Current Issues Brief 2 1998-99

1998 Queensland Election

Gerard Newman
Statistics Group
8 December 1998

Background

The Result

Preferences

Two-Party Preferred Votes

Table 1 Legislative Assembly: State Summary

Table 2a Legislative Assembly: First Preference Votes, District Summary

Table 2b Legislative Assembly: First Preference Votes, District Summary

Table 3 Legislative Assembly: District Summary

Table 4 Legislative Assembly: Two-Candidate Preferred Vote

Table 5 Legislative Assembly: Districts Ranked by Two-Candidate Preferred Margin

Table 6 Legislative Assembly By-elections 1995-1998

Table 7 Legislative Assembly Elections 1950-1998

Symbols and Abbreviations

*

Sitting member

+

Candidate of party that won the seat at the previous election

AD

Australian Democrats

AFP

Australia First Party

ALP

Australian Labor Party

ARP

Australian Reform Party

AWP

Australian Womens' Party

CDP

Christian Democratic Party

GRN

Queensland Greens

IND

Independent

LP

Liberal Party

NP

National Party

ON

Pauline Hanson's One Nation

Oth

Other parties and Independents

SP

Shooters Party

Introduction

The 1998 Queensland election represents something of a watershed in Australian politics. For the first time since the advent of the modern party structure in the 1920s an entirely new political party won a significant number of seats in a lower house of Parliament under a single member system.

The rise of Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party (ON) from a position of some precariousness before the election to dominate the campaign completely and to outpoll both the Liberal Party (LP) and the National Party (NP) is unprecedented in Australian electoral history. Despite its electoral success, One Nation's ability to be a significant player in the newly elected Parliament was substantially reduced when the Australian Labor Party (ALP) was able to form a minority government.

The political uncertainty following the election was resolved when the Independent member for the Sunshine Coast seat of Nicklin announced on 25 June (twelve days after the election) that he would support the ALP in forming a minority government. As a consequence of this announcement, the Premier, the Hon Rob Borbidge, submitted his resignation to the Governor and the leader of the Labor Party, Mr Peter Beattie, was sworn in as Queensland's 44th Premier.

This paper provides a brief outline of the election campaign, discusses the results and attempts to estimate the effect that preferences played in the election. Detailed tables are included that show the first preference votes and the two-candidate preferred votes in all seats. A summary of Queensland election results since 1950 is also included.

Background

To a certain extent the story of the 1998 Queensland election starts with the inconclusive nature of the previous election. At the 1995 Queensland election the Goss Labor Government retained power with a one seat majority. This majority was threatened when a Court of Disputed Returns overturned the result in the Townsville seat of Mundingburra. At the subsequent by-election (see Table 6 for by-election results) the Labor Party lost the seat to the Liberal Party. The Labor Government lost power when the Independent member for Gladstone, Ms Liz Cunningham, announced that she would support a minority Borbidge Government on matters of confidence and supply. Rather than face a no-confidence, motion Premier the Hon. Wayne Goss tendered his resignation on 19 February 1996 and on the same day the Hon. Rob Borbidge became Premier(1). Wayne Goss, subsequently resigned the leadership of the Labor Party and was replaced by Mr Peter Beattie.

On assuming office the Borbidge Government had considerable public support. A Newspoll conducted in April and June 1996 showed support for the Coalition at 52% compared to 40% for the ALP. However over the course of 1996 and 1997 the Coalition steadily lost support and by January-March 1998 Newspoll(2) showed the ALP with a two point lead over the Coalition (ALP 41%, Coalition 39%).

Although the Borbidge Government was untroubled by the lack of a majority on the floor of the house, the term of the government was characterised by considerable speculation regarding an early election. With the likelihood of a Federal election being held in the latter half of 1998 and a wish to go to the polls before the release of the Federal Governments tax reform proposals, Premier Borbidge called the election on 19 May with polling day set for 13 June 1998.

From day one the campaign was dominated by One Nation-would they win any seats, would they direct preferences and what effect the decision by the Coalition to direct preferences to One Nation would have. The rise of One Nation during the campaign is unprecedented in Australian politics. At the start of the year support for One Nation was languishing at 5% (Newspoll January-March 1998), yet by the week before polling day support for One Nation had risen to 18.5% according to Newspoll(3) and 20% according to the Morgan Poll(4). The following figure illustrates the rise in support for One Nation during 1998.

As support for One Nation grew during the campaign so too did predictions regarding the number of seats One Nation would win. By polling day a number of commentators were predicting that One Nation would hold the balance of power in a hung Parliament-an unthinkable concept at the start of the campaign.

The question of preferences was to dominate the campaign and play a significant part in the result of the election. Both Coalition parties decided to direct preferences to One Nation ahead of the ALP (except for the Liberal candidate in Sunnybank, Mr Steven Huang, who directed preferences to the ALP ahead of One Nation). The decision of the Liberal Party, in particular, to direct preferences to One Nation was met with considerable criticism and has been claimed to have cost the party votes and seats in the Brisbane area (see page 6).

One Nation was considerably more circumspect on the issue of preferences than the Coalition parties. Despite initially claiming that it would not be directing preferences, One Nation revealed towards the end of the campaign that it would be directing preferences in 14 of the 78 seats it was contesting. The One Nation announcement brought an immediate response from Labor leader, Mr Peter Beattie, who claimed that One Nation had done a secret deal with the Coalition to prevent Labor from winning the election.(5)

Despite the overwhelming predominance of issues associated with One Nation in the campaign, both the Coalition and the ALP attempted to fight the election on traditional State issues. Both leaders nominated jobs and economic management as the main policy issues of the election. Coincidentally both leaders made commitments to spend $4.8 billion in capital works programs to create jobs and reduce unemployment. Other issues raised by the major parties during the campaign were education, health, law and order, child welfare and the environment.

The Result

The 1998 election left Queensland with a hung Parliament and the fate of the government in the hands of the two independent members. The ALP won 44 seats to be the largest party in the Assembly, while the Coalition won 32 seats-the National Party 23 seats and the Liberal Party 9 seats. Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party won 11 seats. Two seats were won by independents-Ms Liz Cunningham retained her seat of Gladstone and Mr Peter Wellington won the Sunshine Coast seat of Nicklin. While the ALP maintained its representation in the Assembly both the Coalition partners lost six seats each (see Table 1).

Twelve days after the election the political hiatus in Queensland was broken when the independent member for Nicklin, Mr Peter Wellington, announced that he would be supporting a minority ALP government. Mr Wellington gave Mr Beattie a written undertaking that he would support Labor in matters of supply and confidence, but that his support would be withdrawn if there was any evidence of gross fraud, misappropriation or illegal activities.(6) As a result of Mr Wellington's announcement, Mr Borbidge submitted his resignation and Mr Beattie was sworn in as caretaker Premier until confidence could be tested on the floor of the Assembly. The Labor Government subsequently won a confidence motion when Parliament resumed on 28 July 1998.

The three major political parties all suffered a decline in voter support with the advent of One Nation. The Coalition partners were the biggest losers with the National Party's support falling by 11.1% to 15.2%, their lowest first preference vote since the Second World War. The Liberal Party vote fell by 6.7% to 16.1%. The Labor Party was best able to withstand the One Nation onslaught and suffered only a 4.0% fall in support. For the other parties contesting the election the results were disappointing, particularly so for the Greens who contested 18 more seats than in the 1995 election but saw their vote fall by 0.5%.

Across the State the One Nation Party received 22.7% of the first preference vote to be clearly the second largest party in Queensland. One Nation's ascendancy over the Coalition parties was amply demonstrated in three seats where One Nation received over 40% of the vote (Barambah 43.5%, Maryborough 42.6% and Tablelands 42.1%).

Support for the major parties varied significantly across the regions of Queensland (see the figure below and Table 2).

In Brisbane, the Labor Party performed strongly and suffered only a small decline in support. The Labor Party now holds all but 7 of the 40 seats in the Brisbane area. By way of contrast the Liberal vote in Brisbane fell by 11.6% to 25.8%, leaving the party with only four seats in the capital. In south-east Brisbane, Labor won back three seats from the Liberals (Greenslopes, Mansfield and Springwood) lost at the 1995 election over the 'tollway' issue. Support for One Nation was highest in the outer-metropolitan seats (e.g. Caboolture, Bundamba, Logan and Woodridge) where the party replaced the Coalition as the main opposition to Labor.

In the traditional Coalition strongholds of the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast, One Nation out-polled the Coalition parties as a whole but failed to win any seats. The Coalition parties did not challenge each other in their own seats and as a result easily out-polled One Nation in all but one seat.

In regional and rural Queensland, One Nation received 29.8% of the vote and won nine seats. The success of One Nation was largely at the expense of the National Party, whose vote fell by 23.1% to 27.0%. Although the Labor Party won two seats from the Liberal Party (including Mundingburra) its presence in regional and rural areas continued to decline with the loss of four seats to One Nation. The election left the Liberal Party with no representation in regional and rural Queensland.

A number of individual seats provided interesting results (see Table 3 for detailed results). Some of these are outlined below:

• Barambah - The sitting National Party member, Mr T Perrett, was defeated by Ms D Pratt of One Nation. Mr Perrett had previously won the seat as a Citizens Electoral Council candidate at a by-election following the retirement of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
• Caboolture - Typical of the outer-suburban areas where One Nation polled strongly. This seat was won by the new One Nation Parliamentary leader Mr B Feldman.
• Cook - One Nation polled surprisingly well (20.4%) in this north Queensland seat. Cook has the highest proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of any seat (39.1%).
• Gladstone - The independent member, Ms Liz Cunningham, retained her seat with a reduced majority. This was the only non-metropolitan seat that One Nation did not contest.
• Gympie - Despite predictions before the election that this seat would be one of the more likely One Nation wins, the seat was retained by the National Party, albeit on Labor preferences.
• Indooroopilly - Former Liberal leader Mr D Beanland struggled to retain this seat which is now the most marginal Liberal seat (0.7%).
• Ipswich - One Nation party leader, Ms H Hill, failed in her attempt to win this seat from Mr D Hamill of the Labor Party.
• Mansfield - Labor won this seat by 83 votes, making it the most marginal seat in Queensland. The result was subject to a legal challenge on the issue of misleading 'how-to-vote' cards. On 21 September 1998 the Court of Disputed Returns dismissed the challenge to the validity of the election result.
• Mulgrave - The successful One Nation candidate, Mr C Rappolt, subsequently resigned from the Parliament. At the ensuing by-election the seat was won by the ALP, thus giving the Beattie Government a majority on the floor of the House.
• Mundingburra - Labor won this seat back from the Liberal Party thus reversing the 1996 by-election result.
• Nicklin - The independent candidate, Mr P Wellington, won this seat from the National Party on ALP and One Nation preferences. In a very even contest none of the major candidates received over 30% of the primary vote.
• Noosa - In circumstances similar to the situation in Oxley at the 1996 Federal election, the One Nation candidate in this seat, Mr D Summers, was disendorsed after the close of nominations for alleged 'extremist views'. The seat was retained by the Liberal Party.
• Tablelands - One Nation's most marginal seat (0.3%). The seat was won on a leakage of Labor preferences to One Nation.

Preferences

The question of preferences, namely the decision of the Coalition to direct preferences to One Nation ahead of the ALP and the decision of One Nation to direct preferences to the Coalition ahead of the ALP in a number of marginal seats, dominated the Queensland election campaign. Unfortunately, a definitive analysis of the effect of preferences on the outcome of the election is not possible as the distribution of preference data does not distinguish between the preference flows of candidates where more that one candidate's preferences are distributed. However, the following observations can be made regarding the effect of preferences on the outcome.

It would appear that up to eight One Nation seats were won on Coalition preferences (Burdekin, Caboolture, Hervey Bay, Ipswich West, Maryborough, Mulgrave, Thuringowa and Whitsunday).

Similarly up to nine Coalition seats were won on ALP preferences (Burnett, Callide, Crows Nest, Cunningham, Gympie, Hinchinbrook, Maroochydore, Warwick and Western Downs).

The effect of One Nation preferences in denying the ALP victory in marginal Coalition seats was not as pronounced. In Coalition seats requiring a swing of less than 7%, the ALP won four (Greenslopes, Barron River, Mt Ommaney and Mansfield) while four were retained by the Coalition (Albert, Redlands, Southport and Aspley).

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the decision of the Liberal Party to direct preferences to One Nation ahead of the ALP cost the party votes and seats in Brisbane. Although specific data to support or refute this claim is not available, circumstantial evidence suggests that there was some shift in support from the Liberal Party to the ALP in Brisbane. The Liberal vote in Brisbane fell by 11.6% while ALP vote only fell by 2.5%. If we assume that some of the One Nation vote of 16.7% came from former ALP voters then some Liberal voters must have voted for the ALP to account for the small fall in ALP support.

An analysis of pre-poll votes also suggests that in Liberal held seats in Brisbane, lost to Labor in the election, support for the Liberal Party fell during the campaign, an outcome partly attributable to the preference decision. In Springwood the Liberal vote fell by 14.6% (as measured by the difference between the primary vote for the Liberal Party recorded in pre-poll votes and the vote recorded on polling day) while in Mt Ommaney it fell by 8.6%, in Greenslopes it fell by 6.2% and in Mansfield it fell by 6.1%.(7)

The election analyst, Antony Green,(8) has attempted to quantify the preference flows from each of the major parties by calculating the difference between the first preference votes and the final two candidate votes. This analysis is not definitive because it includes the preferences of minor parties and attributes them to the major parties. Despite limitations in the data the analysis provides a useful overview of preference flows. The following figure shows Antony Green's estimates of the distribution of preference at the 1998 election.

The above table shows that while preferences seem to have played a critical role in the outcome of the election in certain seats the ability of the parties to control the flow of preferences is open to question. This is most apparent for the Liberal Party where there was considerable supporter resistance to the notion of directing preferences to One Nation over the Labor Party and considerable leakage of second preference votes occurred. The leakage from other parties was also considerable.

Optional preferential voting is a feature of the Queensland electoral system and one that should be taken into account in an examination of preference flows as a decision not to express a second preference vote is often as important as a decision to preference in a certain direction. A higher level of exhausted votes raises the relative value of first preference votes received. Antony Green has also examined exhausted votes and estimates that in the 12 seats where Labor votes were distributed, 36.3% of those votes expressed no preferences. The exhaustion rate in other seats was as follows: in the seven seats where Liberal votes were distributed, 26.4%, in the 14 seats where National Party votes were distributed, 21.2%, and in the 43 seats where One Nation votes were distributed, 30.3%.(9)

Two-Party Preferred Votes

Because of the emergence of One Nation as a third force in Queensland politics it is no longer possible to analyse election results in two-party preferred terms, where the 'two parties' are the Labor Party and the Coalition parties. In 36 of the 89 Queensland seats (40%) the final contest was between candidates other than candidates from the Labor Party and the Coalition parties (i.e. the contest was between Labor and One Nation, or between the Coalition and One Nation, or even between Labor or the Coalition and an independent). This is in contrast to the 1995 election where only one such contest occurred.

For the above reason two party preferred votes have not been used in this paper. However, two-candidate preferred votes have been shown for all seats (see Table 4).

1. John Wanna, 'Political Chronicles', The Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 42 no. 3, 1996.
2. Weekend Australian, 13 June 1998.
3. ibid.
4. Financial Review, 13 June 1998.
5. Courier Mail, 10 June 1998.
6. Courier Mail, 26 June 1998.
7. Courier Mail, 26 June 1998.
8. Sydney Morning Herald, 30 July 1998.
9. ibid.

Table 1 Legislative Assembly: State Summary

Table 2a Legislative Assembly: First Preference Votes, District Summary

Number

Table 2b Legislative Assembly: First Preference Votes, District Summary

Per cent