Queensland Election 2024 - LNP's path to victory not a foregone conclusion
It is clear the ALP Palaszczuk government can’t govern, but is the Crisafulli-led Liberal National Party fit for government?
The Queensland Palaszczuk Labor Government, elected to office in 2015, is currently behind in the polls. Its array of policy fiascos, project mismanagement, administrative errors and scandals are all contributing factors[1]. Doubts whether Premier Palaszczuk will even lead the government at the next election exacerbates Labor’s problem.
Consequently, there is a growing expectation that the Crisafulli led Liberal National Party (LNP)[2] will win the next election set for October next year. Given the Queensland non-Labor parties record of failure at the state level – don’t count on it.
While Labor seems unable to govern effectively, the issue is whether LNP under David Crisafulli, leader since the last failed LNP election in 2020[3], is fit to govern given its deliberate small policy target strategy, recent policy backflips over a treaty with indigenous people, its members lack of experience in office, the large number of seats it has to win, and the non-Labor parties inept election campaigning
All this suggests that despite the latest opinion polls Labor is far from terminal.
Backflips and small target policies
Highlighting the LNP’s problems was the backflip last week following the failed Voice referendum, concerning the issue of the Queensland Government’s treaty with indigenous people.
The LNP’s backflip was an appalling case of political opportunism. Not only did leader Crisafulli change his mind from support to rejection within the space of a couple of days, the LNP has now reneged on its previous unanimous support to Palaszczuk Government’s treaty legislation passed earlier this year. Consequently, in the absence of bipartisan support Palaszczuk Government has shelved the treaty proposal.
The issue is not whether you agree or disagree with the treaty idea. Rather, it is whether this backflip shows the LNP lacks a consistent and principled policy framework. Does its public stated support for an issue, including those it voted for it in parliament, count for nothing and that therefore it is susceptible to change its stance on any issue if political circumstances demand it? Indeed, was its original support for the treaty also driven by short term political expediency to avoid taking a principled stand because it would be too controversial?
All this sends very mixed and confused messages to the electorate.
It raises the issues of what might an LNP government be like in office – committed to a policy one day, but forgotten the next? Will an LNP administration just be another poll driven government, lacking any principles, policy consistency and only be committee to winning and retaining office?
The saving grace, though, has been the Palaszczuk Government’s all too quick dropping of the treaty proposal. This indicates that Labor too has been reassessing the implications of the Voice referendum result on both the wider electorate and its own supporters’.
Other election challenges facing the LNP
The LNP faces other challenges too.
Lack of political and campaigning skills
First, there is the issue of whether the LNP has the political skills to win an election. After all, since 1989 when the National Party lost office in the wake of the Fitzgerald Report, the non-Labor parties have really only won one election – the 2012 landslide election that brought the Campbell Newman led LNP spectacularly to office[4]. In 1996, following the 1995 election the Coalition only formed a minority government (Borbidge-Sheldon Government) following an unexpected by-election caused by the previous result being overturned by the Court of Disputed Returns. It was a one term government losing in 1998. Similarly, the Newman Government, despite its huge majority, fell after one term too. It lost almost as many seats as it had gained in its earlier win. This is hardly a great track record – one outright election win out of twelve in three decades.
The LNP is up against not just an incumbent government with all its resources, but also the more professional, better organised and more campaign savvy Labor Party.
Large gap to overcome
Second, thanks to the Newman Government loss of 36 seats in 2015, and the LNP’s further losses at the subsequent 2017 and 2020 elections, the gap between the LNP and Labor is now large. The LNP has just 34 seats to Labor’s 52. The LNP has to win thirteen seats to win office. While not impossible, the extra hurdle is that many of the ‘must win’ are in the crucial Brisbane metropolitan area where the LNP’s losses over the last three elections have been the greatest. Its representation in Brisbane is now small. This used to be the former Liberal Party’s heartland. Its base is now out suburban areas on and regional areas – and even here there has been slippage. In Brisbane, the LNP also faces additional competition from the Greens as well as Labor. The Greens hold two Brisbane state seats and three metropolitan federal seats (Brisbane, Ryan and Griffith) all which returned a ‘Yes’ votes at the referendum.
Newman government’s shadow
Third, the LNP is still skulking in the shadows left by the former failed one term Newman Government (2012-15). Its record of broken promises, cronyism, cutbacks, rushed decision-making and arrogance, and an ideologically driven government with little care or compassion has left a lasting scar on non-Labor politics. The Newman Government was a textbook case on how not to run a government.
This partly explains the current LNP’s low target non-confrontationist approach to so many issues since 2015 – even key ones of importance to its core supporters. Hence, under Crisafulli, the LNP’s focus has been on bread-and-butter issues like ambulance ramping, health services and infrastructure cost overruns. This approach makes the LNP look like its s suffering suffered from policy ‘me-tooism’ – of accepting too much of the government’s agenda rather than projecting its own more distinct program. This was one of the complaints about the LNP during the pandemic – it too easily went along with the government’s sometimes heavy handed approaches.
Small target polices
The LNP’s just released new The Right Priorities for Queensland’s Future in October while rightly focussing on those bread and butter issues, government failures and refreshingly free of guff about the environment, gender and discrimination, is painfully short on explaining how an LNP government might do things both differently and better. In education, for instance, it wants “kids [to] receive a world class education” and promises to “prioritise lifting education standards” and that “teachers must be empowered to focus on the basics” but what this means or how this will be done is unclear. Of course, it is early days, but the LNP must do better in developing more specific policies and not just aspirational feel-good statements.
Conclusions
So, the LNP has a lot or work to do to win office next year. Its strategy so far has been to be out and about and focussed on issues that matter to people. It is perhaps assuming the Palaszczuk Government’s repeated mistakes, general arrogance and the premier’s declining popularity will deliver it government next year. It will need to convince the electorate that there is a need to change the government – and that they have the policies and people to do it better.
So, the LNP’s policies must be sharpened and more distinctive. Its shadow ministers need to be more prepared both for campaigning and being in office. Staff must be trained recruited, and transition plans developed. The LNP must know where it wants go and how it will get there.
All this suggests that an LNP victory next year is not a ‘lay down misère’.
[1] These include: ambulance ramping, youth crime, health services, lack of integrity, infrastructure cost overruns, Olympic Games issues, public service politicisation, over-spending, pandemic overreach, and the persistent forensic services testing.
[2] The LNP is a merger of the National (formerly Country Party) and Liberal parties in Queensland that occurred in 2008 after decades of internecine political warfare. From 1957-1983 the National Party led the more junior Liberal Party in coalition government. Then in from 1983-89 the Nationals ruled in their own right when the coalition split.
[3] The previous failed leaders Deb Frecklinton (2020) and Tim Nicholls (2017) are still members and currently hold shadow ministries
[4] The LNP won a record 78 of the Legislative Assembly’s 89 seats, leaving the ALP with just 7 seats.