LNP's balancing act as they head to drover's dog election win

The Liberal National Party held a shadow cabinet meeting in Roma last week where they re-committed their support to the Surat Basin resource region at the centre of the $30b mining approvals given by Environment Minister Tony Burke last week. The fact the Queensland Liberal National Party is in favour of the massive coal seam gas developments might usually be assumed at a matter of course. The party has been pro-development in most of its guises through the years.

But the ruling Bligh Government is also in favour, desperate for what they will earn in royalties from the deals. The Opposition has been forced to play the green card in order to make a point of differentiation. They are adding their voice to concerns about the groundwater released during the gas extraction and possible damage to the water table. But the position hides tensions: the Nationals half are comfortable digging in for the farmers who grumble about wells on their properties while the more Liberal end of town wants to see the deals with China sealed as soon as possible.

There is a good reason for this haste; they want to be in power when the money arrives. Bligh’s trickery and the loss of Prime Ministerial power has left Labor on the nose in Queensland. The LNP won 21 out of 30 Queensland seats in the 2010 Federal election. Queensland too will go to the polls in either late 2011 or early 2012. If all recent polls are to be believed, the LNP will win in some comfort. The party will need to adjust to the mindset of government over the next 18 months as it lords over the Queensland political scene and grapples with what kind of administration it wants to be.

The LNP is a hybrid party formed in mid-2008 after a long and difficult birth. Uniquely the Nationals were always the bigger entity in Queensland and their members were enthusiastically in favour of merger. After four straight defeats to Labor, they were anxious to regain power by any means. But the Queensland Liberals were much more divided with the right faction in favour but the moderates opposed. John Howard categorically rejected the idea of a stand-alone Queensland amalgamation in 2005. In 2006 Senator Barnaby Joyce pronounced the last rights on it in 2006 saying because it looked and smelled like a dead duck, it probably was one.

But two events in 2007 conspired to put the dead duck back on the agenda. When the Liberals did not contest Brisbane Central after Peter Beattie resigned, it angered the Nationals and even Liberal's own Deputy Leader Mark McArdle who publicly admitted they had failed the people of the electorate. Then in November, the Federal Coalition lost the election and Howard lost his seat. The biggest obstacle to merger was gone. When Lawrence Springborg replaced Jeff Seeney as Nats leader in January 2008, he pressed forward the amalgamation agenda over the head of opposing Liberals.

They outmanoeuvred their opponents in several key ways. Firstly they got the Federal MPs onside by guaranteeing them pre-selection for the next election. Secondly the two party presidents (who were both in favour of merger) conducted polls of branch members which found an overwhelming majority in favour of merging. Thirdly the new party would become the Queensland division of the Liberal Party and an affiliation with the federal Nationals.

Nats President Bruce McIver set a timetable for amalgamation calling a constitutional convention for 26 July 2008 to make a decision. Pro-merger Libs agreed to meet on the same day. Two days before the appointed date, Lib state council narrowly voted to postpone, but the pro-merger faction went to the courts and secured a Supreme Court judgement to ensure it went ahead. At both conventions on 26 June, the merger was approved. McIver was elected president and former Libs state president Gary Spence became deputy. Springborg was anointed leader of the combined entity with McArdle his deputy. It wasn’t until eight months later the Federal Council of the Liberal Party ratified the new LNPQ as its Queensland Division.

Electoral desperation had driven the two parties together but it did not pay immediate dividends. Anna Bligh clung to power in the 2009 state election despite losing eight seats. Springborg resigned after his third defeat and handed over the reins to former dentist John-Paul Langbroek. Langbroek is an ex-Liberal and his succession wasn’t an easy one, winning possibly by as little as one vote.

Almost 18 months later, the rumblings in the cabinet room continue with Infrastructure and Planning spokesman David Gibson resigning from the frontbench after Langbroek called for a ministerial reshuffle without first consulting colleagues. Tim Nicholls, who Langbroek defeated for the top job, is not ruling out a challenge.

But Nicholls is just noise. Only one of two people can become Premier in the next Queensland election and Nicholls is not one of them. Given Labor’s latest catastrophic polling in Brisbane, neither is Anna Bligh nor anyone in the party that might overthrow her.

In what is shaping up to be a drover's dog election, the next Premier of Queensland will be either JP Langbroek or Lawrence Springborg. The “Borg”, as he likes to be known, remains extremely powerful as deputy and the unofficial head of the Nationals wing of the party. But three defeats have shown he is not trusted in the metropolitan areas. It is up to the more likeable Langbroek to step up in the next 18 months to show he is Premier material.

I saw signs of it when he made a major speech here in Roma last weekend when the Shadow Cabinet met in town. Springborg was notably absent, but the rest of Langbroek's cabinet had the steely determination of a party about to seize government and were looking seriously at the problems that will bring. Langbroek's style is consensual but philosophical differences means the marriage of the Nats and Libs remains fragile. Langbroek will be looking for the smell of victory to keep them away from the divorce courts in the shorter term.

Queensland election watch: Here for a long time not a good time

Led by feverish prognostications from the Opposition and News Limited journalists, Queensland has been on early election watch since the start of the year. As the only state in Australia to mirror the federal three year term, ALP Premier Anna Bligh must call an election by September. Though Bligh’s formal position is that she will not call an early election, most parties (Labor included) are already campaigning as if an election was imminent.

Despite the volatility of three year terms, Queensland has had remarkably stable government for almost a century. If Bligh wins, as the quantitative and qualitative opinion polls still predict, it will be Labor’s fifth successive victory in eleven years. And aside from Borbridge's two year hiccup 1996-1998, Labor have ruled Queensland for 18 of the last 20 years. Before that was the 31 year rule of the Nationals whose length in power was dragged out by the larger than life Sir Joh and his clever media adviser Allen Callaghan. Looking back even further, Labor ruled the state for 40 years from 1917 to 1957.

These results show that Queenslanders are conservative because they dislike change not because they dislike Labor. In 2007 the state played a two-hander with NSW in getting Labor (and their own Prime Minister and Treasurer) over the victory line. At a state level, most of their decade in power was under Premier Peter Beattie. Beattie was a consummate media performer who glided his way effortlessly through crisis after crisis to claim victory after victory. But by September 2007 his crash or crash through philosophy was taking its toll. Premier Pete could be tarted up no longer and he stepped aside to let Anna Bligh take over.

Bligh had two years to create a new image for Queensland Labor before she would have to face the voters. As she told the audience at last year’s ALP state conference, “I knew when I took on this job that the next election would be tough”. Surprisingly, this was the only reference to her date with destiny in the speech. But if she wins, she will create history as Australia’s first elected female Premier (both Lawrence in WA and Kirner in Victoria were defeated at the first time of asking). She remains favourite to do exactly that.

At the very beginning of 2009, psephologist Malcolm McKerras was one of the first to openly predict this outcome when he wrote in The Australian that “Labor will hang on in Queensland” He predicted that result even though he thinks the two-party preferred vote is likely to be tied 50:50 which represents a five percent swing to the opposition. The problem is that they need a swing of 7.6 per cent to get an equal number of seats.

McKerras says that thanks to a major exercise in seat abolitions and re-distributions last August, Labor should fall over the line to win the election. The conservative parties have lost out more in the Electoral Commissions rejigging of boundaries (pdf). One interesting re-distribution example that may not work for the government is Clayfield. McKerras noted that a redistribution of notionally Labor voters in Clayfield has made LNP’s sitting MP Tim Nicholls vulnerable. While I was directly affected by this re-distribution – and resent being typecast as a Labor voter – I agree with McKerras and expect Nicholls to hold just about hold on, mostly due to his high public profile after an unsuccessful run at Liberal leader in 2007.

But the LNP could do even better still if Bligh does not adhere to McKerras’s prediction caveat. “She will call an early election at her peril,” he warned, pointing at Labor’s shock loss last year in WA and near defeat in the NT. In both elections, large Labor majorities were lost when over-confident state leaders went to the polls early. But most observers now think that a late wet season election is exactly what Bligh intends to have (though Mark Bahnisch believes the window of opportunity for an early election is just two more weeks). If Bligh is gambling that Queenslanders won’t judge their government harshly by going early, it can only be because she thinks things are going to be a whole lot worse if she waits till September.

Whatever the date, the phoney war has started. Bligh dipped her toes into the digital election with the launch of Anna4Qld.com.au last week. Neither Andrew Bartlett nor Graham Young were impressed by the site. Says Young, “the site pretends to be Web 2.0 when it is so slick and spin-heavy that it shouts 'phony'". In my own view, the crucial point about the site was the re-branding of “Anna”. You had to look deep onto the homepage to find the word “Labor” in small font.

Meanwhile Lawrence Springborg is playing with his own shiny new brand. The Liberal National Party sprung into being last year and this election is its first electoral test. How will the new party perform? Behind the rusted-on marriage of Nationals and Liberals is the old Nationals party machine backed up by the cash of Clive Palmer. BRW says Palmer is worth $1.5 billion but the man himself thinks he has $6.5 billion which would make him the richest man in Australia. Whatever it is, it makes him wealthy enough to support vanity projects such as his son Michael’s tilt at a safe Labor seat and his fondness for defamation suits. However, it is also extremely likely he will also provide a strong war chest for LNP’s upcoming media campaign.

The problem is, as The Poll Bludger quotes Paul Williams: “Brisbane’s progressive Liberals will not vote for a party headed by a National.” Queensland’s own psephologist Scott Steel at Pollytics also succinctly defined Springborg’s problem as “Brisbane”. He says Springborg will face a third defeat as leader because he is unable to jump over the “rather large chasm that separates the Liberal and National party constituencies.” Steel believes Springborg’s anti-green attitudes will scare off urban Liberal voters who also have environmental sympathies.


Antony Green also calls Springborg’s task “Herculean”. Majority government for the LNP requires 22 seats and a swing of 8.3 per cent. The last time Queensland saw uniform swings of that scale was in 1989 when the disgraced Nationals were turfed out of power. But Green also notes that 2006 was an overwhelming election victory at an election that should have been much closer. And also, perhaps more pertinently, he points out that the LNP has so far avoided serious internal dispute.

While Labor has no scandal on its conscience the size of the Fitzgerald Inquiry, it is looking tattered away from the shiny Anna brand. There are several members retiring and possibly more to follow. Tonight, the MP for the marginal seat of Chatsworth, Chris Bombolas gave his former employees at Brisbane Channel Nine news an exclusive to announce he was not seeking re-election due to health reasons. That same Channel Nine news used the story of the long-running flood in North Queensland to point fingers at the “inaction” of the government and show grumbling locals unhappy with the speed of a rescue operation. Last night the same station quoted Opposition frontbencher Ray Hopper who compared it to Bush’s Katrina moment.

While Bligh was quick to denounce Hopper’s statement as bad taste, the jibe may have served its purpose. The LNP might well capitalise on ennui and electoral distaste for an early election. Bligh aside, Labor are beginning to look like a tired government that are simply out of answers. They may also be victims of a reverse zeitgeist that sees Labor entrenched federally, and on the way out in the states. In some respects it doesn’t matter; Queensland is unlikely to be served well by a new government of either persuasion. The ALP and the LNP are both too consumed by a love of the state’s copious coal reserves. Either government will need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the new 21st century greenhouse realities.

Queensland launches Liberal National Party

A new political party was launched in Queensland yesterday as the long-touted state merger of the Liberals and the Nationals finally came to pass. The executive of the new Liberal National Party (LNP) met in Brisbane and anointed former Nationals boss Bruce McIver as State President and former Liberal powerbroker Gary Spence as his deputy. The launch also introduced the new leadership team of Leader Lawrence Springborg, and Deputy Leader Mark McArdle. Like the presidential roles, the leadership and deputy roles were filled by former Nationals and Liberal leaders respectively, showing that Nationals remain the more powerful force in the combined entity.

Speaking in front of a thousand cheering fans, McIver said the launch marks the birth of a new era in Queensland politics. “The LNP is determined to offer the people of Queensland…a credible alternative to the current Government,” he said. “And a team with vision, built around the leadership of Lawrence Springborg and Mark McArdle.” New party leader Springborg said the creation of the LNP had ended conservative disunity which he described as the Labor government's “greatest asset”.

In his acceptance speech Springborg outlined four major areas the new party will focus on in the lead-up to the next election due in 2009. The four areas were: roads, hospitals, education and water. Springborg had the key backing of pro-merger Liberal MPs Tim Nicholls and Steve Dickson. He also received the endorsement of Liberal Brisbane mayor Campbell Newman who urged Liberal delegates to ignore calls by the party's federal president Alan Stockdale to delay the merger vote. Springborg attacked Stockdale and said the vote “can never be stopped and stymied by a few faceless men and women who seek to stand in the way.”

Embattled Federal Liberal leader Brendan Nelson came out in favour of the merger yesterday saying it would significantly strengthen the prospects of the conservatives defeating the Bligh Labor Government at the next state election. "We will all now work to see the best interests of the non-Labor side of politics are best served, both in Queensland and nationally," he said. Nelson’s statement came despite the last-minute Liberal moves to defer the vote over dispute over who would become president of the new party.

Crikey’s Bernard Keane says the LNP is merely the National Party with a Liberal rump. Apart from getting to go first in the name of the new party, Keane says the party is the “same clutch of dribbling hicks and divided incompetents [Queensland has] rejected for a decade.” He says that many Liberal members are now considering bailing out rather than joining a party that shares none of its basic beliefs. “The Nationals exist to promote the systematic abuse of government revenue and regulatory arrangements for the benefit of selected, primarily regional, industries and businesses,” he said. “Their record in government is one of corruption, rorting, rank incompetence and intolerance.”

But surprising or not, others accept the new arrangements, albeit with raised eyebrows. Andrew Bartlett called the merger a fait accompli and believes the merger will take the combined party further to the right. He said the new party fits comfortably with the “fundamentalist conservative right-wing mindset” of the Bjelke-Petersen era. But perceptively, Bartlett also points out that that the merger is less about ideology than it is about marketing. “Like any major party, it will try to focus on a few key messages and themes that it hopes will appeal to a majority of the electorate,” he said, “a large part of which will seek to focus on tapping into and building upon dissatisfaction with their opponent.”

Of course to do so, they will need to overcome dissatisfaction with their own side. As Poll Bludger points out, the new party structure over-represented rural and regional areas “in time-honoured Queensland style”. The newly elected Liberal state president Mal Brough has declared he will not join the new party. Brough maintains he is still officially the president of the Queensland Liberals until the federal party ratifies the merger. After that, he says he is undecided. "There's absolutely a career in politics if I want it, because that has been made very clear to me [by] my colleagues down south,” he said. “But whether I intend to do that or not is another thing altogether, that's not a decision I've taken.”

Springborg pilfers from the Goss playbook

Queensland Opposition leader Lawrence Springborg has taken a leaf out of former Labor Premier Wayne Goss’s book with his mid-term advertising campaign promoting him as an alternative leader. The tone of his ads is so serious as to be almost beyond parody, and conspicuously make no mention of his own party. Similarly his website Springborg.com is a National-free zone that attempts to lay out his case for “one non-Labor party” in Queensland. Despite the hoopla Springborg has little hope of emulating Goss’s success with the Queensland coalition sitting 20 per cent behind Anna Bligh’s government in the polls.

Wayne Goss won that 1989 election with a 24 seat majority bringing an end to a tumultuous 32 year reign of the National Party. Queensland has always marched to a different tune to the rest of the county and 1989 was no different. Goss won despite a national trend against state Labor governments. His self-declared reformist government came to power with a mandate to rid the state of what he called the “diseases” it picked up from the previous administration. As he told the ABC in 2005, “The whole fabric of public administration had been infected with cancer, the cancer of corruption.”

The previous government was dominated by the 19-year tenure of Joh Bjelke-Petersen as premier. His deeply conservative administration insulated Queensland from the progressive political changes that were occurring across the rest of the country in the 1970s. His power was sustained by a biased electoral system based on zonal malapportionment (ironically introduced by Labor in the 1950s), a secretive redistribution process, inaccurate rolls (the only state which did not use the federal roll) and compromised commissioners.

The Nationals were undone by the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption which exposed systematic impropriety at the highest levels of government. In 1987 Bjelke-Petersen was sacked by his own party. His replacement Mike Ahearn made the dramatic pledge to implement the Fitzgerald reforms “lock, stock and barrel”. But he did not have the support of his own party to implement these reforms and was replaced before the election by a more traditional National figure in Russell Cooper. Cooper shored up the bush vote but his appointment undermined urban faith in the Nationals' commitment to reform.

Labor won the 1989 election comfortably despite the gerrymandered ballot. As documented in Bron Stevens and John Wanna’s analysis of their first term “The Goss Government”, their election campaign was a mixture of “caution and ambition, conservatism and reform”. Labor were determined not to give the electorate any reason to fear them and copied the Nationals on a range of contentious policy issues. To counteract the claim Labor would be a high-tax government, they promised “no new taxes”. Queensland was already the lowest taxing state in the commonwealth and this promise seriously constrained their ability to institute much-needed reforms.

However the new Labor Government was more ambitious on other fronts. They promised a radical difference to the redneck patriarchal style of the Bjelke-Petersen era with Goss a modern, articulate and consultative leader of a cabinet that would adhere to traditional Westminster rules so conspicuously ignored by their predecessors. Bjelke-Petersen famously was unable to explain the doctrine of Westminster separation of powers (between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government) at the Fitzgerald Inquiry. He bluffed his way through this nonsense answer to the question of what that doctrine was: “the separation of the doctrine that you refer to, in relation to where the Government stands, and the rest of the community stands, or where the rest of the instruments of Government stand.”

By contrast, the legally trained Goss was keen to depoliticise the public service who would implement policy in an impartial, corporate fashion (under the head of a rising star named Kevin Rudd). Both government and administration would be accountable and responsive. Labor also asked the Electoral and Administrative Review Commission (EARC) to table recommendations on the reforms of the biased electoral system. While Goss was disappointed the EARC didn’t go far enough to remove rural advantage of vote weightage, it did abolish the multi-zonal system that gave the rural-based Nationals such a strong advantage.

Goss succeeded in keeping the high economic growth he inherited from the previous government. He had some successes in implementing traditional Labor reform areas such as the establishment of the Women’s Policy Institute. He also increased the funding for Aboriginal and Islander Affairs, criminally neglected by the racist Bjelke-Petersen government. Goss also increased Queensland national parks allocation, supported the World Heritage listing of the Daintree Rainforest area and formally ended sand mining on Fraser Island.

However Goss was heavily criticised by many would-be supporters in women’s, Indigenous and environmental lobby groups for not going far enough to implement needed reforms in these areas. This was a political decision as Goss needed to shore up his base for the 1992 election and knew that his opponents on the left were unlikely to vote for the Nationals despite their protests at his reform failures. Women’s groups were disappointed he did not decriminalise prostitution or repeal laws appearing to make abortion legal. Indigenous groups were dismayed at his lack of consultation on land rights issues and his failure to implement recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

But Goss had to accommodate other more powerful interest groups. His emphasis on economic growth meant he needed to consult with industry leaders, mining companies, pastoralists and tourism operators. With no upper chamber in Queensland that might have elected Greens or Democrats, there was little parliamentary scrutiny of any adverse social decisions Goss made. Welfare spending remained lower than in any other state in Australia. Goss’s government walked a fine line between reform and caution and was eventually comfortably re-elected in 1992. Goss’s failures eventually cost him and his party power in a narrow defeat in 1996, though Peter Beattie won Government back for Labor 18 months later.

Lawrence Springborg is no Goss but he too is trying to walk a fine line between reform and conservatism. He promises a commitment to renewable energy, a “world class” health system, and empowering Aboriginals while appealing to the conservative base with a typical “tough on crime” stance. But despite Springborg being all dressed up, at the moment he has nowhere to go. The prospect of a united conservative party in Queensland looks as far away as ever and with it disappears any chance he has of becoming Premier. Labor have won six of the last seven Queensland elections. At this stage, Anna Bligh looks odds on to make it seven out of eight and make history by being the first ever elected female state leader in the country.

Born Again Borg: Lawrence Springborg rises from the Nationals' Ashes

In a transparently desperate and uninspiring move, the 17 parliamentary members of the Queensland National Party have re-appointed Lawrence Springborg as its leader. Springborg previously led the party from 2003 to 2006 and resigned in 2006 after his second comprehensive election defeat at the hands of Labor. He now replaces the hapless Jeff Seeney who never faced the voters as party leader. Springborg regains the leadership with the Nationals polling at just nine per cent and he is considered the most attractive proposition to lead a proposed new state-based conservative force that might emerge from the Queensland Nationals and Liberals.

The news came just a couple of days after Springborg said a leadership coup was "not on the radar" despite being approached by parliamentary colleagues to challenge Jeff Seeney. But soon-to-be-deposed leader Seeney was not fooled and knew the challenge was just under that radar. He accused Springborg of manoeuvring behind the scenes. "I'm particularly disappointed that Lawrence Springborg has chosen to pursue this issue in the media,” he said. Springborg's machinations worked to perfection and he won yesterday's vote in some comfort.

The scenario is similar to what transpired in 2003. At that time Springborg was touted as a replacement leader for Mike Horan. The Nationals were polling poorly at 8 or 9 per cent and Horan was perceived of being incapable of mounting any serious opposition to then Labor leader Peter Beattie. Springborg (who was deputy leader under Rob Borbidge) urged a party ballot and put his name forward as leader under the label of “progressive conservative”. He won the party ballot easily by nine votes to three. Then just 34 with four young children, he represented a generational shift for the Nationals. He immediate announced then (as he did yesterday) his most urgent goal was to unite with the Queensland Liberals.

Of course, that dream was scuppered at a federal level by Prime Minister John Howard. Now the ambitions are just state based. According to anonymous acerbic Queensland psephologist Possum Comitatus, Springborg’s dubious prize is to occupy one of the state’s two opposition leadership positions. He believes any merger is doomed to failure due to the radically different supporter bases of the two parties. He also correctly points out that it doesn’t matter what the Nationals the next non-Labor leader of Queensland will be a Liberal. The coalition needs to win another unlikely 20 seats from Labor to win power and these seats are in the populous south-east of the state where only the Liberals are capable of winning.

While the Possum was scathing, fellow Queensland political pundit Mark Bahnitsch conceded Springborg is “marginally better placed” than Feeney to take up the fight to Labor leader Anna Bligh (who herself has yet to be tested at the polls as leader). But that was where the praise ended. Bahnitsch called Springborg a “single note politician” due to his infatuation with the merger with the Liberals, a prospect doomed to failure anyway. Bahnitsch also castigated the laziness of the Nationals frontbench which he said was content with the spoils of opposition.

This laziness is an arrow pointed straight at Springborg himself. Tracey Arklay and John Wanna’s analysis of the 2004 Queensland election defeat was a damning indictment of his inactivity. Arklay and Wanna said that Springborg allowed Peter Beattie to run a “non-campaign”. Defending 66 out of 89 seats in parliament, it suited Beattie to avoid campaigning and adversarial politics to reduce the risk of a protest vote. However the strategy would not have worked unless supported by a compliance and supine opposition. Springborg entered the election with low expectations, failed to challenge the Premier and relied on a vain hope of a “natural correction”. The result was a second successive landslide win for Labor. Springborg didn’t do much better in 2006 against an even more tired Beattie Government. It beggars belief that anyone thinks he will make any further ground against Labor rejuvenated with Anna Bligh’s leadership.