Saving the political furniture

OTTAWA–Wandering in the warm winter sun through Brisbane this past July, change was in the air. The city that I left just shy of a decade ago is now home to new skyscrapers that dwarfed the once-prominent features of the skyline. Two new pedestrian bridges jutted from the peninsula on which the downtown sits across the snaking Brisbane River. Roadwork signs promised new bus and rail projects. All pointed to signs of a place to be, a swelling city preparing for the international attention the 2032 Olympic Games would bring. But that same change, that restlessness was also in the air beneath the glass towers in Queensland’s sandstone Parliament House where the incumbent Labor government was bracing for what all polling indicated was a thumping defeat after nine years in office. The pressures of inflation, population growth, and limited housing supply, coupled with fears of a–largely debunked–youth crime crisis, have left Queenslanders feeling none too happy about the status quo. A near 18-per-cent swing from the government in a March byelection indicated that the centre-right Liberal National Party (LNP) under former minister David Crisafulli could sleepwalk into office with a small-target strategy. Polling released after that byelection showed Labor with a 23 per cent primary vote, and a 41.5 per cent two-party-preferred vote–like most other Australian jurisdictions, Queensland has a preferential voting system–against the LNP. So it was no surprise as, clasping a coffee early on Oct. 26 Ottawa time, I watched blue-shirted figures celebrating and downing beers on television as a conservative party celebrated its second election victory in the state in 35 years. What was surprising, however, was that the thrashing anticipated for months never really came for Labor. It was a decisive loss, yes, but that night/morning, it was unclear whether the LNP would win the 47 seats necessary for majority government. At the time of writing, the party is on track to win 52 seats, compared to Labor’s 35–roughly flipping the parties’ pre-election positions. So, yes, Labor lost power as expected, but it managed to save the furniture instead of succumbing to an electoral bludgeoning. Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The city and state has been struggling with cost of living issues since the COVID-19 pandemic. The Hill Times photograph by Stephen Jeffery So how did this happen, and are there any lessons for another nine-year-old, centre-left government facing an expected wipeout as constituents struggle with the cost of living? For Labor, the answer seemed to be in doubling down on a big government, big spending agenda, helped along by an effective scare campaign that their opponents would wind back abortion laws. Sound familiar? Of course, to state the bleeding obvious, Queensland is not Canada. Indeed, the state is impossible to define or compare without making somebody angry–the population of British Columbia spread across an area slightly smaller than Nunavut, with the natural resource dependency of Alberta, and cultural exceptionalism of Quebec. Queensland is also unfairly characterized elsewhere in Australia as a “Deep North” conservative bastion. Part of that is due to being the most decentralized state, and part is from long memories of “hillbilly dictator” premier Joh Bjelke Petersen, whose National Party ruled the state for decades with the help of a rural-favouring gerrymander. But it’s more complicated than that. As mentioned, Labor has been in power for all but five of the last 35 years–the 1989 election being the last under the “Bjelkemander”–but the party holds only five of the state’s 30 federal seats. The state is the birthplace of both Labor and the xenophobic, far-right One Nation party; the second-last state to decriminalize homosexuality, but the first to introduce same-sex civil unions; a place that declared a state of emergency to protect apartheid South Africa’s touring rugby union team, but that also elected Australia’s only communist member of parliament. Governing such a decentralized state requires balancing these contradictions. For Labor, it means pushing outside its base of Brisbane and a smattering of union-heavy industrial cities along the coast. For the LNP, it’s about cutting beyond its rural, regional, and Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast strongholds into Brisbane’s suburbs. Labor has proven capable of threading that needle more often. Their dominance was thought to be at an end in 2012, however, when the party went from 51 seats in the 89-seat Legislative Assembly to just seven. The Honda Odyssey-sized caucus elected one of its most senior surviving members–former transport minister Annastacia Palaszczuk–as leader, and hunkered down for what was expected to be a long stint in opposition. What Labor did not count on was on being returned to office just one election cycle later. Emboldened by its 78 seats and making up for lost time, the LNP under premier Campbell Newman embarked on a series of public sector cuts and fights with the judiciary that lost the party many friends. When the time came for the 2015 state election, in which the LNP ran on a promise to sell state assets, Queenslanders decided to relieve the party of government, and Newman of his seat. Palaszczuk and Labor found themselves with 44 seats, one shy of a majority, but enough to govern in minority. The party converted the minority into a majority in 2017, partly thanks to reviving the spectre of Newman against the LNP. That majority increased at the 2020 election, due in part to the government’s controversial–but locally popular–COVID-19 lockdown measures. Back to 2024. Newman was long gone–so, too, were the border closures and movement restrictions. Palaszczuk was also no longer on the scene, having retired in December 2023. She was replaced by Steven Miles who was given just under a year to prove his bona fides and distance himself from an unpopular predecessor. Prior to the campaign, the Miles government went on a spend-a-thon, introducing 50-cent fares across Queensland’s public transport network, provided $1,000 electricity rebates for households, and announced $3.1-billion with a 22-year plan to build one million new homes. Once the campaign started, Labor promised a free school lunches program, and to open 12 state-owned gas stations. But it was not their promises that necessarily narrowed the gap alone, but a good old scare campaign against their opponents, raising the dreaded “A” word with the help of a conservative minor party. Abortion was only decriminalized in Queensland in 2018. But shortly after the election campaign began, Robbie Katter, state leader of the outback and north Queensland-based Katter’s Australian Party, said he would introduce a private member’s bill to repeal the law. Katter later softened his language, proposing only a partial windback of the laws, but Labor could already smell blood. Miles, who was health minister when abortion was decriminalized, sought to highlight the difference between himself and Crisafulli, who voted against the law. Crisafulli repeatedly said it had “no plans” to change the laws, but was more coy as to whether he would allow his caucus a conscience vote on Katter’s private member’s bill. That uncertainty was enough to keep the issue alive, dominating leaders’ debates and journalists’ questions. By the end of the campaign, Miles was leading Crisafulli as preferred premier, and was seen as the winner of the leaders’ debates. Based on the election results, the party appeared to stave off LNP challenges on most of its Brisbane seats, particularly the inner city, cosmopolitan areas that trend more socially progressive than the rest of the state, but have elected Liberal National members in the past. But do not let that get in the way of the most important point–Labor still lost. They lost long-held seats in industrial centres, and they have been shut out of decision-making in Australia’s third most populated state for the next four years. Facing annihilation, the party was only left bloodied out on the street. But is such a “defeat with honour” enough for supporters who spent their weekends door-knocking, to donors providing what they could during a cost of living crisis? Accepting one's fate or going down fighting–either way, it's still a defeat. Stephen Jeffery is a deputy editor of The Hill Times and studied journalism and political science at the University of Queensland. The Hill Times

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