Result in Longman to shine light on Shorten’s future

When the amber is flashing you know it is time to slow down and take stock of the situation in which you find yourself.

When the amber is flashing you know it is time to slow down and take stock of the situation in which you find yourself.

That fickle orange is flashing for Malcolm Turnbull, Bill Shorten and Pauline Hanson in Queensland, and on July 28 we will all discover who read the warnings first and did something about them.

Today’s state-by-state analysis by Newspoll confirms the problems that all parties face in Queensland.

The government is climbing slowly in Queensland despite its own failings.

Through no efforts of its own, the slow, brutal unravelling of One Nation is giving the government some hope.

A drop of six points in a year for One Nation in Queensland, its birthplace and formerly its heartland, down to 10 per cent, represents a fall from grace.

Running a party headlined by your own name without a proper functioning administration has proven to be beyond Hanson’s capacity.

If you dare to disagree with her she simply chucks you out of the party of which she is the 100 per cent owner.

Brian Burston recently discovered this when he tried to honour a deal made by Hanson that she had decided to abandon. Her penchant for changing her mind on big issues has made her look clumsy, inept and untrustworthy. Trying to bend to every breeze is destined to break her.

You can bet that if One Nation is polling 10 per cent overall that, given its original rural base, in a seat like Longman it is likely to be less.

I would venture to think that if a chunk of Hanson’s supporters have gone back home to the Coalition then those who are left are unlikely to follow a how-to-vote that says the Liberals should get their preference.

Shorten needs the amber light to refuse to change to red. His ratings are just plain awful in Queensland and appear to be worsening by the minute.

Whether it is fair — and politics is not known for its forgiveness and compassion — Shorten will cop the blame for any Labor loss in Longman.

No government has been able to take a seat off the opposition in a hundred years so two losses in one day will be very difficult to explain away as some mere statistical blip.

His leadership will come under immediate scrutiny if Longman falls and he knows his neck is probably on the line.

What happens to Turnbull if he can’t win Longman?

You will note no one even mentions Braddon in dispatches because its loss to the Liberals is assumed.

With his primary vote boosted by One Nation’s decline and with Shorten’s unpopularity rising, he is in a position where an unlikely win could become a reality. If the Liberals can’t win Longman, his personal failure to cut through should put his neck on the line. It won’t though because within the Liberals partyroom there is too much division and not enough courage.

It is hard to see how Labor won’t win the next general election if it does win Longman. This seat is so representative of what Labor has to conquer, that its significance should not be overlooked.