Culture

Queensland’s Having A Surprise Election And It’s Going To Be Pretty Weird, Even For Queensland

Crack open a XXXX Gold, this should be good.

by Alex McKinnon  6 January 2015

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It’s state election time, meaning that Antony Green will be out of his permafrost-induced preservation coma for at least three months and Twitter has yet another near-meaningless diversion to froth over until the ozone layer finally collapses and we all fry like Gummi bears resting on a gas heater.

Earlier today Queensland Premier and Man Who Looks Like A Thumb Campbell Newman headed to Government House to obtain the writs for an election on January 31, meaning that everyone only has to pay attention to Queensland for two and a half weeks which is kind of a blessing, really.

It’s been pretty election-heavy in State Politics Land lately; Victoria kicked out its first-term Liberal government in November and New South Wales is heading to the polls in March, but Queensland wasn’t meant to have an election for another couple of months.

Newman said he called the election early because “economic recovery is too important to be jeopardised by ongoing election speculation”, although it may have something to do with the fact that Queensland’s on holiday for another two weeks and a lot of people will be too busy sunning themselves to remember to enrol, which they can only do in the next five days (do it here if you haven’t or you’re not sure if you have yet).

Until then, though, this is going to be a bizarre few weeks, even in a place like Queensland. Crack open a XXXX Gold, because however this election pans out, it’s about to get messy.

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There Probably Won’t Be A Premier For A Little Bit

At first glance the election should be a cakewalk for the ruling Liberal-National Party; the LNP won a ridiculous 78 of 89 seats in the one-House state Parliament last time, basically transforming Queensland into a one-party state (but actually; Labor won so few seats in 2012 they technically didn’t qualify for party status under Parliamentary rules).

But the government has been pretty on the nose for a while; whether it’s trying to outlaw “out-of-control” house parties, scrapping caps on political donations, raising MP’s salaries while cutting 14,000 public sector jobs or ripping apart the right to freedom by association, the LNP’s policies have received some fairly vivid messages of dissatisfaction from the electorate in the form of massive by-election losses that would see the government kicked out if they were repeated. While that’s unlikely to happen, recent polling puts Labor and the LNP neck-and-neck, making the result anyone’s guess.

What looks more likely is that Newman himself will get kicked out of Parliament only three years after getting in; polling in Newman’s seat of Ashgrove puts him well behind former Labor MP Kate Jones, who only needs a swing of 5.7 percent to win it back, raising the very weird prospect of the government winning re-election but Queensland suddenly not having a Premier anymore. When questioned on what they’ll do in that situation, the LNP have responded by shrugging and going “eh, it’ll come good”, which will probably result in some kind of military coup run out of a pineapple farm.

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Clive Palmer Just Wants To Watch The World Burn

Complicating the mix is everyone’s favourite deep-sea creature Clive Palmer, who hates Campbell Newman with a passion and has made it his personal mission to make the Premier’s life miserable since quitting the LNP in 2012. Since then, Palmer has helped set up a federal Senate inquiry into the Queensland government, called Newman a “little Hitler” on radio in October, poached a couple of his state MPs and filed a $1.1 million lawsuit against Newman for alleged defamation.

He also recorded this official election ad, which is both absolutely incredible and completely unsurprising.

Incidentally, the Palmer United Party’s state leader in Queensland, John Bjelke-Petersen, is the son of infamous former Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who literally just stuck an ‘N’ onto the end of his own name when naming his kid. Joh ruled Queensland for almost twenty years and tried to run for Prime Minister at one stage, before a wide-ranging inquiry into police corruption led to his resignation, the jailing of three of his Cabinet ministers and police commissioner Terry Lewis, and a charge of perjury against Joh himself.

Now his kid’s a candidate for a political party run by a mining billionaire, because Queensland politics is fucking insane.

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Labor Bikie Welfare Thugs Are Selling Our Kids Gay Crystal Meth

But what about issues? What do The People want from their elected representatives going into this election? Let’s ask Brisbane’s journal of record, the Courier-Mail:

couriermail

Shit, never mind.

Some backstory: since the rumblings of an election began a few days ago, both the government and the Courier-Mail have been shrieking sweet death about Queensland Labor’s plans to repeal the controversial VLAD (Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment) laws the LNP brought in to Get Tough on bikies and also human rights because Freedom. The VLAD laws ban the gathering of three or more members of an organisation the government deems to be “criminal”, infuriating human rights advocates and prompting the creation of possibly the world’s first-ever bikie gang based around tricycles, tea and knitting.

Labor have promised to repeal and review the laws, which to Acting Treasurer Scott Emerson is tantamount to handing over the cash register to those no-good biker teen punks while they trash your store and introduce your daughter to cigarettes and jazz music. Emerson said that Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk “needs to rule out accepting donations or support from criminal motorcycle groups”. Palaszczuk responded by flipping him the bird, hopping on her sweet hog and doing donuts all over his freshly-manured lawn while playing Iron Maiden or whatever bikers listen to.

Also, these two chuckleheads will be making an appearance, because a Queensland election wouldn’t be a Queensland election without a healthy sprinkling of nutbags and racists.

This should be fun.

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Feature image via Palmer United Party/Facebook.