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Queensland Election 2001 ISSN 1440-2009

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Queensland Election 2001 ISSN 1440-2009 Department of the INFORMATION AND RESEARCH SERVICES Parliamentary Library Current Issues Brief No. 15 2000–01 Queensland Election 2001 ISSN 1440-2009 Copyright Commonwealth of Australia 2001 Except to the extent of the uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the prior written consent of the Department of the Parliamentary Library, other than by Senators and Members of the Australian Parliament in the course of their official duties. This paper has been prepared for general distribution to Senators and Members of the Australian Parliament. While great care is taken to ensure that the paper is accurate and balanced, the paper is written using information publicly available at the time of production. The views expressed are those of the author and should not be attributed to the Information and Research Services (IRS). Advice on legislation or legal policy issues contained in this paper is provided for use in parliamentary debate and for related parliamentary purposes. This paper is not professional legal opinion. Readers are reminded that the paper is not an official parliamentary or Australian government document. IRS staff are available to discuss the paper's contents with Senators and Members and their staff but not with members of the public. Published by the Department of the Parliamentary Library, 2001 I NFORMATION AND R ESEARCH S ERVICES Current Issues Brief No. 15 2000–01 Queensland Election 2001 Scott Bennett, Politics and Public Administration Group Gerard Newman, Statistics Group 3 April 2001 Acknowledgments This is to acknowledge the help given by Zac Dadic, Rob Lundie, Cathy Madden, Leanne Manthorpe, Rose Verspaandonk, John Wanna and Glenn Worthington in producing this paper. Enquiries Information and Research Services publications are available on the ParlInfo database. On the Internet the Department of the Parliamentary Library can be found at: http://www.aph.gov.au/library/ IRS Publications Office Telephone: (02) 6277 2778 Contents Major Issues ............................................................................................................................i Introduction ............................................................................................................................1 The Beattie Government—living on a knife edge .................................................................1 Queensland goes to the polls..................................................................................................2 The major party contest..........................................................................................................3 Labor.............................................................................................................................3 The Coalition ................................................................................................................4 Minor parties ..........................................................................................................................5 The result................................................................................................................................6 The major party vote .........................................................................................................6 Labor.............................................................................................................................7 National.........................................................................................................................7 Liberal...........................................................................................................................7 Pauline Hanson's One Nation ............................................................................................8 The City Country Alliance ................................................................................................9 Greens versus Australian Democrats.................................................................................9 Independents....................................................................................................................10 Voting methods factors ........................................................................................................11 Preference flows ..............................................................................................................11 'Just Vote 1'......................................................................................................................11 Three-cornered contests...................................................................................................11 The verdict............................................................................................................................12 Government stability .......................................................................................................12 Ineffectiveness of the Opposition....................................................................................13 Coalition disunity ............................................................................................................14 Federal factors .................................................................................................................15 A postscript to the Queensland election—the by-election in Ryan .....................................16 Endnotes...............................................................................................................................19 Appendix 1: Voter support 1998–2001................................................................................23 Appendix 2: One Nation MLAs elected 1998 .....................................................................24 Appendix 3: Results.............................................................................................................25 Table 1 Legislative Assembly: State Summary...................................................................25 Table 2a Legislative Assembly: First Preference Votes, District Summary Number .........26 Table 2b Legislative Assembly: First Preference Votes, District Summary Per cent .........28 Table 3 Legislative Assembly: District Detail.....................................................................30 Table 4 Legislative Assembly: Two Candidate Preferred Vote ..........................................45 Table 5 Legislative Assembly: Electoral Pendulum (a) ......................................................47 Table 6 Legislative Assembly By-elections 1998–2000 .....................................................48 Table 7 Legislative Assembly Elections 1950–2001...........................................................49 Queensland Election 2001 Major Issues Premier Beattie's first Queensland Government lived on a knife edge after narrowly winning office in 1998. It had won 44 of the 89 Assembly seats, with a first preference vote of only 38.9 per cent. The Government's position was eased slightly when it gained an additional seat in a December 1998 by-election. Because of the 'electoral rorts' affair, Beattie came under pressure to call an election early in 2001. Although he could have waited until September 2001, Beattie set the Queensland election date for 24 February 2001: 'It may not be in my best interests for there to be an early election but it is in the best interests of Queenslanders'. The election was conducted using electoral boundaries drawn up during 1998 and 1999. Labor's biggest asset appeared to be Peter Beattie. Beattie had long enjoyed a high opinion poll rating among the six Premiers, and it showed no sign of waning prior to the election. Neither the Nationals, led by former Premier Rob Borbidge, nor the Liberals, led by David Watson, had been able to make any long-term inroad into Labor's support. This position did not seem to alter during the election. Between 1998 and 2001, Borbidge's approval rating remained significantly below that of the Premier. The Coalition parties were not free from tensions. The Nationals were split over the issue of dealing with One Nation for their preferences, and some appeared to be angling for Borbidge's position. Meanwhile, a number of Liberals were publicly less than impressed with the performance of their leader, David Watson. A key factor seemed to be the re-emergence of One Nation as a genuine electoral force in the Western Australian election held a week earlier, where the party gained a Legislative Assembly vote of 9.6 per cent, together with three upper house seats. One Nation appeared likely to do at least as well in Queensland. Although it had only 39 nominations, this was enough for the major parties to be concerned about their possible impact on particular electorate results. Labor's campaign was dominated by the Premier, with the general instruction to voters of 'Just vote 1'. His opponents were disunited and appeared to have trouble in making themselves heard, and, in fact, on a number of occasions Borbidge seemed to be conceding victory to Labor. i Queensland Election 2001 The result of the election was never in doubt on election night—the ABC commentary team had given the result to Labor within minutes of the start of the television coverage of the counting. Labor won 66 of the 89 seats, the Coalition won 15 (Nationals 12, Liberals 3), One Nation
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