There are lessons to be drawn for current politics from One Nation’s second Queensland election in 2001. A collapsing Labor government called a snap election and played the instability card. Labor’s campaign included a memorable ad (inside this post) comparing Pauline Hanson to a back seat driver interfering with a Coalition government. Labor was re-elected in a landslide, even sweeping Gold and Sunshine Coast seats for the first time.
Saturday’s Farrer by-election has revealed the scale of the threat One Nation poses to the electoral prospects of the Liberal and National Parties.
One Nation polled just short of 40% of the primary vote. At 12.4% the Liberal Party lost three-quarters of its vote from last year’s election. The Nationals polled only 9.7% of the primary vote and struggled to reach 15% at the western end of the electorate where it has traditionally dominated. All this in a seat that for eight decades has been one of the Coalition’s safest.
Labor chose not to contest the by-election which might have disappointed local party members and supporters. It was an easy decision to make given Labor hasn’t passed 20% in the seat for a decade, or reached 30% for three decades. Labor’s absence left the seat open for the slim chances of Independent Michelle Milthorpe.
But the main advantage for Labor is the by-election left no measure of One Nation’s impact on Labor’s vote. It is the Liberals and Nationals left picking through the wreckage of Saturday night’s result.
Farrer has given us a true measure of One Nation’s support. But it creates a series of new questions on how the Liberal Party, National Party and One Nation will engage with each other in the run-up to the next Federal election.
If repeated elsewhere, the Farrer result will come close to destroying the National Party and reduce its representation in the House of Representatives to a rump. The same existential threat applies to rural and regional Liberals.
We know that One Nation has always polled more strongly in rural and regional seats than in city seats. Last month’s South Australian election provided hints that One Nation could be a threat to Labor in some city seats.
But where One Nation is an electoral threat to Labor, it is an existential threat to the Liberal and National Parties. One Nation is a threat to their relevance, their chances of ever governing again, and to their continuing existence.
Labor’s current strength in the House of Representatives is from crushing the Liberal Party in urban seats over two Federal elections. The Liberal position was made even worse with the loss of previously safe seats to Independents.
Defeating Labor at the next election will not be achieved in rural seats like Farrer. It will be determined by whether the Liberal Party and One Nation can capture Labor seats in metropolitan areas.
Will the Liberal Party and One Nation co-operate to do this? Will they come to a non-compete arrangement as currently exists between the Liberals and Nationals? Will they swap preference recommendations, either by agreement or by disagreement but shared self interest?
In the last couple of weeks I’ve written several posts comparing One Nation performance at the 1998 Queensland election with recent results for the South Australian election, the Nepean by-election in Victoria last weekend, and now the Farrer result.
Post-Farrer, and looking towards the 2028 Federal election campaign, I’m moving forward three years to look at One Nation’s impact on the 2001 Queensland election.
In late 2000, the scandal-plagued Beattie Labor government adjourned parliament to avoid relying on the votes of Labor members expelled over various scandals. Beattie called a snap election for February 2001, and instead of being brought down by the scandals, achieved one of Queensland Labor’s biggest victories.
And in the week before election day, Labor released a campaign ad it called “Who’s driving”. I’ve included the ad inside this post. It played on the campaign chaos of the non-Labor parties and helped deliver the first Beattie landslide.
I would not be surprised if the message of this 2001 ad is replicated by Federal Labor over the next two years.
The 2001 Queensland Election Campaign
I started to write this post from my memory of television stories during the 2001 campaign. My memory was also helped by political scientist John Wanna”s article on the 2001 Queensland election for the Journal of the Australian Studies of Parliament Group.
Beattie came to office after the 1998 state election. Labor finished one seat short of a majority, but the Coalition plus 11 brand new One Nation MPs had fewer seats. Conservative Independents Liz Cunningham and Peter Wellington offered general support allowing Beattie and Labor to form government. Later in 1998, a by-election after the resignation of the One Nation member for Mulgrave delivered the extra seat for Labor to reach majority.
In late 2000, Deputy Premier Jim Elder and backbencher Grant Musgrove resigned from the Labor Party after admitting to having committed electoral fraud. In early 2001, backbencher and former state secretary Mike Kaiser resigned from the Labor Party over an older electoral fraud matter. In early January the report of the Shepherdson Inquiry into electoral fraud was released. At the time Beattie was engaged in a “listening” tour of the state.
As part of the tour Beattie performed a memorable campaign stunt by visiting an aquarium and scuba diving in a tank of sharks. The visual metaphor distracted from coverage of the inquiry’s findings. I’ve struggled to find precise dates for these events, but soon after on 23 January Beattie called a state election for 17 February.
Remembering that Queensland at the time used optional preferential voting, Nationals Leader and former Premier Rob Borbidge announced his party would not recommend preferences for One Nation. Liberal Leader David Watson made the same commitment. But in the days that followed, a number of rural and regional National candidates announced they had done local preference deals with One Nation. There was one particular press conference at a country stop where Borbidge re-iterated his position only to be confronted by journalists with the names of candidates and members who were defying him.
Of the 11 One Nation members elected in 1998, a combination of resignations and expulsions meant none remained in the party by 2001. Some created a new party called the City-Country Alliance led by former One Nation Leader Bill Feldman. Many seats across the state saw four competing conservative candidates from the Nationals, Liberals, One Nation and City-Country Alliance.
And taking advantage of this, 2001 was the first election where Labor campaigned under the slogan “Just Vote 1”. It greatly increased the number of ballot papers where voters did not mark preferences. Labor won several surprise victories in seats due to huge exhaustion rates between competing conservative candidates.
Which brings me to Labor’s “Who’s Driving” ad. With no agreement between Labor’s opponents on how they would govern, Labor played on the uncertainty of who would be in charge of a Coalition government.
The metaphor of the ad was clear. A Coalition government would have Pauline Hanson trying to drive government from the back seat.
Here’s the ad which is incorrectly labelled as being for the 1998 election. I’ll explain below.
I found the add on a YouTube channel by Bruce Hawker, a former Labor adviser and Chairman of the Campaigns and Communications group. It is incorrectly labelled as for the 1998 election but is clearly from 2001. Mike Kaiser was the Labor state director in 1998 while the ad lists the 2001 State Director Cameron Milner. It also uses the “Just Vote 1” slogan of the 2001 campaign.
The ad shows Rob Borbidge and I think 2001 Liberal Leader David Watson (it might be former leader Joan Sheldon) in the front seats. In the back seat are Pauline Hanson and Bill Feldman trying to get control of the car, creating the chaos shown in the ad.
Could such an ad work today?
That’s where the working arrangement between the Coalition and One Nation comes into play.
Can One Nation come to some form of arrangement with the Coalition parties that would allow each to either campaign together, or campaign separately without chaos?
Take the Farrer campaign. The Liberals and Nationals warned that One Nation had no plan for government. They attacked the One Nation candidate David Farley for past dalliances with Labor and Independents.
Yet despite all these warnings, both the Liberals and Nationals recommended preferences for One Nation, and One Nation recommended return preferences.
Without some form of agreement between the Coalition and One Nation, how do they compete against each other and Labor at the same time?
As former Premiers like Rob Borbidge and WA Premier Colin Barnett have found, when your party members do deals with One Nation, you end up being asked questions about whether you support One Nation policies.
If the Coalition goes into the next election with issues unresolved with One Nation, then expect Federal Labor to produce ads like the above questioning how the other side could possibly form stable government.
Uncertainty certainly played into Labor’s hands in Queensland in 2001. As the four non-Labor parties slugged it out in regional seats, Labor playing the stability in government card in urban areas.
There was only one seat in greater Brisbane that Labor failed to win. Labor swept the Gold and Sunshine Coasts for the first time in the party’s history. When asked to choose between a shop soiled but stable Labor government, and potential chaos on the other side, urban voters went for stability.
Last year Peter Dutton’s Coalition campaign was in part undermined as Australian voters recoiled from the uncertainty of Donald Trump’s return to office. Will Australian voters have the same reaction to unresolved divisions on the non-Labor side of politics?
The alienated anti-major party sentiment that is feeding the return of One Nation is certainly upending the old certainties of Australian politics.
But the majority of voters will still expect a stable government to be formed after the election. And expect Labor to do everything it can to remind voters that their side offers stability, the other side possible chaos.
“History doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes”. (Mark Twain, or someone).
Antony, yours and all analysis I’ve seen has missed the collosal level of resentment about the murray darling plan. This was the one nations candidates key focus and differentiation
Post 1998 One Nation / Pauline Hanson blew apart, as those elected under her banner could not stomach her. Now she has Barnaby Joyce as a buffer , or perhaps a threat to her leadership. For all his personal short comings Barnaby is a very shrewd politician, he gauged the breeze earlier in the year and so defected from the Nats to Pauline, a massive move which shows just how shrewd he is. So could Pauline explode again now she is again on a high. I think it is likely !!
Thank you for your very astute coverage. Great reminders of past happenings.
I agree with most of what you have said, however I think the issue goes deeper than this article, The coalition has fractured because their supporter what difference thing. The liberals held 8 of the 10 highest income electorates, decide to pivot more to the Nationals policies and promptly lost 7 of them to the teals.
They then think they should appeal to the battlers who they have been bashing for 20 years including work place reforms that allowed penalty rates to be removed with almost no compensation followed by Robodebt.
Liberals, Nationals and One nation supporters fundamentally want different things. In the current mood the teals and greens are never going to support them.
Currently Labor is the ONLY viable government. Labor will lose 1st preference votes to One nation, Greens, Teals but will get them back with 2CP. I suspect we have seen the last Liberal / National federal government is Australia.
The Labor government will need to do something really dumb to lose an election in the next 10 years and changing capital gains tax or removing negative gearing isn’t going to be it.
I think the biggest change over the last 15 years has been the demise of the two party system. You can’t win an election now by saying the other party is crap and it is time to give us a go.
The proof of the pudding will be at a Federal (or State election for that matter) hung parliament and it would require a coalition (or at least a confidence and supply) agreement between the Libs-Nats-ON to form government. It is easy to be on the outside looking in as Pauline Hanson has been her entire career being a squeaky wheel, provocateur, and finger pointer.
Most (with the exception of Barnaby Joyce) ON candidates and electeds have had limited or no experience in government. How those negotiations go and how it pans out will be the deciding factor. ON will have to decide whether they want to be just a vehicle for protest, share government responsibility with the Libs-Nats, or try to completely push the Libs-Nats out. Each have their plusses and minuses but the long term problem that ON has going forward is their current offering has almost no appeal in any area with a meaningful population. Yes they could make some inroads in certain areas of Labor battler seats but how they get anywhere near a majority or a strong minority is an open question. The Nats could be rendered irrelevant by ON fairly easily but I could very well see the Libs hanging on to most of their current seats (which is admittedly very low) but that all but guarantees that Labor will have a strong plurality for the foreseeable future.
Cory Bernardi was ON’s Upper House ticket leader in SA and, I understand, is now the Parliamentary Leader. Also, three of the successful SA Lower House ON candidates have local government experience. It seems different from the usual ON pattern.
Finally, there is the effect of eastern States ignorance / overlooking of SA. I suspect that Senator Hanson may not spend to much time on what her Croweater colleagues get up to. Barnaby certainly won’t be bothered.
You might be right about SA being overlooked. With Labor having such a majority and currently being very popular, there isn’t going to be any action there unless that changes.
Yes, there are a few elected officials with local experience. Still, until we reach a point where their votes are decisive in forming government or passing legislation, they will remain an outlet for protest. The Vic election will be something of a crossroads. It can go either way: they do well but do not accumulate many seats like in SA, or they are kingmakers for government.
As far as Cory Bernardi, with all due respect to the upper chambers, everyone knows the action is in the lower chambers. Every party dreams of selecting the PM or Premier.
Thanks Antony, it will be interesting to see how social media and the rise of populist politics ( Eg Nigel Farage ) strategy play into the next election. There are new dynamics at play.
COMMENT: I’m not sure there is a comparison with Nigel Farage. UK politics is still deeply divided by the Brexit vote. I have read some commentary of last week’s UK local elections along the lines that Farage’s gains match with the Yes/No split on the Brexit vote. Brexit is a new cleavage in UK politics that does not have a parallel in Australia.
When the coalition split a few months back, it immediately struck me that they would have to get back together again, to avoid the prospect of precisely the sort of campaign you have discussed here. But if public perceptions arise that after the 2028 election the Liberals and Nationals will only be able to govern with the support of One Nation, the problem will be ten times worse, since the voters could have no idea what might be up for grabs in discussions about forming a ruling coalition post-election.
An interesting bit of history and it could repeat. However, the current ALP government is well into chaos, on its own.
COMMENT: More chaotic than the Coalition?
The key remains – where are the 76 seats for One Nation/Liberal/Nationals even if they manage to coordinate somehow? – coordination with One Nation eliminates any possibility of the Liberals recapturing the wealthy inner city seats that used to be their heartland, so the numbers just don’t add up, there’s not enough white working class outer suburban seats to join the rural/regional seats to form a majority – there’s a few One Nation might win, but not enough.
i was fascinated by the decision of the lib/nats to provide preferences to One nation. I saw one primary vote picture where one nation had 40% and the independent had 39.4%, which I believe shows that one nation won on lib/nat preferences. how different the outcome would have been if the sent their preferences to the independent.
COMMENT: I don’t know where you got your data from. One Nation polled 39.4%, Milthorpe 28.4%, the Liberals and Nationals together 22%. If Milthorpe had received 75% of Coalition preferences, she would still have trailed One Nation. One Nation’s victory is mostly down to its high first preference vote.
I had a look at the data on the tally room
I get (After everyone else is eliminated)
Libs 21.28%
Independent 34.35%
One Nation 44.37%
0.75 * 21.28 + 34.35 = 50.31%
I think 75% of Coalition preferences + all the others they did get does get them over One Nation.
Labor won in Farrer by halves
The voters in Farrer delivered an expected resounding victory to One Nation. Labor wisely did not compete the election and by conceeding this battle put them in a better place to win the war. They permitted the conservative parties to inflict political damage on themselves, with numerous attack ads against each other, taking the heat of their own failures in rural Australia. But where did the 15% vote achieved just one year ago end up?
At best only half of that went to the Teal as her primary vote only increased by 8.4%. We know that it did not go to left of centre minors, as the Greens vote halved to be picked up by the Legalise Cannabis party. The weeds are still growing in Griffith! The votes of the coalition and all other conservative minors also halved, so they were not beneficiaries. The the other half of the Labor vote must have gone to One Nation, who now pose an existential threat to the coalition parties. Labor need only run the line at the next Federal election that only they can offer stable government as you pointed out. One Nation’s performance exceeds their aspirations as their history suggests they will never be able to form stable government. The conservative side of politics are showing canabalistic tendencies. They cannot form government when they eat their own!
Maybe is was a good move by Labour to miss the Farrer by-election but maybe not. What we dont know is the ON growing impact on Labour voters. Complacency has bought down many a govt, hopefully we start with Victoria this year.
My firm belief is that Labor should have put up a candidate. It’s important to give their voters a chance to demonstrate their support and for the party to suggest preference votes.
Not giving them that choice could soon lead to a drop in the vote at other elections with consequences such as losing senate seats.
There are only a few circumstances where it’s appropriate not to stand in a bye election and a member resignation isn’t one of them.
You don’t have to do a lot of actual campaigning just be on the ballot paper!
This was, in fact, a clear indication of how badly the Coalition will do in non metropolitan seats, as Labor did not need to put up a candidate in Farrer, for it has always been a Coalition held seat.
As when Menzies called a conference of conservative parties and other groups opposed to the ruling Labor Party, which met in Canberra,ACT on 13 October 1944 m a second one was held in Albury, NSW in December 1944.
To keep Labor out of office was the only reason for the founding of the LPA and the Coalition agreement. John Roskam, when leader of the IPA said “Big business founded the IPA.”.that’s all that we really need to know.
And it was the IPA that was instrumental in creating a cohesive, non-Labor political force during the 1940s. Providing the “intellectual framework” for Robert Menzies’ final effort in the creation of the LPA, using the IPA 1944 booklet, Looking Forward.
Farrer became an open seat, not held by a sitting Coalition member, which allowed both the the Libs and the gNats to put up a candidate, spending Coalition effort, time, money and stupidity on both fighting for a conservative seat.
Labor saved effort, money and time, then could just sit back and relish the right wing shit show.
This after the Coalition clearly shot themselves in BOTH feet by preferencing the PHONies!
COMMENT: I think you are too dismissive about the formation of the Liberal Party. Menzies was determined to have a membership based party with his examples being the UK Conservatives and his ALP opponents. The preceding United Australia Party had been largely run by business lobby groups with no real membership base. Menzies was determined that the new party would have a membership base that kept it at a distance from business lobbies.