QUEENSLAND ELECTION DEBRIEF
As the dust settles in Queensland (and the counting continues), Liberal National Party leader David Crisafulli and his deputy Jarrod Bleijie are heading to Government House today to be sworn into interim leadership roles after Labor’s outgoing premier Steven Miles conceded defeat in the state election.
AAP says the pair will remain in those positions until counting is finalised and reports almost 70% was completed by Sunday afternoon, with the LNP on track to claim at least 48 seats (47 are needed to form a majority government). At the time of writing, the ABC reckons 10 seats remain in doubt and currently has the LNP on 48 and Labor on 30.
Quoting Crisafulli on Sunday, AAP recalls Labor has governed Queensland for 30 of the past 35 years. The result also marks the LNP’s first majority in almost a decade. “The significance of what we have achieved is not lost on us. We asked Queenslanders for their support,” Crisafulli said. “They gave it in record numbers. We are determined to give them the fresh start which we promised we would deliver.”
Guardian Australia highlights Miles, who succeeded Annastacia Palaszczuk in December, saying he hoped to stay on as Labor leader and hold the new government to account from opposition. “I’m very proud of the campaign I ran and the government that I have led these last 10 months. But at the end of the day, clearly, Queenslanders for some time, have wanted to see a change of government,” he said on Sunday. “You’ve seen the polls pretty consistently for a long time now, they predicted a very, very bad result. The fact that many MPs have held their seats, it’s a credit to them, but also I’m going to give credit to the campaign that we ran.”
As the parties and politicians get used to their new roles, the expected blame games and analysis of the state election result (and what everyone now needs to immediately do federally) are starting in earnest.
The Australian reports Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is facing pressure to unveil “populist cost of living measures” as federal Labor MPs reportedly claim the Queensland result could have been worse if not for “bold” policies such as 50c fees for public transport, free school lunches and car registration discounts.
The paper has (unnamed) Labor MPs looking at positives in the results, such as those in Brisbane seats, and other (also unnamed) MPs claiming the results in regional Queensland showed the party was vulnerable to Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s strategy of targeting rural and outer-suburban areas. The Oz says Labor is on track to lose between 15 and 19 seats and retain only three electorates north of Brisbane.
Elsewhere, the Greens reckon Labor lost the Queensland election because they were too obsessed with… the Greens, while Labor reckons the Greens’ poor performance in the Queensland election is a “big message” for [federal Greens leader] Adam Bandt.
The ABC quotes Albanese, who has long butted heads with the Greens over his stalled housing agenda, as saying the Greens’ Queensland results (where they have so far won just one seat) sent a message to the party’s federal MPs that voters “expected them to play a progressive role, not to play a blocking role”. The PM added: “To seek to bring people together, not to divide people. I think there is a big message in this for Adam Bandt.”
Meanwhile, Guardian Australia gave Max Chandler-Mather, the Greens’ federal housing spokesperson, the opportunity to claim: “The frustration is that Labor spends so much of their time and resources attacking us. If they had held on [in regional areas] then there could have been a minority government with us in the balance of power. The lesson for federal Labor is if the prime minister wants to spend the next six months fighting and attacking the Greens then he’s going to hand the keys to Peter Dutton.”
Talking of Dutton and what the Queensland result means for the Coalition’s chances at the federal election, David Crowe at The Sydney Morning Herald reckons rather than being a boost, the result will instead focus attention on the lack of policy ideas from the opposition leader (see The Commentariat below).
NEW INFLATION DATA DUE
With the Reserve Bank of Australia’s November meeting next week (they sure come round quick, don’t they?), Capital Brief flags new inflation figures are due on Wednesday. The site says the data will no doubt see rate cut predictions amended but also adds it may “slam the door on the possibility of a 2024 rate cut once and for all”.
The Australian reports Albanese, Health Minister Mark Butler and other senior ministers are on a “national blitz” this week to highlight Labor’s economic and health policies ahead of the inflation numbers. The paper says Treasurer Jim Chalmers is also working on “a new round of cost of living measures ahead of the December mid-year budget update”.
AAP says Albanese will address the Mining and Energy Union’s national convention in Brisbane this evening and plans to highlight Labor’s industrial relations reforms as he attempts to move the conversation on from the party’s loss in Queensland.
Talking of the RBA, the AFR says the central bank’s governor Michele Bullock may still reveal individual board votes on interest rate decisions and require members to give speeches, even if Chalmers fails in his attempts to reform the bank.
Finally, AAP flags Telstra and Optus are turning off their 3G networks today, following TPG Telecom/Vodafone. The newswire says the official shutdown of 3G has been delayed due to concerns over a particular type of phone that cannot connect to triple zero on newer networks. The handsets use 4G for normal calls and texts, but 3G for the emergency number.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland is quoted as saying: “If you or someone you know has one of these 3G devices, please take action now and contact your service provider. My department will continue to work with the telcos during the switchover process to ensure it occurs in a safe and effectively managed manner.”
Today a new federal law will come into force, requiring the telcos to disconnect voice and data services to the reported 60,000 affected devices in circulation, the AAP adds.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Continuing this morning’s Queensland theme… over 5,000 people laid down naked on Brisbane’s Story Bridge yesterday for an enormous piece of art coordinated by New York-based photographer Spencer Tunick.
The ABC reports the photo shoot was the centrepiece of queer arts and culture festival Melt, which is running in the city until November 10.
Tunick is well-known for his large-scale nude shoots and the Brisbane pieces, entitled RISING TIDE, are being created to commemorate the 30 years he has been making them.
The national broadcaster quoted the photographer as saying the shoot “was a Brisbane action” and while some people had travelled from overseas for the event, the majority of the 5,500 people present were mainly Brisbane residents.
“Unbelievably, Brisbane is not that conservative when it comes to real humans and the body and art,” he said.
Say What?
I always say it’s so sad that Kurt Cobain died when he did because he never saw GPS, as it’s the most wonderful thing to watch my little blue spot walking down the street. I just find it completely magical and unbelievable.
Helen Mirren
The 79-year-old actor regularly uses Cobain’s death in 1994 to express her luck at witnessing so many technological advances. The latest reference was on the Brave New World podcast last week, The Guardian reports.
CRIKEY RECAP
Back in the comparatively innocent time of mid-2016, Cracked ran a sketch that posited Donald Trump’s presidential run as an elaborate prank, cooked up by smug comedy writers, that slowly gets out of control. The Trump campaign gains momentum despite the “hilarious” things they have him say, and the sketch concludes with a sobbing Trump calling the pair — now morphed into his baffled, suit-wearing campaign managers — to protest that he doesn’t want to be president. “I know you don’t, sir, nobody does,” one soothingly replies.
Earlier that year, Stephen Colbert — back when we thought satire might influence things one way or another — recast Trump’s infamous claim that he could publicly shoot someone and not lose a vote from a brag to a cold sweat realisation: he was trapped in his campaign. Colbert similarly concluded that “Donald Trump can’t really want to be president.”
So does Trump actually want any of this? We have a look at the evidence that suggests he might not have enjoyed much of the last eight years.
The truth is that high-speed rail has more than just environmental benefits. It is the intangible benefits that are the greatest. High-speed rail makes countries smaller. It brings communities closer together. It increases mobility for millions of people, who choose to spend their holidays in their own country, or to build relationships or even businesses between cities because it is so easy to reach them. It shouldn’t just be up to bean counters whether we want to be closer to our fellow Australians. After the parochial squabbling and isolation of the pandemic years, Australians need more than ever to be brought closer together. High-speed rail is popular for a reason — people can already see themselves moving around their country in a different way. They intuitively know that it will be an opportunity for them, not a cost.
Take it from someone who can reach the Mediterranean to feel the sea breeze on her face in under three and a half hours.
It becomes an extremely expensive white elephant.
The Melbourne-Sydney trip is estimated to take 2 hours 44 minutes, which isn’t even that quick. And that’s express. But if you think you’ll be on an express train that doesn’t stop along the way, I suggest you haven’t been paying any attention to the way Nationals MPs work. Australia’s parliamentary system is designed to make sure the regions are dragged along.
$100 billion is the introductory price.
I’ve been using $100 billion as the price-tag in this article as that was in the range estimated by the 2011 study. The 2012 study said $114 billion. You may have noticed we’ve had some inflation since then. Big infrastructure projects are hard. The NBN is a great example. If it can be finished for under $500 billion it’ll be a miracle.
We would be so much better off decarbonising our electricity sector immediately.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
One killed and several injured after truck hits bus stop in Israel; protesters disrupt speech by Netanyahu (The Guardian)
Japan’s ruling party set to lose long-standing majority in major blow to new PM (CNN)
Editor resigns, subscribers cancel as Washington Post non-endorsement prompts crisis at Bezos paper (Semafor)
Michelle Obama makes a searing appeal to men: ‘Take our lives seriously’ (The New York Times) ($)
JD Vance touts Trump as ‘candidate of peace’ (Axios)
Singer apologises after swearing on live TV during US anthem (BBC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Lessons from the Queensland election that should worry Peter Dutton — David Crowe (The Sydney Morning Herald): But this is a perfect point in time to check the assumption that Dutton is gaining miraculous momentum. In fact, he has no significant economic plan. He wants tougher laws for supermarkets and thinks people should dip into their super to pay for housing but offers no major solutions on the cost of living. His tax plan is a mystery, his nuclear pitch is vague. The debate about what he stands for has hardly begun.
Dutton wants to delay being tested. He is rarely willing to face a press conference in Canberra and prefers media interviews that stroke his ego, so he is not placed under much pressure to answer questions.
The campaign only gets real when people know what he offers. Claiming reflected glory from the Queensland result will not help Dutton. It will be the federal campaign that counts.
Queensland’s lessons for Anthony Albanese, Peter Dutton and Adam Bandt’s band — Michelle Grattan (The Conversation): The state result will give heart to Dutton’s strategy of targeting the outer suburbs. As ABC election analyst Antony Green pointed out, the anti-Labor swing “was smaller in the south east than in regional Queensland, and smaller in inner Brisbane compared to outer Brisbane”.
More widely, in Australia the trend in recent years is towards Labor becoming the party of inner urban voters and the Liberals targeting outer suburbia.
The federal Greens will need to do some self-questioning about their strategy after their Queensland result. While their overall vote was not hit they appear certain of only one of their two state seats. They had talked up expectations of expanding their numbers.
This comes after seat losses at this month’s ACT election and a poor performance in the New South Wales local government election.
