Call of the board: regional Queensland

A deep dive into the darkest corner of Labor’s federal election failure.

Welcome to the latest instalment of Call of the Board, which probes into every seat result from the May federal election region by region. Earlier instalments covered Sydney, here and here; regional New South Wales; Melbourne; regional Victoria and south-east Queensland. Today we look at the electorates of Queensland outside of Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast.

The posts dealing with the big cities have featured colour-coded seat maps and the results of a model estimating how the results would have looked if determined by demographic factors alone. Unfortunately, colour-coding doesn’t get you very far when zooming out to vast and unevenly populated regional terrain, and the model hasn’t proved to be much use in producing plausible results for regional seats, in which elusive factors of local political culture appear to loom large. However, I can at least offer for purposes of comparison Labor two-party estimates derived from the Senate results, potentially offering a pointer to how much candidate factors affected the lower house results.

Seat by seat alphabetically:

Capricornia (LNP 12.4%; 11.7% swing to LNP): Labor held this Rockhampton region seat for all but one term from 1977 to 2013, but history may record that it has now reached a tipping point akin to those that have excluded the party from former regional strongholds including Kennedy (Labor-held for all but two terms from federation to 1966, but only once thereafter), Grey in South Australia (Labor-held for all but one term from 1943 to 1993, but never again since) and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia (Labor-held for all but three terms from 1922 until Graeme Campbell quit the party in 1995, and now divided between the safely conservative seats of O’Connor and Durack). The 11.7% swing to Michelle Landry, who has held the seat since 2013, was the biggest in the country, shading the 11.2% swing to the beloved George Christensen in Dawson. Landry’s primary vote was actually little changed, reflecting the entry of One Nation, who accounted for most of Labor’s 14.3% collapse. The rest came from a halving of the Katter’s Australian Party vote from 7.1% to 3.7% and the absence of Family First.

Dawson (LNP 14.6%; 11.2% swing to LNP): Dawson behaved almost identically in swing terms to its southern neighbour, Capricornia, as voters showed themselves to be a great deal more concerned about Adani and its symbolism than George Christensen’s enthusiasm for life in the Philippines. As in Capricornia, the LNP primary vote was little changed from 2016, but the arrival of One Nation soaked up 13.1% which neatly matched Labor’s 12.5% decline. Katter’s Australian Party held up better here than in Capricornia, their 6.3% being only slightly down on 2016.

Flynn (LNP 8.7%; 7.6% swing to LNP): Labor narrowly won this Gladstone-based seat on its creation at their 2007 high-water mark and sliced the margin back to 1.0% in 2016, but hopes of going one better this time fell foul of the party’s region-wide disaster. The swing in this case was fairly typical of those suffered by Labor outside the immediate range of proposed Adani mine, though in this case One Nation were not a new feature, their 19.6% being slightly higher than their 2016 result. The seat was a bit unusual in that Labor’s score on the two-party Senate estimate was 2.8% stronger than their House result.

Groom (LNP 20.5%; 5.2% swing to LNP): The 5.2% swing to John McVeigh was a bit below the regional Queensland par, despite him being a sophomore of sorts – although he may have arrived in 2016 with a ready-made personal vote due to his background as a state member. Nonetheless, it was sufficient to catapult the seat from fifteenth to second on the national ranking of seats by Coalition-versus-Labor margin, reflecting the narrowing of margins in many blue-ribbon city seats. The 2016 result was remarkable in that Family First polled 10.0% in the absence of right-wing minor party competition – this time the newly arrived One Nation polled 13.1% in their absence. The LNP primary vote was little changed and Labor was down 3.5%, the rest of the swing bespeaking a more right-wing minor party preference pool.

Herbert (LNP GAIN 8.4%; 8.4% swing to LNP): Labor’s most marginal seat pre-election, following Labor member Cathy O’Toole’s 37 vote win in 2016, the Townsville seat of Herbert was one of five seats across the country and two in Queensland that were gained by the Coalition (balanced to an extent by Labor’s gains in Gilmore and, with help from redistribution, Corangamite and Dunkley). While the swing was lower than in the Adani epicentre electorates of Dawson and Capricornia immediately to the south, it was sufficient to produce the most decisive result the seat has seen since 1954. O’Toole’s primary vote was down 5.0% to 25.5%, while LNP victor Phillip Thompson added 1.6% to the party’s 2016 result to score 37.1%. High-profile Palmer candidate Greg Dowling did relatively well in polling 5.7%, and One Nation were down from 13.5% to 11.1%.

Hinkler (LNP 14.5%; 6.1% swing to LNP): Keith Pitt, who has held this Bundaberg-based seat since 2013, picked up a swing well in line with the regional Queensland norm. He was up 2.2% on the primary vote, while Labor was down 3.8%; One Nation fell from 19.2% to 14.8%, mostly due to an expansion in the field from seven candidates to ten, including three independents, none of whom did particularly well individually.

Kennedy (KAP 13.3% versus LNP; 2.3% swing to KAP): Bob Katter had a near death experience at the 2013 election, at which time he was presumably tarred with the minority government brush despite being the only cross-bencher who backed the Coalition after the inconclusive 2010 result. However, he’s roared back to dominance since, picking up successive two-party swings of 8.9% and 2.3%, and primary vote swings of 10.5% and 2.6%. On the latter count at least, he’s been assisted by the fact that One Nation have declined to challenge him. In Coalition-versus-Labor terms, the seat participated in the regional Queensland trend in swinging 7.8% against Labor.

Leichhardt (LNP 4.2%; 0.2% swing to LNP): The negligible swing in favour of LNP veteran Warren Entsch was an exception to the regional Queensland rule, and was generally attributed to the centrality of tourism to the economy of Cairns, giving the region a very different outlook on issues like Adani. The result was generally status quo in all respects, but the seat had the distinction of being one of only three in the state where the Labor primary vote very slightly increased, along with Ryan and Fairfax. With Entsch’s primary vote down slightly, the two-party swing, such as it was, came down to an improved flow of preferences.

Maranoa (LNP 22.5% versus One Nation; 6.6% swing to LNP): For the second election in a row, Maranoa emerged with the distinction of being the only seat in the country where One Nation made the final preference count. One Nation and Labor were down on the primary vote by 3.2% and 2.7% respectively; at the last preference exclusion, One Nation led Labor 21.3% to 19.0%, compared with 23.6% to 22.9% in 2016. The other story here was the strong sophomore showing for David Littleproud, who was up 6.8% on the primary vote and by similar amounts on two-party preferred against both One Nation and Labor. The 25.4% margin versus Labor is now by some distance the biggest in the country, compared with the electorate’s ninth ranking on this score in 2016. Equally impressive for Littleproud is the distinction between his 25.4% margin and the 20.4% recorded by the two-party Senate measure.

Wide Bay (LNP 13.1%; 5.0% swing to LNP): Llew O’Brien may also have enjoyed a sophomore effect after succeeding Warren Truss in 2016, as his primary vote was up 3.2% while One Nation fell from 15.6% to 10.8%. However, the Labor primary vote held up unusually well, and the two-party swing was at the lower end of the regional Queensland scale.

Wright (LNP 14.6%; 5.0% swing to LNP): So far as the major parties were concerned, the result here was typical of regional Queensland, with LNP member Scott Buchholz up 3.1% on the primary vote and Labor down 4.0%. Independent Innes Larkin, who appears to have made his name locally campaigning against coal seam gas, scored a respectable 5.3%, which presumably helps explains the drop in the One Nation vote from 21.8% to 14.0%.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,317 comments on “Call of the board: regional Queensland”

Comments Page 3 of 27
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  1. @C@tmomma

    As I said it before, I argue that Adani influenced the election result more than any-other issue. Labor suffered the consequences of what was seen as having ambivalent stance on the Adani and the question of future of the fossil fuels industry in this country. If Labor had unambiguously opposed the Adani mine, they might have won both Leichhardt and Brisbane. Indeed I am seeing these issues, becoming our version of Brexit which is a question of identity. Indeed the ‘climate wars’ of the last decade, I am convinced are about to reach thermonuclear stage.

  2. lizziesays:
    Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 11:47 am

    Barney

    So lazy they only have one source of info and they’re afraid it might dry up!
    PvO and Farr are copping huge criticism for arguing about the meaning of “lying”.

    But it’s not just those favoured with leaks, as the example demonstrated, it also applies to general press releases and press conferences where the entire CPG has access.

  6. “Special prize for the first correct guess as to the content of Zanetti’s brain.”

    Kayjay

    Thanks to BK for the Zanetti cartoon. We need to see the brain snaps of Murdoch employees but that one is a real ‘Adam Goodes’ moment. I checked Zanetti’s twitter feed to see if he was getting flack but it seems the RWers are happy with his effort.
    The response by Zanetti to the only critical tweet I saw was

    “Who says they’re traditional owners? Not me. You did. And if you see traditional owner as apes that’s your perception, your words, not mine.”
    Enuf said, eh!

  7. “You’ve got to wonder whether any of these inner city Melbourne Greens get out of their comfortable eyries from which they take potshots at Labor and the rest of us?”

    ***

    I live exactly 1,637km away from “inner city Melbourne” (CBD) according to Google. There are Greens all over Australia, both in the cities and in the country. Attacking us with your false stereotypes is doing you no favours at all.

  8. Barney

    They all seem too nervous to stand up to Morrison and his crowd – or else they’re not very smart. Perhaps degrees in journalism no longer include the need for a critical faculty.

    OTOH, presenters on TV have to be cheap purchases, I’d say. This morning a sports presenter said someone was playing “much betterer”.

  9. We know what the Greens Light Mobile Force means: Australia gets conquered and occupied by any state that has a real army, navy and airforce.
    Is the Green New Deal the same as the Australian Greens Zero/2030 or do we all have to guess what it really means?

  10. But much of the trash in the ocean is not so obvious. National Geographic reports that the iconic Great Pacific Garbage Patch — also known as the Pacific trash vortex — is really more of a soup of small plastic particles the sun has broken down, punctuated by larger items such as fishing nets and shoes. Much of the trash is dumped into the sea from ships. But most comes from land: bottles, cups, bags. The sun breaks down these items, but they do not really biodegrade. Instead, they enter animals’ bodies, killing the animals immediately or entering marine food chains. These “microplastics” also block sunlight from supporting plankton and other backbone ecosystem species.

    Ocean currents transport trash from shore to the middle of the ocean, but the problem is by no means distant and isolated. Researchers announced in June that they had found microplastic particles off California’s idyllic Monterey Bay. And not just on the surface; the researchers found microplastics in surprising abundance in the middle of the water column. Anyone who cares about the marine ecosystem — and that ought to include every human — should be alarmed.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/every-human-should-be-alarmed-by-the-plastic-crisis-in-our-oceans/2019/10/26/88434802-eba4-11e9-9c6d-436a0df4f31d_story.html

    One of our local beaches has an over-abundance of microplastics and ‘nurdles’. Which is remarkable given it’s isolated from urban development.

  11. “Who says they’re traditional owners? Not me. You did. And if you see traditional owner as apes that’s your perception, your words, not mine.”

    Wow, Zanetti seems nice.

  14. lizzie

    In hindsight, Morrison’s statement in mid-January was a test run in an election year: could he get away with a complete lie, and what would be repercussions? As it turned out, there were absolutely no repercussions at all.
    …
    This year, the Australian body politic crossed the same Rubicon traversed by Donald Trump in the United States, and now by Boris Johnson in Britain. Agreed facts no longer matter:

    Did not the writer notice Tony Abbott, especially LOTO Abbott ? If anything Tones was a trial run for Boris and Trump. Utter lies and denial of reality from Tones were largely reported as fact or without challenge let alone the ridicule some of it deserved. Mordor Media learnt that the public really will swallow huge volumes of shit just as long as the journos follow their owners’ agenda.

  15. Gee, Labor’s campaign in Queensland went really well didn’t it. Not. That’s what happens when you’re all over the shop. Nobody was buying what Labor were selling – not the mining industry and definitely not environmentalists. That’s what you Labor lot have failed to recognise all along. If there’s one thing that the mining industry and environmentalists can agree on it’s that Labor doesn’t represent either of our interests. Thus you have the situation where Labor is losing support on both the left and the right. Labor managed to get themselves into a no-win situation and now all their supporters want to do is blame everyone else for their own unbelievably shortsighted campaigning.

  16. Firefox @ #106 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 11:58 am

    “You’ve got to wonder whether any of these inner city Melbourne Greens get out of their comfortable eyries from which they take potshots at Labor and the rest of us?”

    ***

    I live exactly 1,637km away from “inner city Melbourne” (CBD) according to Google. There are Greens all over Australia, both in the cities and in the country. Attacking us with your false stereotypes is doing you no favours at all.

    I wasn’t talking about you, or them. And not that I didn’t know that there are Greens supporters everywhere already. But I will admit, grievance is also a Greens’ specialty. So, thanks for your contribution. 😐

  17. Well, they certainly didn’t buy what The Greens were selling in Queensland either. Most of the votes went from Labor to One Nation, Clive Palmer or KAP.

    Cue, ‘But the vote for The Greens went up in Queensland’…

    To a miniscule degree, yes.

    Must’ve been the ‘Stop Adani But Don’t Mention Clive or Gina Convoy’, eh Firefox? 😐

  18. Labor and the Greens are conflated in the minds of voters in the resources states, especially in Queensland. They voted overwhelmingly against Greenware. For every vote the Greens gained, the Right gained between 4 and 15. The effect of Green campaigning is to drive voters into the welcoming arms of the Right.

    The Greens clearly rejoice in this.

  19. “Gee, Labor’s campaign in Queensland went really well didn’t it. Not. That’s what happens when you’re all over the shop. Nobody was buying what Labor were selling – not the mining industry and definitely not environmentalists. That’s what you Labor lot have failed to recognise all along. If there’s one thing that the mining industry and environmentalists can agree on it’s that Labor doesn’t represent either of our interests. Thus you have the situation where Labor is losing support on both the left and the right. Labor managed to get themselves into a no-win situation and now all their supporters want to do is blame everyone else for their own unbelievably shortsighted campaigning.”

    Gloat. The Greens won what exactly in Queensland? A six year senate seat for an otherwise unemployable earring model amd 10% of the state vote and … the return of an LNP government. How good is that! Gloat. Let’s all dance on Labor’s corpse. Yay, ScoMo. Yay, Dutton!

    I bet you in are just itching to repeat this brilliant, I mean brilliant, Greens campaign against Annistasia and Jackie next year. I just cant wait for your two – count them – a whole two MLAs to fulminate again the incoming LNP government finally completing the job of removing the least vestiges of native vegetation from central and northern Queensland and paying for a dozen brand spanking new coal stations that would be decommissioned until 2100 at the very earliest. But hey, 1 senator earring model and two West End bohobo MLAs makes is all … worth it. Bless.

  20. Firefox can barely conceal their delight in Labor’s misfortunes. They are an anti-Labor voice. They are out-riding for the LNP…one way or another.

  22. ‘Firefox says:
    Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 12:14 pm

    Gee, Labor’s campaign in Queensland went really well didn’t it.’

    No. My view is that Labor should just copy the Greens policies 100% and then Labor will sweep all before it in Queensland.

  23. Firefoxsays:
    Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 12:14 pm

    Gee, Labor’s campaign in Queensland went really well didn’t it. Not. That’s what happens when you’re all over the shop. Nobody was buying what Labor were selling – not the mining industry and definitely not environmentalists. That’s what you Labor lot have failed to recognise all along. If there’s one thing that the mining industry and environmentalists can agree on it’s that Labor doesn’t represent either of our interests. Thus you have the situation where Labor is losing support on both the left and the right. Labor managed to get themselves into a no-win situation and now all their supporters want to do is blame everyone else for their own unbelievably shortsighted campaigning.

    It certainly seems to suggest that there are a lot more votes to be had supporting mining than opposing it in Queensland.

  24. David Leonhardt of the NYT:

    The founders used broad language when they described the grounds for impeachment — the famous “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The generality of the term ensured that impeachment would be a political process, rather than a technical or purely legal one. There is no specific definition of an impeachable crime, in the way that there is a definition of robbery, assault or embezzlement.

    But the founders did leave some pretty strong evidence for what kinds of offenses they were imagining. And President Trump — by seeking foreign interference in domestic politics, for personal gain — has come closer to committing those particular offenses than any president before him. He has outdone Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, who were impeached, and Richard Nixon, who would have been had he not resigned.

    As the legal scholars Jean Galbraith and Michel Paradis wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week:

    When draft­ing the Con­sti­tution’s Im­peach­ment Clause, the Framers had a spe­cific his­tor­i­cal episode in mind. In 1649 the Eng­lish House of Com­mons im­peached King Charles I for trea­son. Charles was alleged to have un­law­fully sub­verted Eng­lish democ­racy, and the fi­nal ar­ti­cle of im­peach­ment charged that he col­luded with Eng­land’s for­eign ad­ver­saries in his cam­paign against his do­mes­tic polit­ical ri­vals …
    Dur­ing the Con­sti­tu­tional Con­ven­tion, Ben­jamin Frank­lin cited this ex­am­ple “of a first Mag­is­trate being for­mally brought to pub­lic Jus­tice” as rea­son to include an im­peach­ment clause in the Constitution. James Madi­son agreed, not­ing the need “for de­fending the Com­mu­nity against the incapac­ity, neg­li­gence or per­fidy of the chief Mag­is­trate,” who “might be­tray his trust to for­eign powers.”
    In America’s long history, Trump appears to be the president most deserving of impeachment as the founders envisioned it. Congratulations, Mr. President.

  25. @Andrew_Earlwood

    The Greens did win more than 20% of the primary vote in Brisbane, Ryan and Grifith. Indeed the Greens getting 23.65% in Griffith may have saved Terri Butler from being defeated.

  26. Maggie HabermanVerified account@maggieNYT
    35m35 minutes ago
    Sondland Told House Panels Trump’s Ukraine Pressure Was Quid Pro Quo – WSJ

  27. Sustainable Jobs & Growth.

    That should be the foundation of Labors policy framework going forward.

    Have it consist of transitional assistance via subsidies and exemptions for businesses who buy in to low emissions production…. and for those who don’t “no more assistance for you !”

  28. Labor should just adopt the Greens Zero/2030, get rid of the entire ADF and replace it with a Kurdish-style Light Mobile Force, and announce destruction of half a dozen regional industries outright.

    This will do the trick.

  29. “Well, they certainly didn’t buy what The Greens were selling in Queensland either. Most of the votes went from Labor to One Nation, Clive Palmer or KAP.

    “Cue, ‘But the vote for The Greens went up in Queensland’…

    To a miniscule degree, yes.

    Must’ve been the ‘Stop Adani But Don’t Mention Clive or Gina Convoy’, eh Firefox?”

    ***

    The Greens vote increased strongly in QLD, both in the House (+1.49%) and the Senate (+3.12%).

    Labor’s vote in QLD on the other hand pretty much fell off a cliff in both the House (-4.23%) and the Senate (-3.81%).

    Labor lost a lot of support in QLD to both the left and the right. They are losing the left in SEQ to the Greens and losing the right in NQL to parties like One Nation.

    House: https://results.aec.gov.au/24310/Website/HouseStateFirstPrefsByParty-24310-QLD.htm

    Senate: https://results.aec.gov.au/24310/Website/SenateStateFirstPrefsByGroup-24310-QLD.htm

  30. Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #122 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 12:29 pm

    Firefoxsays:
    Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 12:14 pm

    Gee, Labor’s campaign in Queensland went really well didn’t it. Not. That’s what happens when you’re all over the shop. Nobody was buying what Labor were selling – not the mining industry and definitely not environmentalists. That’s what you Labor lot have failed to recognise all along. If there’s one thing that the mining industry and environmentalists can agree on it’s that Labor doesn’t represent either of our interests. Thus you have the situation where Labor is losing support on both the left and the right. Labor managed to get themselves into a no-win situation and now all their supporters want to do is blame everyone else for their own unbelievably shortsighted campaigning.

    It certainly seems to suggest that there are a lot more votes to be had supporting mining than opposing it in Queensland.

    Voters weren’t engaged enough in their eyes to risk their current jobs.

    Until they’re offered a (green) new deal that ensures a sustainable transition of work and security they’ll stick with the devil they know.

  31. One little-discussed impact of one of the Greens Agriculture policies is the impact on golden rice.

    Golden rice is far more nutritional than your standard rice varieties. In particular, as a result of targeted genetic engineering by way of GMOs, golden rice is laced with enough vitamin A to help save third world kids on a high/sole-rice diet from going blind from vitamin A deficiency. Most Australian rice is exported.

    The relevant Greens policy is the one where all GMO’s are withdrawn from the environment when the Greens form government.

  33. “@Andrew_Earlwood

    The Greens did win more than 20% of the primary vote in Brisbane, Ryan and Grifith. Indeed the Greens getting 23.65% in Griffith may have saved Terri Butler from being defeated.”

    If there wasn’t a green candidate in Griffith in the first place, where would those voters who placed 1 next to the Greens box before preferencing Labor over the LNP placed their No. 1 vote? At a wild guess I’d say ‘not the LNP’. It is risible to suggest that the Greens in someway actually recycled otherwise LNP votes into Labor preference votes. I’d say that without the Green, Butler would have won Griffith by a larger margin. So no, the Greens didn’t save Butler in Griffith at all. They just made it harder for Labor to complete directly against the LNP because the Green successfully polarised the state in a way that ultimately favoured the LNP. They did so to increase their vote by between 1.5 (the house) and 3% (the senate).

    The fact that the total progressive (Labor plus Greens) vote collapsed does not matter to Firefox. Because It doesn’t really care about progressive outcomes, only positioning and petty partisan outcomes. 1 earring model senator!! Yay.

  34. It is quite obvious that the way for Labor to regain regional seats is to adopt the Greens policies 100%. Any Labor supporter who does not understand this understands nothing.
    But the first task is to get rid of Fitzgibbon and replace him with a Greens-style ultra progressive candidate.
    This will surely strengthen Labor’s stranglehold on the Hunter!

  35. Vitamin A deficiency is the single biggest cause of blindness in children in developing countries. It helps kill quite a few as well.

    The important thing here is for Labor to adopt the Greens’ policy on preventing the growing of high Vitamin A GMO golden rice. That way Labor will win the next election for sure.

    https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&ei=cvm0XZnpBZr1rQGmpaOgDg&q=vitamin+a+deficiency+in+developing+countries&oq=vitamin+a+de&gs_l=psy-ab.1.1.0i67l4j0l6.3843.7764..10420…2.2..0.209.2355.0j11j3….3..0….1..gws-wiz…….0i71j0i10.wiRYPbpOTv8

  36. Boerwar @ #133 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 12:55 pm

    It is quite obvious that the way for Labor to regain regional seats is to adopt the Greens policies 100%. Any Labor supporter who does not understand this understands nothing.
    But the first task is to get rid of Fitzgibbon and replace him with a Greens-style ultra progressive candidate.
    This will surely strengthen Labor’s stranglehold on the Hunter!

    No, Joel is a visionary and Labors only hope !

  37. Fie on you Boerwar. The voters of Hunter are irredeemable. Verboten. To be cast upon the scrap heap. Just like the voters in the rest of regional Australia scum.

    Besides who needs them. A pure Labor will sweep seats like Wentworth, Higgins, Goldstein. Reid, Banks, Chisholm, Ryan will be amongst the safest Labor seats in the country. How can Labor lose once it finally sheds itself of such scum? The millionaires, especially the tax avoiders, will flock home to Labor and a glorious 1000 year Green New Deal shall reign!

  38. Andrew_Earlwood @ #136 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 1:07 pm

    Fie on you Boerwar. The voters of Hunter are irredeemable. Verboten. To be cast upon the scrap heap. Just like the voters in the rest of regional Australia scum.

    Besides who needs them. A pure Labor will sweep seats like Wentworth, Higgins, Goldstein. Reid, Banks, Chisholm, Ryan will be amongst the safest Labor seats in the country. How can Labor lose once it finally sheds itself of such scum? The millionaires, especially the tax avoiders, will flock home to Labor and a glorious 1000 year Green New Deal shall reign!

    You’re regressing already … 😆

  41. Firefox

    Labor lost a lot of support in QLD to both the left and the right. They are losing the left in SEQ to the Greens and losing the right in NQL to parties like One Nation.

    The Greens are not a Left Party. They are an anti-Labor construct. They hate unions. They oppose and misrepresent the political and economic interests of working people. They despise Labor. They are environmentalists in the same way that Trump is a conservationist.

  42. Rex Douglassays:
    Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 12:40 pm

    …

    It certainly seems to suggest that there are a lot more votes to be had supporting mining than opposing it in Queensland.

    Voters weren’t engaged enough in their eyes to risk their current jobs.

    Until they’re offered a (green) new deal that ensures a sustainable transition of work and security they’ll stick with the devil they know.

    What were the Greens doing?

    Driving more people to the Right.

  44. Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #141 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 1:20 pm

    Rex Douglassays:
    Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 12:40 pm

    …

    It certainly seems to suggest that there are a lot more votes to be had supporting mining than opposing it in Queensland.

    Voters weren’t engaged enough in their eyes to risk their current jobs.

    Until they’re offered a (green) new deal that ensures a sustainable transition of work and security they’ll stick with the devil they know.

    What were the Greens doing?

    Driving more people to the Right.

    Yeah sure coz Labor never do that eh !!

  45. Rex Douglassays:
    Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 1:11 pm

    Voters of all colours, creeds, iq’s, etc need to be looked after by Govt in a sustainable way.

    Are you looking for a handout Rex?

  46. The facts are that Queensland is not a big player in the global thermal coal business. But you’d never know it from the propaganda published by the Greens.

    In 2017 world production of thermal coal was 7585 million tonnes, of which Queensland produced 83 million tonnes, supplied to both domestic and export markets. That is, Queensland supplied 1.1% of world production.

    Queensland coal has been turned into a Trophy by the Greens. They are playing gesture politics at the expense of working people and their communities. They are an absolute disgrace.

  48. Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #141 Sunday, October 27th, 2019 – 1:20 pm

    Rex Douglassays:
    Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 12:40 pm

    …

    It certainly seems to suggest that there are a lot more votes to be had supporting mining than opposing it in Queensland.

    Voters weren’t engaged enough in their eyes to risk their current jobs.

    Until they’re offered a (green) new deal that ensures a sustainable transition of work and security they’ll stick with the devil they know.

    What were the Greens doing?

    Driving more people to the Right.

    As I pointed out to the other pie-eyed Green trying to drag Labor to the Lunar Left, Tristo, the ALP had policies to transition workers to new Renewable Energy and associated industry jobs. Queenslanders didn’t buy it and migrated to One Nation, the LNP and the UAP.

    So, another Green canard that won’t fly.

  50. lizzie

    Missed your post on that one.

    Supporting policies that blind and kill millions of kids must be quite easy to internalize, as long as you know you are right and you are doing it for the good of the kids.

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