Suddenly Kristina Keneally’s performance doesn’t look so bad. What happened to Labor in Queensland on Saturday is without any precedent in Australian history – certainly not since the Second World War, prior to which the party system tended to be more fluid. Labor can be assured of only six seats, holds the lead in only seven, and on the best case scenario will win only eight, for a total of 9% of the Legislative Assembly’s 89 seats. That compares with the “cricket team” of 11 members that Queensland Labor famously managed to return in 1974, at what was previously the gold standard for Australian election massacres – and at that time the parliament only had 82 seats. As for Keneally, she managed to win 20 seats in a chamber of 93, albeit that she did so with 24.0% of the primary vote against a provisional 26.6% for Anna Bligh.
I don’t normally presume to tell the voting public its business, but this is an unhappy state of affairs. While it might be argued that a useful example has been set for future governments considering breaking election commitments, the result is an unmitigated disaster so far as the effective functioning of parliament is concerned. Lacking anything that could meaningfully be described as an opposition, its sessions will henceforth resemble those of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The problem is exacerbated by Queensland’s lack of an upper house, both as a venue for holding the government to account and for providing Labor with a second-eleven to fill out a shadow ministry. The precise dimensions of the problem can be detailed with reference to an online cheat sheet for British high school politics students, which tells us that parliament has five functions: legislature, representation, recruitment, scrutiny and legitimacy. I shall consider the first three in turn, while also shedding light on the last two along the way.
It might be argued that the Queensland parliament’s legislative functioning will be little worse than usual: so long as a disciplined party has a majority of whatever size, a unicameral parliament exists largely to do the bidding of the executive. However, the result will hamper the vitality of the committee system, which offers the public and interested parties a point of access to the legislative process, and helps iron out problems in legislation to the extent that doing so doesn’t tread on the toes of cabinet and the forces to which it responds. Each of the parliament’s 10 current committees have three non-government members from a total of six (seven in the case of the Committee of the Legislative Assembly), requiring 30 non-government members to maintain the existing state of affairs. Since the election appears to have only turned up 11 non-government members, it is clear that these committees will be dominated by the government, tending to make them both less vigorous and less representative.
This brings me to the second function of parliament, which is the one that presumes to make the system democratic: representation. While nothing should be taken away from the immense achievement of the LNP on Saturday, it has still not on present numbers cracked 50% of the statewide vote (although late counting may tip it over the line). However, such is the system in Queensland that it has emerged with very few fetters upon its power. This is not a situation Queenslanders tend to lament. The public is very easily persuaded that good government can be equated to “strong” and “decisive” leadership, rather than apparent abstractions like accountability and consensus. Media players are eager to fortify this view, knowing that systems which concentrate power are most responsive the pressures brought to bear by powerful interests. It tends not to register that such issues lay at the root of the abuses of the Bjelke-Petersen era – for which, incidentally, Queensland voters were far more forgiving than they were for Labor’s failings on Saturday. Opponents of reform may argue that such abuses are best addressed by extra-parliamentary accountability mechanisms such as corruption commissions, ombudsmen and auditors-general, but none of these is a substitute for parliament’s role as the expression of the sovereignty of the people. For as long as it plays this role, democratic principles demand that it be chosen by a system which produces representative outcomes.
There is plainly no clamour for these issues to be resolved by restoring the upper house, which Queensland abolished in 1922. The obvious alternative is to replace the single-member constituency system, which is increasingly a peculiarity of the English-speaking world, with proportional representation. Such a system in its purest form would have given Labor 24 seats, a suitably humiliating total that would nonetheless have left it enough personnel to credibly perform the job of opposition. An Australian public schooled in the notion that power should be wielded singularly and authoritatively would no doubt complain about minority government and the empowerment of marginal groupings, which we are told has had such a disastrous impact in Canberra over the past 18 months. However, there are ways in which such impacts could be limited. One that is very familiar from Australian practice involves dividing the state into regions represented by, to pick a fairly conservative total, five members each. On the basis of Saturday’s results, this would have had the LNP winning three or even four seats in each of the state’s regions, giving it a substantial working majority without entirely demolishing Labor.
There is another possibility which, although foreign to Australian practice, would put to rest any complaint about minority or coalition government. This would be to introduce a directly elected executive along American lines, balanced by a proportionally represented legislature. Such a system would do away with the anachronistic notion that those wishing to hold executive office should have to pay their dues through a lengthy parliamentary career. The limitations of this model were illustrated by the need the LNP felt to pursue its perilous Newman-for-Ashgrove strategy, with potentially disastrous consequences if it didn’t come off. How much more rational it would have been for Anna Bligh and Campbell Newman to have faced off in a direct contest for the premiership with all of Queensland given the chance to vote, together with a second vote to determine the composition of a legislature giving voice to a broad range of interests.
Finally, there is the question of parliament’s role in recruiting political talent. Partisan critics may scoff, but Queensland has been done no favours by the wipeout inflicted upon Labor’s ministry, which has between three and five members left standing out of 15 who were re-contesting their seats. The 43 incoming LNP members will no doubt include many conscientious local representatives and a smattering of stars of the future, but there will just as surely be a number of ill-prepared and under-talented accidents waiting to happen, who will in no way constitute a happy trade-off for Andrew Fraser, Cameron Dick and Stirling Hinchliffe. Even before the election, the LNP showed that its vetting procedures were rather less than fail-safe, with three candidates in seats it looked certain to win forced to withdraw at various points. As noted, the government will not even be able to keep all such members out of mischief by providing them with committee work. More broadly, the election’s demonstration of the remarkable volatility of modern voting behaviour will act as a disincentive for talented people wishing to enter state politics, given the perilous lack of job security involved.
Now then, to what happened on Saturday and why. The following list is by no means exhaustive:
Negativity. Many decades from now, election campaigners will still speak in hushed tones of the day the Crime and Misconduct Commission’s announced it would not proceed with an investigation into Campbell Newman, forcing Anna Bligh to concede: “Right now all I have is questions, I don’t have enough answers from Mr Newman or enough material”. It was then that the Labor’s position deteriorated from disastrous to catastrophic. It is rapidly becoming the fashion to view this election as a morality tale about the dangers of negative campaigning, but this needs to be kept in perspective. When I assembled links to both parties’ television advertising on an earlier post, I found that the LNP campaign consisted of five positive ads and five attacks ads, which is presumably no coincidence: it is exactly how you would expect a balanced and effective campaign to look. The issue for Labor was the entirely personal nature of its attacks, to the extent that it took the appalling risk of involving Newman’s wife. As Dennis Atkins of the Courier-Mail reported on the eve of the election, Labor’s assault did have the LNP spooked in the middle of the campaign, albeit that it clearly need not have done if Newman hadn’t set himself the bar of Ashgrove to clear rather than just the foregone conclusion of a parliamentary majority. So clearly attacks on personal probity can achieve their desired end, but only if they squarely hit their mark. If they don’t, watch out. And if such attacks are all your campaign has had to offer, don’t expect voters to be receptive if you spend the final week pleading for sympathy.
Ashgrove. Labor’s other giant gamble was its total focus on thwarting Campbell Newman in his bid for Ashgrove, on the basis that uncertainty over that result was its only weapon to encourage waverers across the state back into the Labor fold. So it was that Labor wasted little of its campaign breath on the more traditional type of negative advertising which might have done the job – cuts to services under a conservative government being the ever-reliable standby for Labor at state level. A more artful strategy might have integrated such attacks with its anti-Newman theme, portraying the well-connected wheeler and dealer as out of touch with your proverbial working families. The irony for Labor was that the very collapse of its get-Newman strategy was what drove the polling into a tailspin in the final week, which appeared to convince many Ashgrove voters that it would be highly indulgent of them to decapitate an LNP that was unquestionably going to win the election.
It’s time. I’m going to be provocative here and leave Labor’s broken promises and policy failures off the list. My rationale is that the Peter Beattie went into the 2006 election encumbered by the “Dr Death” fiasco, and emerged with almost all of his huge majority intact. The fact is that every government has baggage which accumulates throughout its time in office, and a tipping point inevitably arrives where it can no longer carry it all. As this election shows, the consequences can be disastrous if the government scrapes over the line for one last term in office, which it very often achieves on the back of promises it proves unable to keep. This leaves the government with the problems noted previously: unable to convincingly run on its record, desperate scare campaigns and personal attacks are all it has left. By very stark contrast, it is simplicity itself for the opposition to offer the balance of positive and negative which, as noted previously, is the cornerstone of a successful campaign.
Anna Bligh. Going into the campaign, Anna Bligh’s poll ratings were not impressive in absolute terms, but relative to Labor’s disastrous figures on voting intention they were remarkably strong – stonger certainly than Julia Gillard’s, who for all her much-touted difficulties leads a government with a two-party preferred rating in the upper half of the 40s. Clearly the shine from Bligh’s response to the floods had not entirely worn off. This made her a net asset to the party which, used effectively, would have been a key factor in any less-bad-than-New-South-Wales defeat. However, Labor demolished all that by not only pursuing its personal attacks on Campbell Newman, but placing Bligh at the centre of them. For Bligh herself to use parliamentary privilege to suggest Newman might be imprisoned jettisoned the fairly elementary axiom of political strategy that leaders should be seen to be above this sort of muckraking, which should instead be left to a designated ministerial attack dog. Labor’s contrary rationale seemed to be that Bligh was the only thing the government had going for it, and that she thus had to bear the whole burden of its public communications. The entirely predictable effect of this was that Bligh’s personal ratings tanked as the campaign progressed, taking with it one of Labor’s few remaining assets.
Federal factors. “This was a state election fought entirely on state issues”, went John Howard’s Sunday morning mantra throughout the 2000s, as his state counterparts mopped up the blood after yet another electoral drubbing the night before. Yesterday came the turn of Labor interviewees on Insiders and Meet the Press to trot out this very same line. Howard of course was routinely mocked for this, but he usually came up looking pretty good when his own time to face the voters came around. Are things any different this time? I tend to think that they are. “Voters are intelligent enough to distinguish between federal and state issues”, politicians are wont to say, by way of finessing state election defeats and flattering their target market besides. However, one politician who memorably demurred was an earlier Queensland Premier, Wayne Goss, who after losing office in the twilight of the Keating years remarked that voters had been “sitting on their verandas with baseball bats”, waiting to take a swing at the first Labor government that came along – which, through not fault of his own, happened to be his own. That there was an element of this on Saturday cannot be seriously disputed: the only question is how much. Certainly federal Labor is doing quite a bit worse in Queensland polling than John Howard was at the time the Coalition was crushed at the 2001 Queensland election. In the corresponding Newspoll result, Howard’s Coalition trailed in Queensland 54-46, while John Howard’s personal ratings were 37% approval and 53% disapproval. This hardly seems a ringing endorsement, until you compare it with the most recent figures for Labor in the state: a two-party deficit of 59-41, with Julia Gillard on 25% approval and 65% disapproval.
Electoral geography. Compared with NSW, Labor looks to have performed about 2.5% better on the primary vote and 2.0% better on two-party preferred (I believe they are shooting at a bit below 38% on the latter count), but on seats their performance is much worse. This is because Labor’s support in Queensland is spread more thinly throughout Brisbane than in Sydney and Wollongong, where Labor enjoys concentrations of support that translate into a greater number of unloseable seats.
The media. Well, no, actually. From where I’m sitting in Western Australia, this looked nothing like the 2008 WA election campaign, when barely a day went by without The West Australian deploying its front page in pursuit of a vendetta against the Labor government, entirely irrespective of whether or not the day’s events had furnished it with any material with which to do so. Far from being annihilated, that government actually came within a handful of votes of clinging to office. Murdoch tabloid though it may be, the Courier-Mail contented itself with reporting what was actually happening. No doubt it was a different story on talk radio, but that is a medium which preaches to the converted: it is monopoly daily newspapers which truly have the power to shape the campaign agenda, and the Courier-Mail exercised that power even-handedly and responsibly.
Women’s issues. Women leaders contesting state elections are now batting one from seven (although the picture is somewhat rosier at territory level). It’s true that this is partly down to Labor’s apparent habit of turning to women when their governments are running out of puff and headed for defeat in any case, but there might also be a peculiarity of Australian culture at work here. On a possibly related note, female representation has taken a knock with the LNP’s triumph, as only 16 of their 89 candidates were women.
Labor’s issues. Landslides copped by Labor tend to be a) bigger than those inflicted on the conservatives, and b) suffered from government rather than opposition. But that is a subject for a future post.
[If you can prove that, you should refuse to pay up and do them for fraud.]
Sounds like that could cost me money.
I’ve always been prepared to pay them something, even made them (what I thought was) a fair offer. They refused. All or nothing.
Now they’re faking documents.
They have also made two major mistakes in their court filings, which are fatal to their case, but I’m reserving those for later on if it gets REALLY nasty.
You may ask: why do you bother BB?
The reason is I’m prepared to to pay them something. Couldn’t sleep if I didn’t. I SHOULD pay them something, made offers accordingly, but I’m just not prepared to pay 4x over the odds. I want them to see sense and to come to the table.
drjohn@442:
Thanks drjohn, you made my day!
I can see the appeal in the dog’s eyes now!
😆
Lord Barry Bonkton
[From memory didn’t Joh build a nice big road to Russ hinze’s house ? ]
No no no my good sir. The road was built to a place a hundred meters or so past Russ’ place !!
I am not for disarming police officers but the following combination seems to always be the way these things play out:
(a) no apparent criminal sanctions for non-compliance with weapons handling standards;
(b) the lack of follow up of coroners’ criticisms of deaths;
(c) the predictable way senior officers are allowed to give carte blanche media statements about how the killing was justified even before anyone is properly apprised of facts.
The only reponse to this is media scrutiny. I dont agree with the earlier post that there has been little scrutiny of the taser death. The ABC and SMH have been all over it and will remain so because of the international consquences of a dead foreigner.
BK
What the Fib toe-rag refuses to understand is that I have friends supporting family members with mental illness, so I know it well.
They have to worry about their kid having an episode where they are only likely to harm themselves but the families cannot call the police as they do not trust them not kill their sons (usually males). The police receive little training in handling mentally ill people and the chances of getting a mental health team out are slim. People with certain illnesses may become violent to others, but shoot first ask to see the medical file later is no
to handle it.
Trolling politics is one thing, trolling life and death issues is low.
For anyone who needs to raise their blood pressure tonight – before watching QandA.
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/media-2/an-abc-qanda-adventure-in-false-balance/
[My research into the bias and unbalanced nature of the ABC Q&A program continues to attract interest across the nation, with last week’s story attracting being read by thousands of people, being written about in The Age (today – note image right) and attracting disgruntled comment from a large number of disgruntled viewers, including and The Friends of the ABC and prominent barrister Greg Barns.]
The Romans knew something about bread and circuses and me thinks that is what the hoi poli expect and get.
The shame of it is that the race to the bottom is a competitive one.
BB,
Just a note of caution. Be aware that any adverse court findings will adversely impact your credit references.
William
[I’m commented out, BB.]
I was going to ask about an appraisal of Reachtel’s performance in Qld election in due course.
BB
The bargaining chip you have – a patently falsified document – should allow you to bring plenty of pressure to bear. If the regulatory authorities were to be appraised of their actions I’m sure the cost to them would be far greater than the amount in dispute.
Puff
FWIW I agree with you.
[Nice tweets from Ruppy, today.
Rupert Murdoch @rupertmurdoch
Without trust, democracy, and order will go.
Of course there must be a full independent inquiry on both sides. In great detail, and with consequences. Trust must be established.
Cameron should have just followed history and flogged some seats in the Lords, if they still have value! precedents of centuries .
Great Sunday Times scoop. What was Cameron thinking? No-one, rightly or wrongly, will believe his story.]
This is just Rupert asking Cameron: when does Cameron want him to stop tightening the thumbscrews? The pain can end anytime Cameron says. All Cameron has to do is stop investigating News International. If not, then there will be more revelations of Rent-a-PM scandals.
These kinds of “Cash For Influence” scandals are not new. Geoffrey Robertson guided the Guardian through all this decades ago when some Tories tried to sue them for writing a story on how Conservative MPs were selling Question Time questions to corporations, in particular, Mohammed Al Fayed (Dodi’s father) and Harrods.
@William/532.
I knew that be the case – Have relatives in NSW – they hate O’Farrel Gov.
[BB,
Just a note of caution. Be aware that any adverse court findings will adversely impact your credit references.]
Thanks for the concern, SK: this ain’t EVER getting to court. I’m not paying a cent for lawyers or court fees. It’ll be settled, for sure. I’ve been told they’re bastards, and faking evidence confirms it. They’ll settle now, I’m sure. Eventually.
BB@466:
Don’t pay.
If the creation date is this afternoon, it is bogus.
The tricky bit would be if the creation date was as expected.
But as bemused says,
So they are stupid as well as venal.
poroti
saw ur early ref to the mongrel mob
aamoi do kiwi GD’s carry guns?
Excellent analysis William and also some excellent posts. Highlights for me are
Danny Lewis
Posted Monday, March 26, 2012 at 10:22 am | Permalink
BB: I’ve been saying for ages that Labor need to stop talking about Tony Abbott.
Talk about “The Coalition” only. Or, better still, “The Opposition”. Remind them what side of the house they are on.
Also has the enormous advantage of being easy to do and doesn’t attract attention as being spin.
Boerwar’s various posts on the need for centre Left parties to join together. I agree with this even though it will be difficult, take a long time and cause collateral damage along the way. Politics in Australia is a battle between the collectivist common wealth basis of the country on one hand and the individualist Right wing “freedom-loving” side on the other. Labor and Greens are a natural fit and their division is being exploited by the Right.
Labor should not be allowing the Right to paint Greens as extreme. There is heaps of evidence in opinion polls to show the Greens represent a majority view on many issues. Labor should be tapping into that and attacking the Right. When in doubt, attack the Right.
So the corpulent one has unashamedly used his monied position to manipulate the MSM.
Missing link.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-26/palmer-hints-cia-claims-were-a-ploy/3913574
Payback from Rupert, for sure, BB.
[“more revelations of Rent-a-PM scandals…”] and all the other dirty deed files he has stored and has been using as currency for years..
George Brandis SC being his usual smarmy, oily self on QandA.
Bushfire,
After you settle the bill, make sure you give the evidence to the police. I wonder if it also has ATO implications. I am told of one of a large tax frauds in oz that was detected because of one false invoice. Something about the building industry, large projects. One invoice didn’t make sense so the lowly ATO officer followed it. Uncovered a big steaming pile. Mucho grief for all the false invoicers concerned I was told. Very, very bad thing to raise fraudulent invoices.
gusface
[aamoi do kiwi GD’s carry guns?]
From da commish.
[Police routinely unarmed on my watch.
.
In Len’s case, the weapon was a gun. This has, quite rightly, led to public discussion about whether all field officers should be routinely armed.
The majority of commentators say ‘no’. That is in line with the public feedback Police received when we consulted on the Policing Act 2008; it’s also in line with the sentiments of police officers themselves.
Being unarmed is a unique and cherished feature of the policing style adopted by New Zealand Police – a style for which we are held in high regard internationally.
Routine arming of the police would not erase this style of policing, but it would make the job of being a community police officer considerably more difficult.]
Rossmore@530:
I agree completely. Mostly I lurk, unless there is something, usually maths or science oriented, to which I can add something, but I find this site to be all that you imply.
A source of information and annoyance and gratification and mirth and interest. Everything you could hope for in a blog.
Theoretically it is about politics, and I guess it is, mostly, but it fills a great deal more uses.
The telephone was originally thought to be going to be useful for listening to music.
Good. Emo won’t stand for Brandis making up and sprouting BS.
Graeme Morris is pathetic!
Good evening all.
First day of my new job, and I’m exhausted. Apparently I’m expected to give media interviews, so was scheduled into media training with the organisation’s
spin doctorspublic relations and media management advisors, along with a few other new starters. Ho hum.But the PR advisor giving the training gave Anna Bligh as an eg of exceptional media presentation: pathos, on message, never gets sidetracked or takes the journo baits. But she also cited Julia Gillard, asking our group if we’d noticed the subtle shift in the way she handles the media, and noting approvingly that her performances are now more polished and give hints of the person beneath. Nods all round.
🙂
Larisa Waters just threw Gillard under the Bus
“We are the only party who took a carbon tax to an election and we got it up”
2 second after saying integrity, it is time for the 2 major party to show some integrity which Bligh did not
confessions,
That is good to hear.
BK@567:
May the corpulent one get his just deserts.
[I was going to ask about an appraisal of Reachtel’s performance in Qld election in due course.]
Funny you should mention that, because I’m actually working on it right now.
[“We are the only party who took a carbon tax to an election and we got it up”]
Labor’s policy was for a carbon price via an emissions trading scheme, which the party had had for the best part of 4 years at the time of the 2010 election.
So Larissa Waters is correct.
craig Emerton is useless, he has cut off Graham and Brandis 5 times now, he is coming accross as arrogant and is a very poor speaker and listener
10 minute after saying there is no federal implication and now he is saying there are federal issue
BB @ 550
BB, fraud is a crime. Report it to the cops.
As far as the rest goes, you are articulate enough and seem to have some spare time so why not do your own lawyering?
I have a pretty successful track record in Victoria and it is easy enough if you have strong evidence like you appear to.
Not familiar with NSW, but assuming it is like Victoria, you can download the forms from the Internet.
Be sure to lodge a counter-claim to cause them an appropriate amount of grief.
I now expect to be jumped on by all the lawyers for disrupting their cartel.
Puff:
Obviously I’d noticed her media performances being a tad more punchy and engaging, but was pleased to note that the professionals are also seeing it.
Great, go away for a nice weekend by a river down south and look what happens! 🙁
Thanks for the analysis in the OP William. Was worth a read.
Interesting thing for the ALP federally, is the “game plan” they seem to me to have been on since early 2011.
By mid /late 2012 they have gotten the substantive part of their agenda through and actually implemented in a legislative sense. Various tax cuts and sweeteners have flowed.
If the economy holds and they have delivered a surplus in May, they actually 14-15 months to be going positive on what they have done (after the dosh is in peoples pockets), AND to plug the NDIS in particular as something positive they WILL be doing.
As well, they have YEARS of soundbites from the usual suspects about how they wouldn’t last until (insert date here). Doesn’t say much for the judgement of the amateurs on the Ooppo benches?
All in all i think Gillards Govt is in a pretty good position to run a largely positive campaign. The Fibs, not so much. they will of a certainty go with BOATS at some point. So, while i’m annoyed and surprised at the magnitude (rather than the overall outcome) of the QLD loss, I’m not going to write the ALP off federally. Besides, Quincelanders have 14-15 months of a Newman Govt before they go the Federal polls and that’s a loooong time in politics.
dovtif
As a chip shop owner once asked ” Please explain ? ” .What is the reason you only turn up when there is “bad” news for Labor ? Are you like blowflies and hyenas and vultures , only turning up if they think shit has happened ?
Slimebag Brandis!!
poroti
I have been here since around 2004
Andrew Elder on the Qld election result:
http://andrewelder.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/work-to-be-done-in-queensland.html
poroti
one of swmbo’s mates hubby is an ex mongrel
the story’s are pretty full on
but one theme is that respect for the cops, in a begrudging way
tho nz does have an advantage in the relatively high number of maori coppers
i wonder how oz would go with the same ratio?
PTMD @ 554
Not if my recommendations are followed.
The cops would put their guns to good use and force a CAT Team to attend at gunpoint if necessary. 👿
dovif
[poroti
I have been here since around 2004]
Good on ya. You must be one of “The Originals”. However I ,in my short time here, am amazed at how stronger non Labor supporters disappear until there is some “bad news” . They act like flies around a turd. The Gillard v Rudd event being a “classic”.
Is there a Newspoll tonight?
emerton is rude and abrupt ALP should not let him out of the cage again
After cutting people off repeatedly, he cut the host off and then said let me finish
everyone else speak well and is funny, but emerton tries to hog the spotlight and is becoming really annoying
imacca @586
Ah, so it’s your fault!!
Good evening all,
Hope everyone enjoyed the rebound in Essential?
gusface
[tho nz does have an advantage in the relatively high number of maori coppers]
That is not the reason. The K1W1 coppers approach was the same way before Maori became a far greater part of the police force. BUT sheepens have had from waaay back included Maori culture as part of “their” culture. Inter marriage = normal. First captain of THE All Blacks was a Maori. Maori M.P.’s since 1868.
Does anyone know the timetable for the next Morgan phone, Galaxy and Neilsen please?
I thought we were getting them all this week….