Nervous Nats eye the elephant in the ballot box

The N in LNP — the Nationals — will provide Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls with a very big problem. Picture: AAP

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will pull the trigger for a state election very soon. The favoured date for the poll is November 18. Whether it is that day or another, it is upon us — so it is reasonable to look at what might happen. It will be extremely difficult to come to a correct conclusion because there are so many unknowns. The presence of a very large elephant in the room, One Nation, prevents anyone from making a prediction about the ­result with confidence.

Standard opinion polls do not necessarily provide accurate ­assessments of how One Nation is progressing. A statewide poll will not have enough voters in areas such as Townsville, Rockhampton, Bundaberg et al to make separate regional conclusions. Yet that is precisely what is required in this election. One Nation will do poorly in the southeast. In Brisbane and the Gold Coast, Pauline Hanson is a non-event.

The Queensland leader of One Nation, Steve Dickson, holds a Sunshine Coast seat he won as an LNP member. Just how voters will react to his defection is anyone’s guess but in this LNP stronghold his fate will tell us a great deal about One Nation’s chances.

The N in LNP — the Nationals — will provide Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls with a very big problem if One Nation is able to garner enough seats to be kingmakers. The loathing of One Nation is ­obvious if you talk to any country member of the Nationals. It presents a clear and present danger to the existence of the Nationals in Queensland and across the nation. To become partners with them when relations are as rotten as they most certainly are is to invite instability and open division.

One Nation will not get into double figures in its Brisbane ­result, and will rely on the regions to pick up enough seats to become more than a nuisance. It will want to be in government.

Nicholls has so far failed to strike a sympathetic note with the voting public. The last poll I saw has them on a historically low mark of 30 per cent. There is no hope of a LNP majority. Just where their preferences end up will be critical in deciding the outcome of this election.

If the LNP opts to preference One Nation, a hung parliament is almost a certainty. There will be quite a few three-cornered contests in the bush and in cases where One Nation finishes in front of the Liberals, LNP preferences decide the outcome. Many a Nationals hand would be shaking when they vote if that is the direction in which the LNP heads.

In the Watermark restaurant on Townsville’s Strand last week, Pauline Hanson visited with Malcolm Roberts, James Ashby and Steve Dickson. Roberts put a One Nation cap on me and took a photo. It was a lighthearted ­moment that the usual trolls took up on Twitter to suggest I had changed sides. Had the trolls been there, they would have noticed that Hanson herself did not pop over for a chat. She has a deep ­resentment towards me because of all I have written and said about her. A couple of years ago she walked into the restaurant and was mobbed. That did not happen this time and maybe that is a harbinger of what is to come.

Labor will rely on the personal popularity of the Premier. The mob like her and see her as hard-working and honest. She will be hard to beat but I lack the courage to call the result at this point.