Labor Booted Out in Queensland

A couple of months ago, there was an election in the Northern Territory. This was the makeup of the Parliament in 2020 with Labor holding a commanding position, but then in 2024, things were turned on their head with Labor suffering a crushing defeat losing 10 seats, with the Country Liberal Party romping to victory. The ACT also had an election a couple of weeks ago. The results from 2020 were pretty much identical to this year’s election, just with the addition of a couple of new independents, but no party received the required 13 seats needed for majority rule, although Labor will retain power for a record 23 years in a row due to their coalition with the Greens party.

And that brings us to the topic of this video, my home state of Queensland just had an election over the weekend, with Labor losing its almost decade-long grip on power. These are the 2020 election results where Labor secured 52 seats, but although counting has not been fully finalised, on the weekend Labor lost at least 20 seats, pushing them into opposition, with the LNP securing enough seats to form government, and their leader David Crisafulli becoming the state’s 41st premier.

Personally, I was a bit sick of Labor, so I’m happy to see them go. Noting that this doesn’t mean I’m a huge fan of the LNP, but I’m willing to have a positive outlook until such a time they prove me wrong.

On election night, former Premier Steven Miles gave a somewhat strange concession speech, if you could call it that. He said, “Watching the results tonight, it is clear that hasn’t been enough to secure a majority of seats for Labor, and also that the LNP is unlikely to have a majority.” With the crowd roaring their approval. He continued, “If you consider what we were up against, this is an extraordinary result.” With the crowd roaring their approval again. Anyway, as we now know, he was completely wrong. The LNP will easily secure a majority of seats. And how is losing 20+ seats an extraordinary result? Why did he bother giving the speech so early? He just had to wait half-an-hour or so, and then the real result would have been readily apparent. Anyway, he finally gave a proper concession speech the next day.

But why did Labor lose? How did it all go so wrong for this jet-skiing premier? Well, I’m going to use headlines from The Guardian to answer that: “Labor lost Queensland election partly because it was obsessed with the Greens”. Noting that the Greens lost a seat, so they may be a little upset.

The Greens’ federal housing spokesperson, Max Chandler-Mather, said, “The frustration is that Labor spends so much of their time and resources attacking us. 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. The reality is that we just saw Labor’s biggest political shift to the left in Queensland political history, entirely based on the premise of trying to stop the Greens.”

In classic style, the PM reacted, “Containing the Greens party shows that people who elected the Greens to parliament expected them to play a progressive role, not a blocking role.”

Another Guardian headline that explains Labor’s loss: “Devastating losses in regional Queensland show Labor is increasingly being consigned to the cities”. Who would have known that regional areas, home to key industries such as mining and agriculture, are important to the economy and society?

Ah, none of that matters anyway when you can just go jet skiing on the Gold Coast. Steven Miles almost became a parody of himself, don’t you think? It reminds me of that scene from Happy Days from 1977 where Fonzi jumps over a live shark while on water-skis. Maybe Steven Miles should have jumped over Peter Dutton on his jet ski. That would have become a classic meme.

Anyway, Steven Miles is out, so now he’s got plenty of time to enjoy meat pies. As they say, on your bike, mate! I mean, jet ski.

MUSIC
Allégro by Emmit Fenn