Queensland Premier Rob Borbidge has called an early election for June 13. It was not due until February next year. It is possible that he wanted to get it out of the way before the federal election which is due before March next year. Mr Borbidge does not want the Queensland waters muddied with Federal issues. Queensland voters, however, are perfectly capable of separating state and federal issues.
Nonetheless, one of the most significant elements of the election will be a national issue: the performance of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party in its first electoral test. The Liberal Party has disgracefully given One Nation preferences over the Labor Party in some electorates. The National Party leader, Rob Borbidge, has attempted to woo One Nation voters by appealing for their preferences and saying that gun laws would be tighter under Labor than the Nationals. It indicates he has been pandering to the far right. The National Party, especially in Queensland, has more to fear from One Nation than Labor. For a start, One Nation appears to be getting more support from disaffected National voters than disaffected Labor voters — these are people who want to loosest gun laws and the most anti-Aboriginal and anti-multiculturalism stand available. It gets worse for the National Party. Under Queensland’s optional preferential system, voters need not number all the way down the ballot to record a valid vote. They can just put a 1 beside the One Nation candidate and walk away. Such a vote would be one less for the National Party and would help Labor.
One Nation is standing in about 50 of the 89 seats. It optimistically says it can gain 13. It is unlikely to get any, but if it does, the blame can be put on the Coalition for not putting it last on the how-to-vote card. The real test, though, is not whether it gets a seat, but the percentage of vote it attracts. If it gets above 6 per cent average in the seats it stands in, it means it would get a Senate seat easily in a Federal double dissolution, and have an outside chance at a half Senate election. A better result would be to see it without any voice in any Australian Parliament after the Queensland and Federal elections.
As for the tussle between the Coalition and Labor, it seems the race will be very close. At present, they hold an equal number of seats with the balance held by Independent Liz Cunningham who has supported the Coalition. Opinion polls have put the two major parties neck and neck, but up to 20 per cent of voters say they will vote for minor parties and independents.
Labor Opposition Leader Peter Beattie has set an unemployment target at 5 per cent. It is a foolish target because the Queensland unemployment rate can only marginally be affected the Queensland Government policies. National and international factors are far more important. For the same reasons Mr Borbidge was just as silly in saying that his government had reduced unemployment. Mr Beattie’s claim that a Labor government would be “”obsessive about delivering jobs and job security”, as opposed to the increasing unemployment levels predicted by the Budget brought down by Treasurer Joan Sheldon has to be tempered with the knowledge that a state government cannot do a great deal about it.
Mr Borbidge pledge that he would run a financially responsible campaign and would not attempt to woo voters with expensive election promises will have to be tested during the campaign. Indeed, given the closeness of the polls and the position in the present parliament, the campaign will determine who wins government. It means the temptation will always be there to promise too much. It also means that things may get desperate.
Mr Beattie, commendably, has said he will fight the campaign on the major issues of jobs, health, education and law and order, and only sink to mudslinging if his opponents start doing so. Mr Borbidge has not been able to resist. He has made jibes at Labor over allegations of electoral fraud in the Townsville-based seat of Thuringowa which have forced Labor candidate Karen Ehrman to quit and be replaced as candidate by the sitting Labor member Ken McElligott who had hoped to retire.
Mr Borbidge has now resurrected the ghosts of the past: the horrible corruption and abuse of power of the National Party’s Bjelke-Petersen years and the sex and expenses scandal that claimed the scalps of three of his ministers earlier this year.
The Borbidge record has not been especially illustrious. The departure of those ministers and his fights over the independence of the Criminal Justice Commission should make many voters wonder whether the National Party learnt any lessons from the Fitzgerald inquiry.
Mr Borbidge would have been better off just sitting on his Budget laurels, inviting the voters to make the choice between Labor and his tax cuts, record outlays in capital works, health, law and order and education as well as more police, teachers and health-care workers.
No doubt it will be a presidential campaign, pitting Mr Borbidge against Mr Beattie, because the talent on the front benches of both parties is so lacking that there is no choice. It is regrettable that the two main protagonists are so poor because it means that One Nation, in its inaugural electoral outing, will get the best conditions it could imagine and may get a chance to get some electoral momentum. In another state, with higher calibre teams being presented by the major parties, One Nation might have been consigned to electoral oblivion.
It is imperative that Mr Borbidge and Mr Beattie make the most of the next 26 days to present so well that One Nation does not get a chance.