One Senate seat marks gloomy Labor outlook in Queensland

The Labor Party faces its worst upper house result in Queensland since 1949, likely to win just one Senate seat.

Labor Senate candidate Nita Green.

Labor is on track to secure a sole Senate seat in Queensland, delivering a major blow to the party and its worst upper-house result in the key battleground state since 1949.

A failure to win two upper-house seats in the Sunshine State would reflect Labor’s poor showing in the House of Representatives, where the party is predicted to win just six of 30 Queensland electorates — a net loss of two.

Labor MPs said the same issues in lower-house seats in the state — equivocation over the Adani coalmine and an ambitious policy agenda that included contentious changes to negative gearing and dividend imputation credits — were at play in the Senat­e.

The Coalition meanwhile is on track to pick up three Senate seats in every state and in a best-case scenario could control 35 votes in the upper house, meaning it would need the support of just four crossbenchers to pass legislation. This would significantly bolster Scott Morrison’s power in the Senate.

Labor has won two seats in every half-Senate election in Queensland since Australia ­adopted proportional represent­ation in 1949.

As of late yesterday, the Liberal National Party was expected to pick up three seats, while Labor, the Greens and One Nation were on track to win one each.

Nita Green is No 1 on Labor’s Queensland Senate ticket while incumbent senator Chris Ketter, first elected in 2013, is No 2 and would miss out.

“We’re definitely concerned. The new voting system makes it a bit harder to predict. (Mr Ketter) may fall short,” Labor sources said. “It’ll be a couple of weeks until we know (the final Senate results).”

In the 45th parliament the Coalit­ion had 30 senators and had to wrangle a crossbench that at one stage grew to 12 independents.

If Nationals candidate Perin Davey, No 3 on the Coalition’s NSW Senate ticket, is elected, it would be the first time the party had six female MPs in federal parliamen­t. Nationals sources were “feeling good but not certain” about Ms Davey’s chances.

The new crossbench is likely to include One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and fellow Queensland colleague Malcolm Roberts, ­Centre Alliance senators Stirling Griff and Rex Patrick, former Tasmanian­ senator Jacqui Lambie and the Australian Conservatives’ Cory Bernardi. The Turnbull government introduced controversial Senate voting reforms before the 2016 double-dissolution election that abolished group voting tickets­, making it harder for independent candidates to get elected on the back of preferences.

All seats are due to be declared on or before June 28, with Senate seats to be finalised after those in the House of Representatives.

Labor traditionally wins at least two Senate seats in each state but in 2013 it picked up only one in South Australia and in Western Australia because of competition from the Nick Xenophon Team and Palmer United Party.