THE Bligh Government’s landslide defeat will have implications for both the Australian Labor Party and independents in New England, local political figures say.
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After holding power in Queensland for 20 of the past 22 years, the ALP suffered a humiliating defeat on Saturday, as the Campbell Newman-led Liberal National Party swept to power .
Labor is expected to win only seven of the 89 seats in the Legislative Assembly.
The scale of the defeat, combined with the consistently low polling figures for the Gillard Government, has raised questions about the viability of the Labor brand.
President of the ALP’s Armidale branch, Tony Ramsay, said the Queensland result was not due to federal issues.
“You can’t draw any parallel, as (Opposition Leader) Tony Abbott’s trying to do, between the Queensland election and the federal situation,” Mr Ramsay (pictured) said. “This was a government that was in power for 22 years, so the time factor was definitely an issue in the election.”
Independent Member for New England, Tony Windsor, said the unpopularity of the Gillard Government may have contributed to the Bligh Government’s demise.
“There might be a bit of overflow; I think the infighting between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd certainly didn’t help with the result,” he said.
But he shrugged off suggestions that the public’s view of independents had been negatively affected by his and fellow independent Rob Oakeshott’s
support for the minority government.
“If people are trying to draw a connection between Queensland and the Commonwealth, independents actually performed quite well at the [Queensland] election,” he said.
“[Gladstone MP] Liz Cunningham was re-elected and she put Rob Borbidge in power after a hung parliament. [Nicklin MP] Peter Wellington was re-elected and he helped install Peter Beattie after a hung parliament.
“So if people were looking for an opportunity to punish independents for supporting hung parliaments, that would have been a prime opportunity to do it.”
State Member for Northern Tablelands Richard Torbay was less optimistic, claiming the unpopularity of the Gillard Government had, in turn, damaged the public’s perception of independents.
“There has been an impact in subsequent elections since 2010; Victoria has no independents and NSW lost three, which has been very disappointing,” he said.
“Furthermore, there’s a risk that if a Coalition government is elected next year, which is what polls are indicating will happen, the independents siding with Labor might see us isolated.
“We should be able to work with any government, but this might make it more difficult.”
Liberal Duty MLC for Northern NSW Scot Macdonald (pictured below) said voters would remember the independents’ backing of Labor at the next election.
“There’s no doubt that there was a lot of disappointment when the federal independents backed the ALP, so that has translated into a damaging of their brands,” he said.
“Someone had to form government and the independents had to move from being commentators to aupporting one side or the other.
“We saw the true colours of those independents at the last election when they had nowhere to hide.”
But Mr Windsor said he was proud of what he had achieved for his electorate through the hung parliament.
“We are only just over halfway through the term now, but an enormous amount of funding has gone into New England due to the hung parliament,” he said. “People will make their own decisions about my performance, but if they base it on the delivery of these services I think it will be positive.”
UNE political science lecturer Dr Jim Maher said the independents would be fighting an uphill battle against the Coalition at the next election.
