I’m the underdog: Palaszczuk
Annastacia Palaszczuk rules out forming a minority government with crossbench support as she says she’s the underdog.
Annastacia Palaszczuk has ruled out forming a minority government with crossbench support as she declared herself the underdog at the October 31 Queensland election.
As the Premier prepared to dissolve parliament on Tuesday to begin a 3½-week campaign, her LNP opponent Deb Frecklington visited the New Acland coal mine on the Darling Downs, signalling that the opposition would seek to stoke resentment in regional communities over Labor’s mixed messages on coal.
Ms Frecklington announced the LNP would put Labor last on how-to-vote cards in every seat, sparking Labor accusations the LNP had done a deal with One Nation and the Greens to ensure more crossbenchers would be elected, allowing Ms Frecklington to cobble together a “Frankenstein minority government” after the election.
Some Labor strategists fear the move would make it difficult for Labor to win, given the ALP’s low primary vote (down to 35 per cent at the 2017 state poll).
The Opposition Leader also ruled out doing deals with minor parties to form government in the event of a hung parliament.
In 2017, One Nation preferenced against sitting MPs — helping to deliver heartland Brisbane suburban seats of Mansfield, Aspley and Mount Ommaney from the LNP to Labor.
This time, Pauline Hanson’s minor party is taking a different tactic, and giving voters a “split ticket” that allows them to decide which major party to back.
Ms Palaszczuk, seeking a third term, holds power with just a two-seat majority in the 93-seat parliament including seven seats in regional Queensland with a margin of 4 per cent or less. The Premier predicted the campaign would be “very tough”.
“We’re the underdogs, we’re behind in the polls,” she said, announcing a defence aircraft deal with Boeing, at its factory west of Brisbane. “It’s been very personal and very nasty in the past few months.”
A new YouGov poll of 2000 Queensland voters, published in The Courier-Mail, shows Labor’s primary vote has jumped from 35.4 per cent at the 2017 state election to 37 per cent, putting the ALP neck and neck with the LNP.
The YouGov poll’s two-party-preferred result gave Labor an election-winning lead of 52 per cent to the LNP’s 48 per cent — a wider margin than the 51.1-48.8 result in 2017.
But a breakdown of the poll shows support for the government is patchy across the state, with a rise in support for the LNP in the critical regions, where One Nation’s vote is collapsing, and a bounce in the Greens’ vote in Brisbane. If Ms Palaszczuk wins a third term, it would cement Labor’s hold on power in Queensland for 30 out of 35 years. If Ms Frecklington’s LNP manages to defeat her, it would deliver all three levels of government in the state to the conservatives.
As the formal campaign kicks off, history is in the making: this election will be the first fought by two women major party leaders, and for greater spoils than ever before in a fixed four-year term.
The LNP, which holds 38 seats, needs a net gain of nine to win majority government.
An LNP insider said YouGov’s statewide two-party-preferred result did not reflect the opposition’s internal polling of marginal seats. “Our polling shows that we are doing well in the seats that matter,” the insider said.
Ms Frecklington said the decision to put Labor last did not mean there had been deals done with minor parties.
“There will be no deals,” the LNP leader said. “It does not mean anything to do with the minor parties. It is the LNP who believes it should be ‘just vote one’.”
Published polls and strategists from both sides of politics have consistently said a hung parliament is possible, if not likely.
Ms Palaszczuk on Monday declared she wouldn’t do any deals, despite breaking the same promise in 2015 to form minority government with the help of independent Peter Wellington.
“I can absolutely rule out: no deals,” the Premier said.
“If we are going to continue our path to economic recovery, if we’re going to continue our strong health response, I’m asking Queenslanders for a majority government.”
During the 2015 campaign, when she was opposition leader, Ms Palaszczuk said: “Let me make it very clear: no, no, no, no deals. Next question”.
On Monday, Ms Palaszczuk said she would not form minority government with independent MP for Noosa Sandy Bolton — who she met for coffee in Tewantin in late July — or the Greens.
“I’m the leader of this party, and this government, and I’ll make the decisions … minority governments don’t work.”
Ms Palaszczuk led a minority government in 2015, after her unexpected defeat of one-term LNP premier Campbell Newman.
In the event of a hung parliament, Robbie Katter, leader of Katter’s Australian Party and the scion of regional Queensland’s most enduring political dynasty, is in the box seat to hold the balance of power, commanding three of the seven current crossbench votes.
In an interview with The Australian, he said he was willing to negotiate with both sides of politics in the event of a hung parliament, but the price of power was ambitious demands for regional Queensland, including a state-funded rail line to open up the burgeoning Galilee coal province.
He wants part of the $5bn Queensland Future Fund — established by former Treasurer Jackie Trad to pay down debt — quarantined to build infrastructure in north Queensland and run by an independent corporation.
And he wants the “weak” 4 per cent ethanol mandate — negotiated by the minor party with Ms Palaszczuk’s first-term minority government in 2017 — raised to an enforced 10 per cent.
Mr Katter will also call for the building of more dams, including Hells Gate dam north of Charters Towers, and the Hughenden Irrigation project.
Indian mining conglomerate Adani is already building a spur to connect to the existing Aurizon rail line in the Galilee Basin, to connect its nascent Carmichael coal mine with the Abbot Point port.
But Mr Katter wants the future government to build a separate, state-owned rail line to supercharge development in the province.
Bankrolled by the gun lobby and in favour of north Queensland eventually splitting into its own state, Mr Katter said it was “hard to entertain the thought” of backing Labor to form minority government, but it would be “lunacy” to rule it out.
“What you’re offering to the public — in the chance there is a hung parliament — is you’ll negotiate something that’ll deliver for rural and regional Queensland,” he said.
“If you show your hand before you get to the dealing table, you’re pretty stupid. It’s vital we don’t rule anything out.”
More Coverage
Oasis announce Australian shows
The band will headline a stadium show in Melbourne on October 31, then Sydney on November 7.
Burke mulls cancelling visa of academic who called Oct 7 ‘a celebration’
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke is considering the visa status of a US-based academic who attended Monday’s Hizb ut-Tahrir-associated rally in Sydney, praising the Houthi rebels and saying Hamas's attacks were a day of 'growth' for Palestinians.