The Queensland Election Campaign’s Over, And Pretty Much Everybody Hates Campbell Newman Now

UPDATE: According to the ABC, the LNP Queensland government is set to lose office, and Campbell Newman has conceded defeat in his Ashgrove electorate.

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Queensland! You wonderful realm of cane toads and quasi-secessionist movements, how we love thee. We predicted the election to decide your next state Parliament would be weird even for you, and it’s all going to be over come Saturday night, but boy did you deliver in the meantime.

Campbell Newman saying “strong” a scary number of times? Standard. Laundry lists of ridiculous candidate names? You betcha. This man and his incredible moustache? Right here.

An elected member of state Parliament doing an aggressive chicken dance at a reporter? Yes. Oh God, yes.

Tony Abbott’s Hindenburg-level brain fart on Australia Day has kept everyone distracted for the last little while, but in the meantime Queensland has discovered its new favourite sport: hating on Premier Campbell Newman. Seriously, no one can stand the guy.

The list of people gunning for the Premier’s head is so long, and so varied, that it’s worth recapping who they are, and why they’re all so pissed. If they get their way, Newman will go from Regina George at the start of Mean Girls to Regina George near the end of Mean Girls when she gets hit by that bus. Never say state politics isn’t entertaining.

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Alan Jones Is Angry, World Collapses From Shock

Sydney shock jock/British bulldog Alan Jones isn’t exactly the first guy you think of when you hear the phrase “environmental activism”, but you’d be surprised; in recent years he’s thrown his support behind protest efforts to stop mining and CSG projects in Queensland and western New South Wales, and has been especially opposed to a proposed expansion of the New Hope coal mine outside the town of Acland, his old home turf.

Newman’s LNP won a massive electoral victory in 2012, partly off the back of promises to be a lot stricter when it came to approving mining company wish-lists, including the New Hope development, before reneging once they got into office. Jones has taken matters into his own hands, moving up to Queensland and broadcasting hour-long anti-government tirades on Fairfax’s 4BC Brisbane station for two whole weeks in the run-up to the election.

On one of those broadcasts, Jones claimed Newman had personally assured him that the New Hope development wouldn’t go ahead, and accused the Premier of lying to his face. You can listen to it below, if hearing one of Australia’s most influential media personalities call an entire state government “prostitutes” piques your interest.

Unfortunately for Freedom Of Speech In This Once-Great Country, you can’t up and call someone a liar on national radio and not expect to get sued; Newman, his deputy Jeff Seeney and a bunch of other people in the LNP Cabinet are taking Jones to court for defamation.

Enter mining magnate/politician/Ground-type Pokemon Clive Palmer, maybe the only guy who hates Campbell Newman more than Jones does. Not only is Palmer offering to pay Jones’ legal fees from the suit, and already suing Newman for defamation himself; he’s loudly declared his intention to sue Queensland Health Minister and former LNP leader Lawrence Springborg for defamation as well, because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’m suing Lawrence Springborg for defamation for comments he made about me. Disgrace @LNPQLD ministers suing people like Alan Jones #qldpol — Clive Palmer (@CliveFPalmer) January 25, 2015

For his part, oldmate Alan responded to news he was getting sued by going on the radio and trash-talking the guy suing him. “Nice to hear from you Mr Newman, you might have been Premier for Queensland for three [years] but you remain a bit of a political novice if you think that is the way to win an election or silence people. You need to actually think again, but thanks for writing.”

By the way, if you live in Queensland and you’re a bit miffed about some blowhard out-of-stater coming round and spraying his opinions everywhere, now you know how it feels for everyone else whenever Barnaby Joyce says something.

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Judges And Doctors Don’t Really Like Him Either

While there is literally nothing more fun than watching rich people use their money to slapfight each other, some people have come out against Campbell Newman for slightly more serious reasons as well, including one of his own former ministers. Dr Chris Davis was the LNP’s assistant Health Minister before resigning his seat in May 2014.

Since then, he’s done an Alan Jones and committed himself to ruining Campbell Newman’s day. He’s written op-eds in Brisbane newspapers urging people to put the LNP last when they vote, shot a series of TV commercials, and gone on Jones’ radio spot claiming the government is “methodical in shutting down democracy”. He’s even been letterboxing people in Campbell Newman’s Ashgrove electorate urging them to vote for his Labor opponent Kate Jones.

Even if you assume the worst and dismiss Davis’ criticisms as being politically motivated, someone with no such axe to grind has been calling Newman out as well. Former judge, bringer-down of the infamous Bjelke-Petersen government and one-man walking ICAC Tony Fitzgerald has been retired for 13 years, but the guy knows his stuff when it comes to government corruption and abuse of power.

He’s now roughly as old as Moses, but he felt so strongly about the way Queensland politics is heading he came out and gave a rare interview with the ABC’s 7.30 earlier this week. What he had to say was not pretty.

According to Fitzgerald, “there’s been a constant movement away, bit by bit, to the old-style politics where the winner takes all” in Queensland since the Goss Labor government in the mid-’90s, and the Newman government has “set a new low standard” of governance that’s prompted him to start speaking out again. Fitzgerald told 7.30 that “Queensland is particularly vulnerable because of its single-house status and because of its history,” and that he’s worried that “the same sort of practices [are] starting to take hold” that he saw entrenched back in the ’80s.

Fitzgerald has spoken out against the Newman government before, saying back in June that it contained “megalomaniacs” who had “flaunted [their] disdain for democracy and good governance”. Strong words from a guy like that.

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Vote For Me Or I’ll Take Your Stuff: Campaigning 101

Newman’s been a pretty divisive Premier ever since he was elected, with public sector cuts, draconian anti-bikie laws that impinge on freedom of association and massive pay rises for MPs not exactly endearing him to voters. He’s even pissed off people whose primary interests are knitting and tricycles, which has to be some kind of first.

But he’s somehow managed to top all of those controversies during this campaign. In an extraordinary declaration last week, Newman confirmed that millions of dollars worth of promised projects in various Queensland electorates were contingent on LNP candidates winning in those seats, and that projects in seats where LNP MPs lost would not go ahead.

“If the community don’t elect them [LNP members], we’re not going to make the commitment to deliver on things that the community might not want,” Newman said on Friday. He backed that up on Monday, saying: “I’ll just say that if we don’t have a strong LNP government those things don’t happen…And it is dependent on the candidate being elected. That’s pretty clear.”

As campaign strategies go, straight-up telling people they won’t get funding for stuff unless they vote for you maybe isn’t the best. Independent Sunshine Coast MP Peter Wellington has accused Newman of blackmailing people, and is asking the Electoral Commission of Queensland to investigate. He’s also come out with a video urging people to — you guessed it — put the LNP last.

Right now it’s looking like the LNP government are going to squeak back into power, albeit with a massively reduced majority. But Newman might not be so lucky; if, as most polls are predicting, he loses his seat to Labor’s Kate Jones on Saturday, he won’t be Premier anymore, and a lot of people are going to be pretty damn happy.

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Feature image via Campbell Newman/Facebook.