Queensland election: Credibility gap widens as three caught failing to toe party line

Labor MP Brittany Lauga’s backers say ‘put the LNP last’.

Annastacia Palaszczuk has revelled in demonising the Liberal National Party and Deb Frecklington for doing the political equivalent of a deal with the devil.

The Premier and her Labor colleagues, especially attack-dog deputy Steven Miles, have not missed an opportunity to slap down the LNP for telling voters to preference Pauline Hanson’s One Nation ahead of Labor.

If you listen to Miles, the LNP’s plan will ensure “freaks and weirdo” crossbenchers will be elected, with One Nation the worst of the lot. Palaszczuk warns it’ll lead to “chaos and disaster”.

But Palaszczuk, for all her piety, has a problem: she has been insisting Labor is putting One Nat­ion last on how-to-vote cards in all Queensland’s 93 electorates.

That might be true on the official documents but on the ground in marginal regional seats, Labor is telling a different story. In those seats, it needs One Nation voters’ preferences, despite what the Premier says.

CFMEU-backed Labor candidate Mike Brunker in Burdekin is defying Palaszczuk’s instructions and telling his supporters on social media to “put (LNP MP) Dale Last last”. In 2017, Last narrowly edged out Brunker in the coal-and-cane electorate with preferences from One Nation, which recorded ­nearly one-third of the primary vote. Burdekin is a key target seat for Labor.

In Keppel, where Labor MP Brittany Lauga beat the One Nat­ion candidate 53-47 two-party-preferred in 2017 and now hangs on by just 3.14 per cent, her supporters are lining up corflutes of her smiling face next to “put the LNP last” signs.

Further north in Barron River, minister Craig Crawford’s (1.86 per cent) backers are running a similar tactic. Crawford got across the line with the help of One Nation preferences in 2017.

In 2017, Palaszczuk condoned a Queensland Council of Unions campaign telling voters to put the LNP last. She appears to be doing the same this time. One candidate caught out shirking the Premier’s instructions could be believed as the actions of a “rogue”; three, including a minister and assistant minister, looks like a campaign.

Palaszczuk is asking voters to believe she will “read the riot act” to these MPs and candidates for stepping out of line. Really?

It’s akin to both Palaszczuk and Frecklington expecting Queenslanders to accept the frankly ludicrous assertion that neither would accept the support of crossbenchers to form minority government if they found themselves in that position after October 31. That’s not only constitutionally impossible, it’s politically unbelievable.

In the 2015 campaign, Palas­zczuk swore she would never do a deal on minority government. Weeks later, she happily accepted independent Peter Wellington’s backing and did just that.

Voters take note: the government has a track record of saying one thing and doing another.