Will One Nation win any seats in the Queensland election on Saturday week?
The answer to that question will affect Australian politics profoundly for some time to come. If One Nation gets a seat or more it will give it (and its insidious views) an official platform for another three years.
One Nation’s presence in the national parliament, through Pauline Hanson, was an accident. She stood as a Liberal candidate, but was disendorsed just before the 1996 election after spouting her views that Aborigines are advantaged and that the country is being swamped by Asians. But the disendorsement was too late to take the party label LIBERAL off the ballot paper. Many Liberals voted for her in ignorance. But her winning gave her and her creation a base and momentum which otherwise would have had no significance.
A One Nation victory in any Queensland seat would be a victory in its own right. It, too, could create its momentum in the Senate election. People are more likely to vote for an entity with existing MPs. Indeed, there are some rough electoral parallels between the rise of the Australian Democrats and One Nation, even if their policies are poles apart. Both started with one MP shearing off from the Liberal Party. The Democrats then gained foothold in South Australia by winning a seat in the 1977 state election, just as One Nation hopes to win some Queensland seats. Then comes Senate representation and a fairly permanent significance in the Australian body politic. For One Nation, the election on Saturday week is critical. If it gets one or more seats it could get a foothold like the Democrats, if it fails to get a seat it will fall into oblivion. For the reasons outlined by former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser last week, that’s what I hope happens. But it may not.
Whether One Nation wins a seat has much to do with the voting system and the conduct of the election as anything else. Democracy lies as much in the method of counting of the votes as in the casting of them.
A critical point is that Queensland has optional preferential voting. Only NSW has this system. It means you can put just a 1 beside the candidate you want and not number any more squares. In other states and federally, you have to mark all the preferences through to cast a valid vote. (We’ll ignore the argument about a 1,2,2,2,2,2 vote being valid).
The optional preferential system gives more influence to One Nation than a full preferential system.
In Queensland, the instructions on the ballot paper are as follows:
“”Place the number one (“”1”) in the square opposite the candidate of your choice.
“”You may if you wish indicate your preference for additional candidates by numbering the other squares in your preferred order.”
At the last election in 1995, 20.1 per cent of Queensland voters put just a “”1” down and expressed no further preference. Only 3.9 per cent gave preferences for more than one but less than the lot and 76.1 gave full preferences.
An analysis of these votes by the Queensland Electoral Commission refers to these three types of vote as a “”plump”, “”partial” and “”full”, respectively. The “”plump” is especially descriptive. You plump for one candidate and forget the rest.
Queensland has only had this system for two elections. Its full impact is yet to be felt. The political parties have almost always issued how-to-vote-cards with full preferences on them. And the habit of federal elections is to express preferences for the full ballot paper. Even so, in the 1995 sate election, 20 per cent took the easy way and did a plump vote.
One Nation has decided not to give any preferences in its how-to-vote-card. The National Party has given One Nation preferences ahead of Labor in its how-to-vote cards in every electorate bar one. Labor has put One Nation last in its how-to-vote card in all electorates.
How is all this likely to affect the outcome?
One Nation can only win a seat where it gets ahead of either of the major parties on first preferences. Oddly enough, this is more likely in safe National or safe Labor seats than in marginal seats. Minor parties and independents typically win safe seats where the other major party is very weak and they can get ahead of it and then get its preferences to put them over the line.
Good examples are the safe state Labor seat of Gladstone in 1995 when a conservative One-Nation-minded independent, Liz Cunningham, got more votes than the National, and National preferences gave her the seat. In the federal sphere Independent Phil Cleary won the safe Labor seat of Wills and Independent Ted Mack won the safe Liberal seat of North Sydney.
The Queensland Electoral Commission’s analysis of the 1995 election shows some interesting patterns. The National Party has the most disciplined voters. Only 15.9 per cent of its voters did a plumb vote. 80.0 per cent followed the how-to-vote card. The rest gave partial preferences. That makes me think that in the odd safe Labor electorate where One Nation gets ahead of the Nationals, the Nationals’ preference (which closely follow the how-to-vote-card) will flow One Nation’s way and could put it ahead. If One Nation is to win any seats on Saturday week they will be what were hitherto safe Labor seats.
Premier Rob Borbidge says the fact the Nationals gave One Nation preferences was of no consequence because One Nation would not win any seats. This is twaddle. With Nationals’ disgraceful preference allocation One Nation can win seats if they get ahead of a National candidate; without the allocation they would have no hope.
The commission’s analysis showed that Labor voters were just a bit above average in deviating from the how-to-vote cards with 21.75 per cent. But that is still a strong flow. It means that if One Nation gets ahead of One Nation in strong National seats, Labor preferences will give the Nationals the seats.
But the significant commission finding was that in the one electorate where one party (the Greens) issued a how-to-vote card recommending a plump vote for the Greens (that is with no preferences), 38.2 per cent of their voters followed the instructions. Now, Green voters tend to be independent free-thinking people, yet a very large percentage were willing to vote Green 1 with no preferences. That makes me think that One Nation can do the Nationals a lot of damage. The sort of people who will vote One Nation (pro-gun, anti-Aborigine and anti-Asian) had hitherto been mostly National voters (there would be fewer red-neck former Labor people among them). So One Nation will take away National votes. And perhaps as many as half of them will follow the One Nation how-to-vote card and not give any preferences. In effect they will deny the Nationals quite a bit of vote, letting Labor win some very marginal seats that might otherwise have gone to the Nationals.
In short, the Queensland optional preferential system will help Labor over the National Party, perhaps to the extent of three or four seats. But overall, tight National preferences will help One Nation, perhaps to the extent of one to four seats.
Last election 31 of the 89 seats ran to preferences. This time it is likely to be more, so preferences will be decisively important.
Opinion polls at the weekend show that One Nation has a chance of getting ahead of one or other of the major parties in between one and five seats. Where it gets ahead of Labor, it will not win the seat. Where it gets ahead of National it will win the seat, if earlier patterns are any guide.
Borbidge was right when he said the preference arrange was to ensure Labor’s defeat, because Labor loses under it, but he was wrong to say One Nation could not benefit from it. If One Nation wins a seat it will be because of his preference arrangement. And victory for One Nation is just one seat. One mouthpiece.