Political Chronicles 603
Queensland January to June, 2009
PAUL D. WILLIAMS School of Humanities, Griffith University
Overview The first half of 2009 saw some of the most remarkable developments in recent Queensland political history. A state election that recorded a number of firsts — including the unexpectedly easy return of the first woman premier in Australia — coupled with a declining economy, a tough state budget, the proposed sale of 604 Political Chronicles
government-owned corporations, and the rapid surge in support for a troubled opposition despite its convincing defeat just weeks before. If nothing else, this period underscored the vagaries of state politics. January The Liberal-National Party (LNP) opposition, emboldened by its successful amalgamation in mid 2008, came out swinging at year's beginning. Opposition leader Lawrence Springborg kicked off his unofficial election campaign in early January with a curious policy launch at an Ipswich motor cycle store. But conservative forces were soon distracted when Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce sounded out pre-selection possibilities for the lower house seat of Dawson and, later, a Northern New South Wales district. Joyce soon abandoned the plan for want of support. Premier Anna Bligh was forced into her own backflip when she scuttled a move to allow drivers to claim the 8.3 cent per litre petrol subsidy directly from service stations. The Premier soon backflipped again, this time over plans to axe unprofitable Queensland Rail rural freight lines. Meanwhile, the Queensland economy appeared to stall, with 1,300 jobs lost in just two months (Courier Mail, 15 January 2009). The year's first community cabinet, in Townsville, thus doubled as a jobs summit. A government survey revealed the Smart State campaign — brainchild of former Premier Peter Beattie — left most Queenslanders cold, with only four per cent feeling involved despite the eleven-year, $400 million program (Courier Mail, 17-18 January 2009). Despite Beattie's urging to the contrary, Bligh continued to unwind the campaign. But worse was to come for the government when the issue of so-called "success fees" large corporations paid ex-politician-turned-lobbyists emerged. Former Deputy Premier Terry Mackenroth, for example, allegedly received $500,000 after lobbying on behalf of Brisconnections' Airport Link project (Courier Mail, 24-25 January 2009). A practice initially defended by Deputy Premier Paul Lucas, the Opposition declared it would outlaw such fees. The Premier's own members in her own South Brisbane branch then censured Bligh over the "devolution" of the Environmental Protection Agency's powers to the Coordinator-General, with claims that environmental standards were "slipping" (Courier Mail, 27 January 2009). Bligh closed the month with a visit to Canberra to urge the fast-tracking of infrastructure projects. With the touted "jobs squad" of top CEOs having overseen 1,680 lost jobs since the start of the global financial crisis (GFC), and with Queensland inflation falling from 5.0 to 3.7 per cent (Courier Mail, 28, 29 January 2009), the Premier was keen for some pump-priming. February Public anger soon boiled over at the "resettlement fee" the government had paid former Chief Magistrate Di Fingleton (previously wrongly jailed, then released with $500,000 compensation — see previous chronicles) in her new judicial role on the Sunshine Coast. When Fingleton complained her sixty-kilometre drive from Bribie Island was "onerous and dangerous", the government paid her $32,000 to resettle closer to Caloundra. When it emerged that Attorney-General Kerry Shine knew of the payment, the rules were changed to allow resettlement payments only for journeys greater than 100 km (Courier Mail, 31 January-1 February 2009). It was then revealed Queensland's richest man, Clive Palmer, had donated $500,000 to the Liberals and Nationals before the merger. When Premier Bligh and Treasurer Andrew Fraser made public comments questioning Palmer's potential influence over the new LNP, Palmer sued and demanded apologies. Interestingly, Palmer later said he Political Chronicles 605 believed he and the Premier would, after the election, "kiss and make up" (Courier Mail, 7-8 February 2009). And while Palmer's description of Springborg as "uncharismatic" hardly bolstered the LNP's standing, it did force the party to gag its major benefactor. Labor had to face its own questions of influence when the "pay-per- view" issue — where wealthy business figures paid up to $1,100 per plate to dine with government ministers — surfaced (Courier Mail, 3 February 2009). On returning from an emergency leaders' meeting with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Canberra to discuss the Commonwealth's $42 billion stimulus package, Bligh therefore announced a crackdown on lobbyists, with ex-ministers and ex-bureaucrats banned from government contact for two years. Other matters soon distracted, with 60 per cent of Queensland flood-declared and Jayant Patel — the surgeon at the heart of the Bundaberg Hospital saga that saw suspicious patient deaths (see previous chronicles) — attending his first day in Court on 9 February. Patel, facing fourteen charges including three charges of manslaughter, used an allegedly heavy workload as his defence. In May, Patel would be committed to stand trial, probably beginning in early 2010. Police Minister Judy Spence was then criticised for directing officers to crack down on crime in her Sunnybank electorate — a move that contradicted her previous denials of a Brisbane crime wave. On the defensive on a number of fronts — and with an election announcement clearly only days away — the government launched its anna4q1d.com.au website. Unlike any previous incarnation, this clearly "presidential" site made no mention of Labor or Bligh's team. In a bid to alienate the LNP from a progressive urban electorate, it was also the point at which Labor began referring to the Opposition as the National Party (Courier Mail, 14-15, 16 February 2009). It therefore surprised no-one when Labor launched its second television advertising campaign in two weeks. Where the previous campaign lampooned Springborg's garbled language — including his "de-necessary" comment in describing job shedding — this campaign employed a photograph of a head-scratching Springborg looking bemused over the GFC. At the same time, the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) began investigating Michael Dart, former Chief of Staff to retiring minister Rod Welford, over allegations Dart awarded a $131,000 sports grant to Mitchelton Football Club in return for pre-selection support from club president and ALP member Rohan Connell (Courier Mail, 16 February 2009). Warren Pitt, MP for the North Queensland seat of Mulgrave, soon became the second minister to call it quits, with local anger ensuing when Labor announced Curtis Pitt, Warren's Brisbane-based son, would succeed his father as candidate. More controversy followed when Burnett MP Rob Messenger asked in parliament why a $107,000 inquiry into waste water blew into a $2.6 million affair, and whether GBG Project Management, owned by Greenslopes MP Gary Fenlon, had benefited. Yet all that paled when, on 20 February, Treasurer Andrew Fraser handed down a mini-budget that cast dark clouds over Queensland's economic horizon. Where the 2007-08 budget's $809 million surplus had already been downgraded to just $54 million in December, this statement cast the state into a $1.6 billion deficit, and saw Standard and Poors reduce Queensland's AAA credit rating to AA' for the first time. With $4 billion already forfeited from coal royalties (and another $8 billion expected to be lost), unemployment was forecast to rise to seven per cent by 2010 (Courier Mail, 21-22 February 2009). Yet more anger arose from Bligh's pre-election "mail out" of 500,000 letters, including 100,000 to north Brisbane residents defending the controversial relocation of the Children's Hospital to South Brisbane. Most knew the 606 Political Chronicles
campaign proper was imminent when a young female staffer in deputy LNP leader Mark McArdle's office labelled Anna Bligh, on a blog, as "ugly". McArdle soon apologised, with the LNP committing itself to a positive campaign (Courier Mail, 23 February 2009). As expected, Bligh on Monday, 23 February, visited Governor Penny Wensley to request a dissolution of the fifty-second Parliament — for a twenty-seven-day campaign and an election on 21 March — then delivered a media conference where the Premier justified the seven-month-early election on two grounds: that her Government required a fresh mandate to steer the state through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression; and — somewhat less credibly — that 144 media reports speculating on an early election forced her hand. A rather excitable Bligh closed with, "Queensland, you can trust me", then quickly began her first official campaign day in Townsville: North Queensland had long been seen as vulnerable for Labor. The LNP required a 7.6 per cent uniform two-party-preferred (2PP) swing to deliver the twenty seats needed to form government, or twenty-three seats if three LNP districts — Clayfield [0.2 per cent], Burdekin [0.9 per cent] and Mirani [1.2 per cent] — made notionally Labor by the 2008 redistribution are included. Few were surprised when betting agencies started Labor at $1.50 and the LNP at $2.55 (Courier Mail, 24 February 2009). Given the number of firsts for this election, the contest drew immediate national interest. It would, for example, be the first electoral test for Bligh as leader, and the first for an incumbent Queensland female premier. It would also be the first poll contested by a single, merged conservative party (and the first for a new major party since the state Liberals' emergence in 1949), and the first election since the GFC. It would also be the first Queensland election with a sitting Green MP, and the first for the Daylight Saving party DS4SEQ. It was also the first election for a government seeking a fifth term since 1969 (and first for a Labor government seeking a fifth term since 1944), and the first on the current boundaries. When Bligh won, it would also be the first for a woman state premier to be re-elected (although territory leaders Kate Carnell [ACT] and Clare Martin [NT] had previously been re-elected). This election would also see a record number of MPs retire, and prove the last hurrah for One Nation and, possibly, Pauline Hanson. Labor's strategy was to avoid its record — and especially the Beattie era from which public policy failures in health, water and roads still rankled voters — and instead play on public fears of lost jobs and reduced services under an inexperienced LNP. Given the LNP's own weak economic credentials, the Opposition — perhaps naively — focused on Bligh's record as a member of Beattie's cabinet, and not on the Beattie legacy itself. Ultimately, this poll resembled a "zombie" election — where each party hoped voters would "sleep walk" to the polls, not thinking too deeply about the parties' respective records. Week One: 24 February —1 March With Bligh immediately stumbling twice on water policy, and with self-declared "policy-free days", Bligh could hardly have had a worse first week. Springborg, by contrast, began with unusual exuberance and, from the very beginning, many suspected the LNP would finish close to government, if not in it. The government, for example, soon faced a damning Queensland Health Ethical Standards report that found the bureaucracy "failed to take appropriate action" over the alleged rape of a nurse in far north Queensland in 2008 (see previous chronicle). Health Minister Stephen Robertson refused to apologise, insisting instead he was owed the apology. The LNP instead Political Chronicles 607 promised $13 million for elective surgery, $316 million for 1,000 new police over three years, and the forcing of Bligh and Fraser to pay their own legal bills in their fight with Palmer. The Nationals' Stuart Copeland, whose seat of Cunningham had been abolished, then announced his independent candidacy against Nationals incumbent Ray Hopper in Condamine. The seat of Beaudesert shaped up as a circus when Pauline Hanson and former AFL player Warwick Capper — who later missed the nomination deadline — announced their candidacies. But the first Galaxy poll of the contest delivered only bad news for Labor. With the 2PP vote split evenly at 50 per cent, Labor's primary vote trailed the LNP's, 42 to 43 per cent. Bligh, however, outstripped Springborg as preferred premier, 50 to 37 per cent (Courier Mail, 27 February 2009). Week Two: 2 — 8 March Labor had a slightly improved second week, despite Police Minister Judy Spence finding embarrassment when she wrongly claimed credit, on unlawfully erected billboards, for swimming pools funded in her electorate by the Brisbane City Council. But Springborg soon became (and remained) the focus of the campaign as the LNP leader stumbled over economic policy. After the release of an airbrushed poster of Springborg without his familiar gapped teeth, the LNP leader talked — without detail — of finding "new financial streams" to return Queensland to surplus. Only later did Springborg offer his 3 per cent "efficiency dividend" that would, he claimed, save $1 billion per year in public service spending. But the "efficiency dividend" would become the LNP's albatross: not only did it allow Labor to run a scare campaign over the Opposition's alleged plan to slash public sector jobs and services, it also demolished Springborg's financial credibility when it was later independently calculated the "efficiency dividend" would save a mere $55 million per year (Courier Mail, 4 March 2009). Prime Minister Rudd then entered the campaign to lament the lack of Springborg's credibility. Bligh, in return, made multiple pledges, including: a 3,000 strong "green army" comprised of school leavers and the unemployed; a plan to process 20,000 elective surgery patients though the private hospital system; $22 million for north-western mining communities; and "serious renewal" within cabinet after the poll. Labor also faced accusations of pork-barreling, with a $4 million airport promised for the marginal Whitsundays, and eight new kindergartens in Labor seats, four of them marginal. Yet Labor's fortunes appeared to dwindle when, firstly, many promises appeared to be either previously announced or Commonwealth-funded and, secondly, a new Galaxy poll recorded a slight fall in Labor's primary vote — now down to 41 per cent (or 49 per cent 2PP) to the LNP's 44 per cent (or 51 per cent 2PP). Yet not all was lost for Bligh, with the Premier leading Springborg on all character traits including "trust", "strength" and "vision", and as better premier, 48 to 37 per cent. On who deserved to win, 38 per cent nominated Labor compared to just 36 per cent the LNP (Courier Mail, 6 March 2009). Week Three: 9 — 16 March Labor managed its third campaign week marginally better. The Opposition, for example, clumsily attempted to wedge Labor in calling for uranium mining. Instead, the LNP only consolidated the likelihood of Green preferences to the government when Labor ruled out the move. In the end, the Greens offered preferences to Labor in fourteen seats but, importantly, not in Indooroopilly where Labor appeared to run dead in the hope of finishing third in the poll and, thus, returning ex-Labor MP Ronan Lee on grudging Labor preferences. Despite the Premier's gaffe of announcing a Gold 608 Political Chronicles
Coast AFL stadium to be opened a year after the local team's planned inaugural appearance, the government won back some public support when Health Minister Robertson was stripped of his brief to make safe nurses' accommodation. Bligh then declared only three ministers' jobs safe after the election: her own, Deputy leader Lucas's, and Andrew Fraser's. Springborg responded by declaring all senior public service positions — even political appointments such as Beattie's Trade Commissioner posting — were also safe. Yet that did not help Springborg as he continued to refuse to release the names of those who attended a $20,000 per plate LNP fund-raising dinner, or when a previously generous non-Labor donor, businessman David Kemp, swapped sides and now assisted Labor's campaign (Courier Mail, 9 March 2009). Nevertheless, Labor found its own dramas, including the forced defence of its twenty-three-year old, Brisbane-based candidate in Hinchinbrook who openly conceded he would not campaign in the north Queensland seat. But a bigger storm brewed mid-month when the MV Pacific Adventurer, buffeted by high seas wrought by category 3 cyclone Hamish, lost 250,000 litres of oil and thirty-one containers of ammonium nitrate in Moreton Bay, east of Brisbane. The clean-up would cost $34 million, but not before Springborg accused Bligh of procrastinating — ostensibly while garnering advice — instead of cleaning. Grim television images of sick and dying animals threatened to end Labor's campaign then and there. The leaders' debate, held on Friday 13 March, proved something of a non-event. A tremulous Bligh, however, scored a narrow win when an aggressive Springborg appeared to bully the Premier. The third Galaxy poll at least provided Labor with some "wriggle room" when it was revealed 31 per cent of voters had not locked in their vote choice. More joy came from the revelation that electors held no love for the Opposition: 48 per cent said they would vote Labor because they liked the party; only 41 per cent said the same of the LNP (Courier Mail, 16 March 2009). The two parties' simultaneous launches on Sunday, 15 March, therefore attracted more than usual interest. A confident Springborg committed himself to "rebuild Queensland", and focused on a $727 million infrastructure building plan that included: $260 million for a Gold Coast rapid transit system; $93 million for transport in Brisbane; $80 million for roads and bridges; $150 million for stage one of a new police academy; and $100 million for regional Queensland. Labor's centrepiece, by contrast, focused on the creation of 100,000 jobs and, in a bid to secure Green preferences, the environment: $500 rebates for domestic solar hot water systems; a 2,000-kilometres rainforest walkway to Cape York; protected south-west rivers; and a cut in fertilizer run-off to the Great Barrier Reef. Week Four: 17 -21 March With the CMC clearing Labor over the Michelton "sports rorts" affair, the last campaign week saw a dramatic lift in the government's performance. But Labor still stumbled with a bitterly personal television advertisement in which a retiree questioned Mark McArdle's fitness for office after the retiree lost money through a failed scheme affiliated with McArdle's firm. Bligh defended the advertisement, but the government faced further internal dissent when Tourism Minister Desley Boyle contradicted the premier's insistence she could emulate Kevin Rudd's move to hand-pick her ministry without a caucus vote. But Bligh's last ditch tactic — to barnstorm thirty seats in three days — appeared to tilt the election back to the government. Final independent costings of the LNP's promises — released on poll eve — that showed an LNP budget deficit of $2.4 billion also hurt the Opposition. Either way, the very late swing back to Labor was not detected by mid-week opinion polls. Galaxy, for example, suggested Political Chronicles 609
Labor still trailed the LNP on primary vote, 42 to 43 per cent, with the Opposition appearing to enjoy 51 per cent 2PP just days before the election. In short, the polls had refused to move for Labor — as they had done in 2006 — during the four-week campaign. On these figures, many began talking up the prospect of minority government, especially since none of the four independent MPs indicated support for the government. But at least Bligh still outranked Springborg as preferred premier, 50 to 34 per cent (Courier Mail, 20 March 2009). Results The feared swing did not rise against Labor in either the city or the bush, with Springborg conceding defeat early on election night. While the swing was not insubstantial (and comparable to that which demolished the West Australian Carpenter Labor government in September 2008), the Opposition fell far shorter than most had predicted. Yet a third of Labor's remaining fifty-one seats are now considered marginal, making the LNP's task in 2012 eminently more manageable. With four knife-edge seats (Cleveland, Redlands, Chatsworth, Gaven) taking days to decide, Labor won no new seats and lost Indooroopilly (where the Greens' Lee unexpectedly ran third with 25.93 per cent), Aspley (where the Children's Hospital saga cost Bonnie Barry her seat), Cleveland, Gaven, Glass House, Redlands and Hervey Bay, where Environment Minister Andrew McNamara failed to hang on. The LNP also picked up the new seat of Dalrymple in a contest with the last sitting One Nation MP, Rosa Lee Long. All four independents were returned, with Dolly Pratt easily seeing off John Bjelke-Petersen in Nanango. Despite an early surge on the night, Pauline Hanson was also easily beaten in Beaudesert, with the new DS4SEQ also scoring far lower than anticipated. In summary, Labor's easier than expected return appeared due to: Bligh's high approval rating as premier (especially among women voters); a still lacklustre — though somewhat improved — performance by Springborg (now a three-time election loser); the Opposition's lack of economic credibility; and, perhaps most significantly, fear over lost jobs and services under an untried LNP whose leader — as Labor's powerful advertisements suggested — appeared unable to grasp the complexities of the GFC. The final results are set out below. Table One: Queensland Election, 21 March 2009, Primary Vote (%) and Seats Won, 2006-09. Party 2009 2006 % change 2009 2006 No. Primary Primary Seats Seats change vote % vote % won won Labor* 42.25 46.92 -4.67 51 59* -8* LNP# 41.60 37.92 +3.68 34 25 +9 Green* 8.37 7.99 +0.38 0 0* 0* DS4SEQ 0.93 - +0.93 0 0 0 Family 0.82 1.89 -1.07 0 0 0 First One 0.38 0.60 -0.22 0 1 -1 Nation Other 5.65 4.68 +0.97 4 4 0 *Labor won the inner western Brisbane seat of Indooroopilly in 2006 but, in October 2008, MP Ronan Lee defected to the Greens to give the minor party its first Queensland state representation. Labor therefore went into the 2009 election with just 58 seats, and saw the loss of seven, and not eight, districts. 610 Political Chronicles
# The Liberal and National parties in 2009 saw their first election as a merged party, having officially amalgamated in mid 2008. The 2006 totals are thus based on joint Coalition results. Source: Electoral Commission of Queensland.
Table Two: Queensland Election, 21 March 2009, 2PP Vote (%), 2006 - 09. Party 2009 2006 Change 2PP Vote % 2PP Vote % % Labor 50.9 54.9 -4.0 LNP 49.1 45.1 +4.0 Source: Electoral Commission of Queensland.
At month's end, Dr David Solomon was announced as the state's new Integrity Commissioner, perhaps a fitting move given many of his 2008 recommendations into Freedom of Information reform would be adopted in the new Right to Information Act (RTI), operable from 1 July 2009. Among other reforms, the RTI would see cabinet documents accessible on request after ten instead of thirty years, and fully released after twenty. Only those documents genuinely used in cabinet deliberations would now be exempt from RTI requests; no longer could politically sensitive materials be attached for expediency to existing cabinet papers. But yet another Auditor-General's report slammed the government, this time over the new bugbear of south-east Queenslanders: road congestion. Bligh, however, refused to apologise for poor planning. The trial, under Justice Patsy Wolfe, of former minister Gordon Nuttall — facing thirty-six charges of receiving "secret commissions" from business figures between 2002 and 2005 (see previous Chronicles) — also began, with Nuttall pleading not guilty. And a Galaxy poll at period's end found 56 per cent of Queenslanders hoped to see state governments abolished. With Bligh commenting she was not surprised, few could blame her, or the electorate.