Support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation was decimated at the Queensland election, but it’s where those votes now sit that holds a clue for the federal campaigns of both Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese.
Morrison knows Queensland helped hand him victory last time round, in the same way Anthony Albanese knows he must win back a swag of seats in the north if he’s to take the treasury benches.
Just consider this: there is not one Labor seat north of the Brisbane River to the tip of Cape York. It’s a sea of Morrison blue. At the moment.
But what happened on October 31 was not just an historic third term victory for Annastacia Palaszczuk and her Labor team. It also showcased the waning influence of Pauline Hanson in the state that made her famous.
At its zenith, One Nation boasted 11 seats in the legislative assembly, and recorded 23% of the vote.
Despite running 90 candidates this time around, it boasts only one MP, holding onto the seat of Mirani. More crucially, it copped a 7% swing against it across the state, raising real doubts about whether it can play any substantial party political role going forward.
But here’s the thing: while it’s readily labelled a right-wing party, that only tells half the story. One Nation supporters have shown no real monogamy in terms of voting allegiance. Some of its members want the conservatives to be more conservative, but just as many others believe big government — Labor and Liberal — has lost its way and One Nation has been the noisy chihuahua to nip at its heels.
Once upon a time, the party’s preferences favoured the conservative side of politics, but there are just as many examples — perhaps more — of that not being the case. And on October 31, Palaszczuk’s strong border stance brought One Nation voters back to the Labor fold.
That now means those votes are up for grabs federally, in a move that will almost certainly set the tone, some of the policies, and a chunk of the campaign strategy, for both federal parties.
Just consider these results. The electorate of Pumicestone (previously Caboolture) was owned by One Nation in 1998, but went into last month’s election with a marginal LNP buffer. When the dust settled, support for One Nation had plummeted more than 15%, with Labor picking up 10.6% on its way to victory.
Not far up the road, in Hervey Bay, where borders were just as significant an issue, One Nation voters came back to Labor too, helping to deliver a 10.5% bounce in the vote.
Meanwhile in Caloundra, the swing against One Nation was more than 16%, with Labor increasing it’s vote by 12.6%.
But this doesn’t mean things are rosy for Albanese. In north Queensland, and the seat of Hinchinbrook, the story was very different. The first preference swing against One Nation was almost 15%, but the big beneficiary was Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) MP Nick Dametto, whose vote jumped almost 21.6%.
The takeaway? One Nation voters will go home with the person they think will love them the most; the party that makes them feel “safe”. And despite Annastacia Palaszczuk securing their support this time around, there’s no guarantee they’ll be an easy dance partner at the federal level.
Hanson was quick to blame the media for her woeful Queensland showing — and the demise of local newspapers in Queensland has probably played a role. It’s been harder for candidates of all parties to build their profiles, and incumbency has perhaps held a bigger advantage.
But mainly that’s a ruse. One Nation’s vote collapsed, as it has in the past, because its voters found a more comfortable home elsewhere. Over different elections, that’s been the LNP, Labor and KAP.
Where they move federally is entirely in the hands of Morrison and Albanese.
Can Anthony Albanese win over One Nation voters? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say column.
“… a right-wing party, that only tells half the story”? Sounds like King’s old Limited News’ C-Mail alma mater and their Limited News Party – the one she roots for?
Perhaps a lot of those previous PHON votes were disaffected Labor voters? … How much of this decimation “ebb” flowed back to King’s party?
As for “the demise of local newspapers” – that would be her old boss ripping them out? …. That demise certainly doesn’t seem to have helped her LNP.
Can we expect a King tale on how her old Curry or Maul rag ran their usual anti-Labor/Greens/anyone-disinclined-to-the-LNP campaign? How they use their position in our state – virtually a (Limited News) one-paper state and their effect on “informed” society?
In anything more complex than a two party contest, its amiss to suggest “Party X” voters switched to “Party Y” without significant caveats, which are lacking here. There just isn’t any reliable data on individual voting patterns from which to draw such insights.
So while I’m sure some previous ON voters voted for the ALP, its entirely possible/probably more likely that a large number of One Nation voters shifted their vote to the liberals, and previous liberal voters shifted to the ALP.
On first glance this appears to be true. But the Queensland Electoral Commission haven’t yet published the full official distribution of preferences. Then we can see how many went to Labor, etc., for real.
I love this hack! Borders?! More like health. Safety. Protection. Good governance. Borders have little to no significance in any ordinary state election except this one and the others in 2020 with the State health emergency powers enacted in light of the pandemic.Who wouldn’t be concerned? Who would if they were concerned, vote for Deb and her let ’em rip herd immunity strategy? 1 Nations vote went backwards 6.6%.
Clive’s party got 0.6%. KAP increased by 0.2%. The Libs vote went up 2.2%. The Greens went backwards 0.5%. It’s just that Labor got a 4.1% swing to it so you could say Labor got all of Greens 0.5% overall slump and 3.5% of 1 Nations 6.6% slump. Significant but not earth shattering. There are significant regional variations not mentioned (surprisingly?) in the article. The LNP’s vote increased significantly in the regional seats like Gregory, Warrego, Condamine and Callide where COVID-19 health impacts are not much of an issue. On the Gold and Sunshine coasts and most of Brisbane, Labor’s vote went up dramatically overall and it is where they picked up their 5 new seats. Yet they also picked up their vote in the north around the towns of Cairns and Townsville despite
notorious scare campaigns about law and order, promise of curfews, etc. Businesses in these places were very anti-Labor wanting borders to re-open and an end to social distancing yet Labor’s vote went up. No explanation there from the former Limited news hack. There are lessons for Albo and for Labor everywhere they are struggling. Real action on climate change. Concern for workers. Jobs.Infrastructure. Co-existence of mining with action on climate change. There is no reason why they can’t coexist in transition to zero CO2 emissions. I think
women leaders are better these days. More practical and compassionate. Labor ones anyway.
It’s not the pref flow, 1st pref left 1 nation and they voted for Labor instead
Hi Franky. Got that . u r so right. ALP seems to have got about 3-4% of the 6.6% that deserted 1 Nation. I suppose what I am saying is why didn’t the rest of the 1 Nation voters preference the ALP down the list/ballot. Labor only got about a third of 1 Nation preferences. Madonna is so wrong and selected in her analysis. The ALP were substantially ahead on 1st preferences in Pumistone and Bundaberg yet in the latter just managed to fall over the line by a dozen votes after dist. I was talking 2 things. Sorry. Let’s hope Anastacia lives up to her hype and delivers.
Yeah, the border issue was significant but the author is conflating it with the national border issues like ‘boat people’. PHON took the talking points of the US right to a pandemic election.
The anti-politics appeal of PHON is usually what gets them such big numbers. Making generalisations on that group of voters is hard. The author tries anyway, and tells us
-It doesn’t matter what the border in question is, it must be closed, unless you still voted for PHON, I guess?
-They want to shake up politics, sending someone to nip at the heels of the major parties.
-They go for whoever makes them ‘feel safe’
I don’t know how someone holds all these contradictory ideas in their head.
Labor is wishy, washy it has no clear identitt and it has no direction. Paul Kearing, Bob Hawke were stalwart Labor and there is no one in the ranks to take it up to the Libs.
The L/NP have so much dirty laundry that a street smarr savvy Labor Leader would have them chasing there tails.
This sad mob has no one and if I HAD to select I would say Penny Wong.
She has more balls than anyone in the Party.
Literally?
Far from being stalwart “Labor” Hawke & Keating were classic/text book class traitors.
They were typical entryists who saw a fecund & virgin field to plough for their own benefit and any suitably wealthy entities that wanted a piece of the action as they asset stripped the tax payer built infrastructure.
Ain’t many harbour side homes or Zegna suits & Empire clocks for True Believers, just those who use them and then kiss the Sun King’s ring, as does the third wheel of their triumvirate.
I think it is poor analysis to assume that just because One Nation votes went down and Labor’s up that this means One Nation voters switched votes to Labor. It could well be that as both Liberal and Labor parties have shifted further to the right, One Nation voters switched to the Liberals, and Liberal voters switched to Labor. Preferences won’t tell you either.
I believe a similar thing happened in the recent ACT elections. Both Liberal and Labor are now conservative right wing parties there, though Labor sprukes compassion and progressiveness, it implements neoliberal policies etc. The outcome was that Liberal votes declined, Labor stayed the same and the Greens increased their vote. I don’t think the Liberal voters switched to the Greens (some did of-course); no, the more likely scenario is Labor lost voters to the Greens, but gained voters from the Liberals.
“Where they move federally is entirely in the hands of Morrison and Albanese.” And where Albanese moves, in Queensland, is entirely in the hands of the CFMMEU and AWU factions who will not be lectured to by that man about coal. Palaszczuk has rolled over completely and will do whatever it takes to keep the miners happy. So southern Labor’s climate change position, StopAdani position and Greens preference position look like complete cock and bull to north Queensland voters who can see for themselves that Labor is up to its neck in development and expansion of the greenfield Galilee Basin thermal coal deposits.