Dave Riley, Brisbane
While many Queenslanders will probably recall September 2006 as the occasion of Steve Irwin's death, on September 9 the Queensland ALP was returned to office with another massive majority. Labor Party fortunes have not been so buoyant here since the early 1950s.
This success, which represents a continuing nationwide preference for Labor state governments, is all the more extraordinary given the series of disastrous administrative crises — in health, water and electricity delivery — that have plagued the government of Premier Peter Beattie. Nonetheless, from day one of the election campaign it was evident that the ALP would not wear a voter backlash.
Labor spent 33 years — until 1989 — in opposition in Queensland, at no time out-polling the Liberal and National Party-led coalition. Today, the ALP's ascendency is riding on the collapse of the combined Liberal and National Party vote. Even One Nation, which garnered 11 seats in the 1998 state election, is no longer a player in Queensland politics, having been pegged back to one seat in this month's poll (down from three in the last election).
While Team Beattie — as the ALP prefers to call itself — secured an easy win, the real success was the support for the Queensland Greens. With a vote of just under 8% across the state, most of the alternative vote went to them. In two Brisbane seats, the Greens received first-preference support of more than 20%.
With no upper house in the Queensland parliament, there is no easy way for the Greens to turn that general support into parliamentary office. Nevertheless, an indication of where electoral politics is heading in Queensland is that the Greens' vote is rising, already approximately 40% of the Liberal vote, which is continuing to collapse.
Triumphalist declarations that merely hail the Queensland election result as a massive defeat for the Tories offer Team Beattie the option of continuing to commit to as little reform as it always has. Here was a government in tailspin crisis, judged inept, arrogant and inaccessible, and continuing to strip investment in infrastructure to service a succession of budget surpluses, which it crowed about as its crowning achievement. While high migration to the state fuels a housing boom and comparatively low unemployment, Labor, whose fortunes are dependent on this context, has become complacent.
The electorate's problem is that if Team Beattie doesn't deliver on its promises about public utilities and health reform, where is its electoral support to go?