One of the most interesting features of this election campaign is that it’s going to be difficult for either the LNP or Labor to straddle all the geographical, social and cultural diversity of a very decentralised state. As I was commenting in an earlier post, the dichotomy between the “new” and the “old” Queensland is shaping the state’s electoral map as never before, although the lines aren’t as simply drawn as Brisbane or South East Queensland versus the rest.
Peter Beattie’s Labor was able to draw sufficient support across the state to enable both very comfortable majorities and a government with broad representation. It’s not noted often enough that he did this in part by appealling to two very different demographics in the exurbs and the regions – the rural and regional vote which had detached itself from the Nationals after Joh and swung towards One Nation and many of the Southern immigrants up and down the coast – retirees, sea changers, tree changers and those who saw the Sunshine State as a frontier of opportunity and/or easy living.
Neither Anna Bligh nor Lawrence Springborg necessarily can project the same appeal – Bligh because she’s perceived as too urban, and Springborg, of course, for the opposite reason. The vote some suggest DS4SEQ is harvesting exemplifies the tensions both major leaders face.
Generally, I’m sceptical about commentary from the Melbourne/Sydney/Canberra triangle on Queensland politics – the arcane and complex folkways of the state are difficult enough for us natives to get our heads round. But I’m going to make an exception for Inside Story, where Brian Costar has one of the best takes on the election I’ve heard – highlighting precisely the historical and geographical factors I’m discussing. The whole sixteen minute podcast repays a listen. In the same online publication, Peter Mares discusses Cairns and the FNQ seats, which William is quite right to suggest are in play.
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As the Triffids say: It is a wide open road http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSMF3h7LE2Q
Great podcast Mark – As a former student of Brian Costar I am a bit biased but I think he is a brilliant thinker and also as an ex-Queenslander knows a bit about the place.
I travelled a lot around Western and North-West Queensland for work during the Beattie years and it was fascinating how much even in those areas the Nats I met liked Beattie (or at least accepted that he was better than anything they had and certaintly better then the city Libs). Bligh just doesn’t have that appeal and Springborg is a known commodity to them.
But I just can’t see enough voters in SEQ – particularly in Brisbane bringing themselves to vote for ‘clunky’ Springborg.
Yep, bobbyte, I was really impressed by Costar’s analysis.
One theory for the Labor success in QLD for years is that the people moving up from Vic/NSW had no prospects down there so were lower socioeconomic who are rusted on Labor. (The types who always say without thinking “I’ve always vote labor” in vox pops when asked about an issue in the election). The ones making piles of money in finance etc tend to move from QLD to Sydney for career advancement…
Bobbyte many say Beattie was successful because he copied Joh in so many ways…
CM predicting narrow win for Bligh!! You can always tell when the tides have turned as they stop accepting comments on their articles aftera few…probably most anti LNP!
Sunny if it is a narrow-ish win for Labor (and that chimes with William), how secure would Bligh’s position be over the following 12 months?
Mark’s made the comment before (I think, or was it someone else?) that her leadership is based on an unstable factional position…
Come on Poss and Mark! You are our other hosts – put your cards on the table too!
Sunny, I think what you’re referring to is an article from AAP re-published on various News Ltd. websites.
Courier Mail Breaking news….01.12pm …all I can tell you headlines read
“Polls point to narrow win for Bligh”
The Western Australian predicted an ALP win too
The 2 elections almost follow the same script
Early election
Poll suddenly turn and show LP/LNP slightly in front
Labor start saying it will be a close election, we could lose
The newspaper are pro- LP/NLP
The newspaper then predict an ALP victory
Deja Vu anyone
Sunny: you’re a “glass half full” kind of guy right?
@6 – northshorer, I’m planning to but I have a day job too! Bear with me!
Haven’t seen the C-M article but assuming it’s the same as the one in the Oz that’s appeared on the widget – doesn’t suggest a new poll but a reinterpretation of the Galaxy data.
The last thing Labor would want at this stage incidentally is to lose the underdog spot!
News Limited should spend more money on commissioning polls that tell us something about what’s going on in the marginals and the regional split rather than paying journos to write endless sequels to the first poll story!
9 – One difference, the size of the swing has to be monumental on this occasion. Not so in WA.
“Labor to win the election? You bet” – Brisbane Times;
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/election-2009/a-close-but-resounding-labor-victory-you-bet/2009/03/17/1237054803490.html
The WA comparisons are very limited – the smaller swing is one part of it another is WA’s longstanding history of liberal/conservative government and a functioning Liberal party and support base (relative to Qld). In many respects WA voters returned to normal voting patterns whereas since Joh the Libs and Nats in Queensland still do not have a stable support base and Labor has a much stronger support base in Qld.
William’s take on things is interesting with him giving 17 seats to LNP. I am definitely not in his league but I still find it hard to believe more than 14 or 15 will go – which means ALP by a very small margin. I know Mark will not like the ALP losing the underdog status but I think he may secretly (or not so secretly) agree.
Let me just say at this stage, Janus, if Labor scrape a small win, it will be despite not because of the ALP campaign!
When Labor win it will be because of one factor, Mr Springborg is unelectable. The LNP will win the next election and Fiona Simpson will be the second female premier of Qld.
Here is the complete article from 1.12pm today Courier mail
“QUEENSLAND is poised to witness its tightest election race in 14 years.
But sift through the opinion polls and other evidence and there can be only one conclusion: a history-making win for Labor by the narrowest of margins.
Throughout the campaign, the Liberal National Party’s two-party preferred vote has hovered around 51 per cent.
This represents a swing of just under six per cent to the LNP.
But the party needs an estimated swing, based on changes made to Queensland’s 89 seats, of at least 7.5 per cent to unseat Labor and govern in its own right.
Labor’s stocks will also be bolstered by the Greens, whose primary vote is likely to be nudging double digits come election day on Saturday.
The Greens have rejected any preferences for the LNP and have done a deal with Labor in 14 seats.
The profile of the Greens has been significantly raised in this election by the fact they have their first MP – Labor defector Ronan Lee who is running in the Brisbane seat of Indooroopilly – and high profile environmental issues including the Traveston Crossing Dam, solar power, climate change and the southeast’s devastating oil spill.
Interestingly, voters told a Galaxy poll they were more likely (49-44 per cent) to allocate preferences in this election, rather than follow the major parties’ “Vote 1” cards.
If that sentiment is borne out on Saturday, it will hand the Greens, independents and other minor parties a vital role.
Labor may also be on a winner with Anna Bligh, who replaced Peter Beattie back in September 2007 and is hoping to become the first woman to be elected premier of an Australian state.
While her standing hasn’t reached the heights of her more media-savvy predecessor, she maintains a solid lead.
Varying polls during the campaign have put Ms Bligh between 11 and 14 per cent ahead of LNP Leader Lawrence Springborg as preferred premier.
Just how tight the result is will depend largely on the estimated 25 per cent of voters who are still undecided on how to vote on Saturday.”
Must have been reading this blog site!!
As hard as it is to beleive for us politics tragics the electorate only really engages in the last 7-10 days. Unless there is a big swing on and a sense of inevitability in a change then this last week makes or breaks a government. This is the Qld case (notwithstanding this blogs insistence that the LNP was building the big Mo). So far this has been a good week for the ALP and I reckon votes are coming back and solidifying around them. It’s just to big a hill for the LNP (and as usual the Liberal rump is letting them down in SE Qld) to climb. Sure seats will be lost by the ALP but probably to a point of a normalising the majority. The bell weather seat I will be watching to see if I am right or wrong if on Sat night is Toowoomba North, if it goes LNP then they have a big sniff.
William has done well, but I make it 19 seats to the LNP with the possibility of a blow-out and a workable LNP majority:
Just about everything under 5% will go to the LNP, and the ALP has reportedly just about given up on seats under that margin. That’s 13 seats.
As well as Cleveland (1.3%) other seats in the Brisbane bayside area will also see big swings against Labor (recreational fishermen angry about marine parks) which will lose Redlands (6.8%) to the LNP but wont be enough to take Capalaba (15.7%). That makes 14 seats.
Labor is reportedly also in serious trouble in Cairns (8.1%) and Toowoomba North (7.6%), while Coomera (8.7%) has an artificially inflated margin if you look at fed/state results and factor in the personal vote of popular local Gold Coast Labor MPs. That makes 17 seats.
The next raft of seats after that to go will be Springwood (5.7%), Broadwater (6.7%), Burleigh (8.8%) and if the campaign continues for the next three days as it has for the last three weeks then I’d chalk those up to the LNP too. That makes 20 seats.
If the undecideds break decisively for the LNP then seats like Everton (10.2%), Mansfield (8.3%), Mulgrave 9.7%), Southport (7.9%) might also go to the LNP and provide them with a working majority.
The great unknown is what effect Labor’s postal vote blunders will have and in which seats it will prove a decisive mistake.
It will require an historic swing but “historic” stats have to come from somewhere – witness the huge swing to Labor in 2001.
Mangomike #21 22, In 2001 “the swing was on” that’s just not the feel this time. Also I thinK the LNP has had a bad couple of days on both the North and South Coasts so your GC seat list won’t eventuate.
It’s definitely worth watching.
I would love to see a poll done on Thursday out Friday – what is happening with the undecideds? Stan S – if you are right – then it is the undecideds that are falling the ALP way more than the LNP way. If that is the case your “bell weather” seat should be well and truly safe for Mr Shine and ALP should only lose between 12 and 15 seats (I think).
Are there any gains out there for the ALP??
It would be interesting to know if anyone had a read on Gladstone – the ALP has certainly been dragging out the big guns to try to take it back off Liz Cunningham. Aside from that, only Beaudesert would be a possible ALP gain, I’d have thought, and that’s very messy, as heaps of people have observed.
An outside chance for the ALP is Bundaberg. Bundy went conservative for the first time in extraordinary circumstances (Patel) last time. If and it’s a big if the ALP has done better on the ground than pundits are saying then it could be won by the ALP.
If the LNP don’t win then the next conservative Premier will represent a seat in SE Qld. Remember the last time the conservatives won they were lead by Borbidge who was MP for Surfers Paradise. I suspect this is how the next three years will play out, Springborg doesn’t win, replaced by SE Qld member (and no not Fiona Simpson) ALP govt fray (like NSW now) and hey presto change in 2012. But prognosticating in politics over 3 years is fraught.
“If the LNP don’t win then the next conservative Premier will represent a seat in SE Qld. ”
Other than Russell Cooper (Roma), Qld hasn’t had a premier from outside of SEQ since Forgan Smith (Mackay, Premier 1932–42). Maybe you might count Jack Pizzey (Isis, premier Jan–July 1968) but I think most Queenslanders would say Bundaberg/Maryborough is SEQ
d
I wouldn’t! Nor is Kingaroy. Sociologically and politically, it’s an urban concept not a geographical one.
Maybe I’ve watched too much of that “Great South-East” show on channel 7! And too many relatives who call everyone below Townsville “southerners”.
I can’t shake the geographical angle. How long a drive from an ‘urban’ area do you have to be before you’re not in SEQ?
d
Well, not being a driver, I can’t say, Darryl! But if you get the train to the Gold Coast, you still pass through bits that are definitely not urban before you get back to “SEQ” at Helensvale station! You need to think sociologically about this!
I is a simple man Mark and not schooled in the dark arts of sociology. (I promise, I’ll read some Habermas after the election.) But I think you would have trouble finding many people who would agree that Ormeau or Coomera are not part of SEQ! I think you sociologists need to find a new word for the people you are describing. “City folk” maybe?
d
Habermas would want more syllables, Darryl!
I’ll give you Pizzey though. Not SEQ, now I looks at the map. :^)
d
Habermas wouldn’t like ‘SEQ’ then, would he? :^)
OK, bed now. 1500 flyers to letterbox tomorrow.
d
Well, Darryl, Habermas aside, I don’t think Maryborough and Bundaberg are urban in the same way as Brisbane or the Gold Coast are. If you want to get fancy, some US pundit came up with all sorts of neat words like “exurbs”, etc. to explain the Obama vote.