The extraordinary thing about One Nation’s vote is that it has translated into parliamentary seats where the electoral system is single-member electorates.
Hitherto, minor parties have only made it to Houses where there this is proportional representation — mainly Upper Houses and in Tasmania and the ACT, aside from those who left major parties mid-term.
It makes One Nation a more powerful party than the Greens, the Democrats or the now-defunct Democratic Labor Party. They could only deal in preferences and bargains over legislation. One Nation has the stranglehold over government itself.
Its six to nine seats will be critical to National Party Premier Rob Borbidge. (It does not seem likely that Labor will get a majority.) Indeed, there might be more One Nation Party MPs propping up his Government than Liberals.
Prime Minister John Howard should welcome this. Indeed, he should be quietly hoping that One Nation is seen to be an active element of the new Borbidge Government.
The more active One Nation is in the new Queensland Government the more likely the people who voted for it will see its half dozen MPs as just another bunch of politicians.
It will take six to 12 months. They will inevitably get caught breaking some promise, double dealing or one or other of them will be caught doing something stupid or immoral. That is politics. The quicker it happens the better.
Time is on Howard’s side. Perhaps he’ll wait and have an ordinary election when it falls due next March. And the Nationals (who will have to rely on, shock, Labor preferences for many seats) must be now in such a state of shock that they will not worry about a double dissolution this year to get the Wik Bill through.
One Nation’s rise has been explained as disillusion with the major parties and the present nature of Australian politics. But the wild swings in the past five years first away from Labor and now away from the conservatives both nationally and in Queensland reveal more than that. The effects of globalisation, technology and restructuring have cause the disillusion. And they would happen whoever was in power, and whoever is in power is blamed for them.
It is perhaps fortunate that One Nation got more than a token one or two members, but must now play a crucial role in government-forming — and ultimately blame-taking.
One Nation is no longer one unaccountable MP whose simplistic, ignorant ideas are not put to the test.
That said, One Nation’s 22 percent vote was very much a Queensland phenomenon. Most of it came from the National Party. The National Party just has not got that much vote to steal in the rest of Australia.
Queensland is different demographically. It is more rural and regional. It has the lowest percentage of its population in the capital of all the states and territories. The changes wrought by globalisation, restructuring and technology have hit Queenslanders harder and they have less opportunity to recoup.
Nonetheless, One Nation is here to stay for a long time, but outside Queensland only in a small way. And whether Prime Minister John Howard calls a half-Senate or double-dissolution election is immaterial now as far as One Nation is concerned. A federal Senate seat in Queensland is in the bag. And perhaps one in Western Australia.
Like the Democrats and before them the DLP, One Nation is likely to get a minor (though sometimes critical) presence in the Senate.
Last night’s vote was more a zenith than a base for growth and momentum.
The danger is that the major parties, having both lost the middle ground, will now feel the need to more further to the right to appease the One Nation voters. Ultimately, though, good government (and keeping government) depends on keeping the centre.
Short of a complete failure of One Nation, the other major parties federally can be pleased that One Nation, hitherto with one MP with one uncontradicted set of simplistic solutions, has now has six or seven MPs to provide six or seven sets of inevitably contradicting simplistic solutions.
One Nation, without the discipline that comes from education and thought, will be undermined by its own success.