down, but this is now a source of division for Dutton and his party room.
This was, incidentally, a moment to consider the influence of Nampijinpa Price. She is a treated like a hero in the conservative media but showed poor discipline a few months out from the election. Will she be an asset or a liability in the federal campaign?
Second, the Liberals gain no vindication for their nuclear energy idea. Crisafulli said he would not change state law to allow a Dutton government to build nuclear power plants. Nobody in the federal Coalition can point to the Queensland outcome as an endorsement for nuclear – in fact, the state debate highlights the potential for a sharp Labor scare campaign on the idea.
The third factor is more nuanced. The Greens have suffered a serious rebuff in Queensland. It is rational to see this as a rejection of the party’s hard-left agenda among voters who think its primary purpose is to protect the environment. This buoys Labor in the federal seats it needs to hold against the Greens or win back from the Greens.
This is complicated, however, by the fact that the weak outcome for the Greens can also help Dutton. The LNP has a very strong chance of regaining the federal seat of Ryan, which it lost to the Greens in 2022.
The fourth factor is the big difference between rural and city results in the state polling booths. While it is true the LNP trounced Labor in state seats such as Mackay and Rockhampton, this is only of academic interest for Albanese and his colleagues when they have very little hope of making federal gains in those areas.
The more important point is that Labor did better in Brisbane: it suffered a big swing in the city but appears to be holding its seats. This is where Albanese needs to do best in the federal campaign.
This is complicated – that word again – because a federal swing to the LNP of the same size as the state swing would cause untold grief for Albanese in the Brisbane seats.
Albanese is under far more stress than Dutton at this point of the federal cycle. He is the one in charge during the cost of living crunch.
But this is a perfect point in time to check the assumption that Dutton is gaining miraculous momentum. In fact, he has no significant economic plan. He wants tougher laws for supermarkets and thinks people should dip into their super to pay for housing but offers no major solutions on the cost of living. His tax plan is a mystery, his nuclear pitch is vague. The debate about what he stands for has hardly begun.
Dutton wants to delay being tested. He is rarely willing to face a press conference in Canberra and prefers media interviews that stroke his ego, so he is not placed under much pressure to answer questions.
The campaign only gets real when people know what he offers. Claiming reflected glory from the Queensland result will not help Dutton. It will be the federal campaign that counts.
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