This originally started off as a draft in the comments thread but it was getting too long so I thought I'd turn it into my first diary for Daily Kos and indeed for DKE
CF of Aus and the other Australian/interested in Australian politics bloggers here done an excellent job in covering the amazing result in Qld. I just thought I'd add my own observations and insights
The Governor of Queensland today (Saturday here in Australia) has sworn in an Annastacia Palaszczuk as the new Premier of Queensland. Palaszczuk was sworn in at the helm of a three-member interim cabinet (which includes herself) which will assume responsibility for all ministerial portfolios until a full cabinet is named and sworn in, which will probably occur early next week
Some observations on both the new cabinet and the Queensland election result occur below
You may think it's quite unusual for a new Premier to be sworn in with only a small interim cabinet handling all ministerial portfolios. It has, however, occurred before and most notably at the federal level following the 1972 federal election, which swept the Labor Party into office nationally after twenty-three years in the political wilderness. Then, Labor leader Gough Whitlam was so eager to assume office and implement his reform agenda that he arranged for himself and his deputy Lance Barnard to be sworn in three days after the election as just a two-man ministry. In the ten days before the Labor Caucus met to choose a full cabinet (in the Labor Party, the Caucus traditionally selects who will serve in the Cabinet and the leader subsequently allocates the portfolios, although the leader has gained more and more power over the selection process as time has progressed), the Whitlam-Barnard government implemented a plethora of reforms that totally transformed the political landscape. So there is precedent for this occurring
Interestingly, the new Labor Deputy Premier is Jackie Trad. This marks the first time in Queensland (and probably in Australia but don't quote me on that) that a Premier and a Deputy Premier have both been women. The third member of this cabinet team is Curtis Pitt, the MP for Mulgrave. Pitt was elected to succeed his father as the MP for Mulgrave at the 2009 state election and defied expectations to retain his electorate -a classic swing seat -during the 2012 electoral wipeout while his colleagues in seats previously considered Labor strongholds were losing theirs.
An interesting fact is that, when the full cabinet is named, it will likely contain some novice MPs, i.e. MPs who are entering the Legislative Assembly for the first time. Labor's electoral wipeout in 2012 was so comprehensive that Labor was reduced to single-digit figures in terms of parliamentary representation. While a few MPs who were eliminated in the rout returned for a second go (and most of them were returned to Parliament), most chose not to so the majority of new Labor MPs will be political freshmen. So therefore the new cabinet is likely to consist of most of the few Labor MPs who were in the Legislative Assembly the last time around, some of the returning MPs and a few novices.
The Labor Party holds 44 out of the 89 seats in the Legislative Assembly (just one short of a majority). It will hold power with the casting vote of Independent MP Peter Wellington, who holds the electorate of Nicklin. Nicklin is actually a traditionally conservative-leaning electorate (it is indeed named after Frank Nicklin, a former conservative Premier) but Wellington has held the seat since 1998 and also provided the casting vote that the Beattie Labor government needed to form office after that year's state election. The previous Liberal National Party (LNP) government of Premier Campbell Newman unwisely did much that antagonized Wellington and, although his inclination may have always been to go with Labor given his past history, certainly did their party no favours in the aftermath of this election
Labor will still need to supply a Speaker, which will either be Wellington or another Labor MP (unless they can entice an opposition MP or a member of the other minor party in the Legislative Assembly to take on the role, which has happened in other jurisdictions). If it is Wellington or a Labor MP, it will mean that that they'll be short one seat of a majority. However, I assume that Queensland operates under the Westminster convention which allows the Speaker a casting vote in a tied result so this shouldn't be a major issue
The other minor party in the Queensland Legislative Assembly is the Katter's Australian Party (KAP), which is kind of difficult to describe in terms of political ideology but is probably best categorized as conservative-populist. Founded by Robert Katter, a federal MP, the state party is led by his son Robbie Katter. The KAP holds two seats in the Legislative Assembly and, if the Palaszczuk Labor minority government loses one seat, KAP will hold the balance of power and will choose who will form government. It remains a mystery whom they would opt to support in that circumstance
In the past, Katter Snr. sided with the Liberal-National coalition when negotiations were on to form a minority government after the 2010 federal election resulted in a hung Parliament (although he wasn't particularly complimentary about then federal Opposition Leader/now Prime Minister Tony Abbott and, when federal Labor switched leaders in June 2013 and returned Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister, Katter made it clear that he would vote with Labor to defeat a no-confidence motion if one was moved, which it wasn't). Another factor which may or may not incline the KAP toward supporting an LNP-minority government in the event it holds the balance of power is the fact that one of its two MPs in the Queensland Legislative Assembly, Shane Knuth, is a former member of the LNP. Yet another factor which may tip the balance in favour of the LNP if KAP holds the balance of power is the fact that a recent poll taken the electorate of Mount Isa, which Robbie Katter represents, have shown that the majority of his constituents would have liked him to form a minority government with the LNP which was headed by former Opposition Leader and Newman government Health Minister Lawrence Springborg
Which brings us now to the LNP. Still licking its wounds after its upset defeat at the polls, the LNP selected Springborg as its new leader last week. It's easy to see why Springborg was chosen to lead the party. Springborg is an old hand/political veteran who first entered Parliament in 1989 who has previously served two times as Leader of the National Party and who oversaw the merger of the state's two main conservative parties to form the Liberal National Party (LNP) late last decade. He's probably the main most experienced at the art of negotiating with minor parties and independents, has the experience of political leadership and serving in a minority government (he did so from 1996-1998) and is probably the least polarizing and most respected figure that the LNP has to offer (which admittedly isn't saying much). Plus, there was that recent poll in Robbie Katter's electorate showing Springborg as the preferred choice of Premier among his constituents, which was conducted shortly before the LNP leadership ballot last week and may have influenced some of votes
But Springborg brings with him some baggage He is a three-time loser, having led the National Party to defeat at the 2004 and 2006 state elections and the LNP to defeat in 2009. Now, his defeat in 2004 was somewhat understandable. He was up against a government with a record landslide majority in the Legislative Assembly and a Premier -Peter Beattie -who was probably one of the most politically savvy leaders that Australia has seen in the modern era. But in 2006, the Beattie Labor government was in serious trouble and Springborg proved unable to capitalize on it nor control the divisions within his own coalition and led the party to a somewhat disappointing result. In 2009, Springborg was up against a new Premier in Anna Bligh and had merged the two conservative parties into one seemingly potent political force. He was favoured, even expected, to win in some quarters, but Bligh succeeded in retaining government with a comfortable majority. So he's somewhat of a political failure
Furthermore, he's spent the last week acting like somewhat of a petulant child. First, he tried to argue that Labor didn't deserve to form government because it didn't expect to win office and had no plan and then he took to insisting that the LNP should remain in government in a caretaker role until a disputed election result in the seat of Ferny Grove (which I'll come to in a minute) was resolved. The legal arguments over the Ferny Grove result could take months and so what Springborg was effectively proposing was that the state government should remain in political limbo/deadlock for an unspecified period of time until everything was sorted. This was unrealistic and the Governor of the state gave him short shrift on that proposal
Which now brings us to the electorate of Ferny Grove. Ferny Grove is an electorate that was established in 1992, held by Labor until its wipeout in 2012 and was regained by Labor at the 2015 state election. After the election was held, however, it was revealed that the Palmer United Party (PUP) candidate was revealed to be an undischarged bankrupt and was ineligible to run in the election. This has prompted some arguments that the election result was invalid and that a new by-election should be held. If Labor lost that by-election, of course, it would need one more seat to retain government whereas the LNP could form government with the support of the KAP
The problem is that it's far from certain a by-election needs to be held and, therefore, resolving the dispute could take months. Here's a nice analysis of the situation from one of Australia's foremost electoral analysts, Antony Green
http://blogs.abc.net.au/...
Furthermore, as this article by Antony Green indicates, the results seem to indicate that the outcome of the result in Ferny Grove was not influenced by the presence of the PUP candidate in the ballot, which complicates the arguments in favour of a by-election
http://blogs.abc.net.au/...
That having been said, Labor has good reason to worry about a by-election costing it government in the event that one is held. There is historical precedent, as Green mentions in the first article I posted. In 1995, the Labor government of Premier Wayne Goss was re-elected to a third consecutive term in office by just one seat. The opposition parties subsequently issued a court challenge to the result in the electorate of Mundingburra and got the result -in which a Labor MP had been elected -overturned and a new by-election was held. That by-election resulted in a victory for Liberal MP Frank Tanti and the Goss Labor government lost its majority. The balance of power then fell to Independent MP Liz Cunningham whom, despite holding what was previously a Labor electorate, decided to support the National-Liberal opposition in its bid to form government. The Goss government therefore fell and a new conservative minority government under Rob Borbidge took office. Labor will be scared of history repeating itself
This has turned into a long diary (see, I told you it was too long for the comments section!) but I have a few general observations to make about both this result and the current volatility of Australian politics
Firstly, this result is really remarkable in the context of Queensland politics. Queensland tends to be quite conservative in terms of its political trends, once it elects a government of one political persuasion, it tends to keep that particular party or coalition in power for a long time. This is only the second time in a century that an elected Queensland government has been ousted from power after one term in office (I'm discounting the aforementioned Borbidge coalition government because it was never elected, it only formed government with the support of an independent and was ousted at the next election).
Secondly, this result is highly unusual in Australia. For a first-term Premier elected with such a massive majority to be ousted from power after one term has not occurred in at least the last forty years and probably for much longer. The closest equivalent I can think of is the South Australian election of 1997 where the Olsen Liberal government went from having a huge majority in the House of Assembly (where again Labor had been reduced to single digit figures in terms of seats) to a hung Parliament. But there are two fundamental differences. First of all, the Liberals succeeded in retaining power in South Australia 1997 unlike Queensland. Secondly, Olsen -unlike Newman -was not the Premier responsible for leading his party to such a massive victory. Olsen had unseated his predecessor, Dean Brown, (who had led his party to the huge Liberal landslide at the 1993 state election) in a leadership coup the previous year and this probably contributed at least in part to the poor showing of the Liberals in in 1997. Newman, by contrast, led his party throughout its term in office from its victory until its defeat -although there were rumblings about his leadership from time to time and there is continuing speculation in some quarters that he called this snap election to stave off a leadership challenge
Thirdly, Australians in general are extremely reluctant to throw out first term governments, be it state or federal. Prior to last November, the last first-term elected state government to be deposed after one term was the South Australian government of Premier David Tonkin in 1982. In the current political environment, however, we've had two first-term governments -one in Victoria and one in Queensland -thrown out within months. It speaks to the possibility of a growing electoral volatility in Australia which must have politicians from both sides of the spectrum increasingly nervous