Queensland election: Hanson’s pick if ALP comes up short

Former premier Campbell Newman.

The 2017 Queensland election is shaping as one of the most interesting in living memory but also the most difficult to call for many years.

In the coming weeks my Sky News Australia colleague Peter Beattie and I will seek to interpret, particularly for interstate readers, the unique nature of a Queensland campaign.

Yes, indeed, Queensland is different.

LIVE: Follow the Queensland election in our daily campaign blog

The reason that this election result is so difficult to predict is that there has been not one or two, but a multitude of factors that change the competition from what we have seen in the past.

First, there has been an expansion in the number of seats, from 89 to 93.

Along with this change there are, of course, some significant changes to the electoral boundaries.

Then there is the re-emergence of Pauline Hanson and her One Nation party, particularly in regional Queensland and northern parts of the state.

This has seen One Nation peeling members and voters away from the Liberal National Party, but also posing a threat to Labor in a number of areas.

While the ALP primary vote is only a touch lower from the last election at 37 per cent, the LNP’s has dropped from 41.3 per cent to 34 per cent, according to the most recent polls.

Now, ordinarily, you would say this would spell disaster for the LNP, but I need then to bring in a fourth change: the reintroduction, by the ALP, of compulsory preferential voting.

The thought behind this was that it was a clever move to defend against a “Just Vote 1” strategy by the LNP and ensure that Labor captured the Greens votes.

Unfortunately for Labor, it gave up a huge advantage as LNP votes have subsequently been hoovered away by the rebirth of Hanson.

This means the allocation of preferences will be critically important, on a seat-by-seat basis, to the eventual outcome.

Meanwhile, the state’s two-speed, perhaps three-speed, economy has meant that while Brisbane and the southeast corner of the state are doing relatively well, there is significant economic hardship in the regional cities.

Consequently, statewide polling figures are very misleading and do not give any indication of the strong One Nation support in places such as Townsville, Bundaberg, Maryborough and even the outer-ring suburbs of Brisbane.

Local factors give every indication that both Labor and LNP will lose seats in such areas — at this stage though it’s too early to make a call on how Malcolm Roberts will do for One Nation in Ipswich.

Well, put all these ingredients into the Mixmaster, give them 60 seconds on high speed, and what does it mean?

I don’t know for sure but I can tell you this: the ALP and the LNP have a battle to hold seats in regional Queensland.

Polling for Hanson is very strong in the regions and there have been stories around of a primary vote of 39 per cent for One Nation in Thuringowa in Townsville.

You have to conclude that both parties are going to lose seats.

The ALP will fight hard and effectively to sandbag seats in inner- and middle-suburban Brisbane and could even make some gains with two to three seats on the Gold Coast.

With the primary vote where it is, the LNP has to get One Nation preferences flowing to it to retain the seats that it already has.

Tim Nicholls is under significant pressure on this issue.

The final factor is the turmoil of the federal Coalition — Barnaby Joyce has his own election battle, the Prime Minister is unlikely to be of assistance and the Liberal/ National Party brands are in trouble.

At any rate, events in Canberra this past week certainly didn’t help the state opposition and would have given Palaszczuk hope.

So, in conclusion, it’s going to be a confused and unsettling picture that can only lead to a narrow ALP victory or a hung parliament with Hanson’s people deciding who will form government.

In the end, and it may sound like a truism, the result will come down to how well the LNP deals with the formidable campaigning skills of Queensland Labor and its decisions on preference arrangements with One Nation.

Campbell Newman was the premier of Queensland for the Liberal National Party from 2012 to 2015.

Watch Beattie and Newman on Sky News.