Politics Opinion

Old tricks and new culture wars in the Queensland State Election

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Queensland LNP Leader, David Crisafulli (Image by Dan Jensen)

Crisafulli's LNP is up to its old tricks, featuring LNP staffers posing as everyday voters and avoiding the contentious abortion debate in the Queensland State Election campaign. Belinda Jones reports.

QUEENSLANDERS WILL HEAD to the ballot box for the Queensland State Election on 26 October 2024.

Incumbent Queensland Premier Steven Miles was first elected in 2015 and has led the state for the past ten months — after former Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk retired from office.

Competing for the top job against Miles is the LNP’s Member for Broadwater, Opposition Leader, David Crisafulli. First elected in 2012, Crisafulli was Minister for Tourism in former Premier Campbell Newman’s Government.

Labor, LNP and several minor parties – including the Greens, Katter's Australia Party (KAP), Pauline Hanson's One Nation (PHON), Legalise Cannabis Queensland, Family First and others – along with Independent candidates will be campaigning for the 93 seats in Australia’s only unicameral state parliament.

Both major parties list their policies on their respective party websites.

Labor’s policy platform is divided into 16 portfolio areas along with costings. Explicit information on their policies, detailed costings and specific funding targets, along with reasons for the policy direction are all provided.

The LNP policy platform identifies five broadly defined priority areas and discusses what the LNP perceives to be the failures of the current state government in every policy area. Much of the text is ideologically driven and uses generalised statements and terms such as "streamlining", "driving down" and "improving," rather than specific policy details.

No costings are included in this 44-page document — Crisafulli has announced that he will release all LNP’s costings on 14 October 2024, the same day as early voting opens.

The LNP’s glossy, short-on-detail policy brochure also includes testimonies from what are presented as "community members" from different demographics. 

In a heartbreaking account, Mr Stephen Couder recounts the death of his wife Diane, blaming it on ambulance ramping

Crisafulli appeared in the mainstream media when the story received widespread coverage in April 2021, during an incredibly busy time for frontline health workers dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) explained at the time that confusion had ensued over two similarly-named local streets — a responsibility of Logan City Council, who determine local street names in that area.

Nonetheless, Crisafulli has completely disregarded QAS's explanation since the incident. He has clumsily managed to avoid apportioning blame to the root cause of the problem – thus offering little help to solve it – while simultaneously alienating the QAS.

A quick online search of the two street names from the story will verify the QAS’s version of events, the confusion between the street names is still evident in searches three years after the event.

This sad testimony is also quite confusing. On one hand, it blames the tragic incident in this particular case on ambulance "ramping" but on the other hand, the tragic result is blamed on a mix-up with the patient’s address.

In another testimony, this time discussing the cost-of-living crisis, a young family of four is featured the Madden family. The policy brochure fails to provide any disclosure that Kimberley Madden appears to be closely linked to the Queensland LNP.

It's not the first time Liberals have used close associates or friends – without disclosing the connection – in their political advertising

Madden is listed as a co-worker of LNP candidate for Redlands Rebecca Young.

 

In March, Young listed Kim Madden as part of her team for the International Women’s Day Fun Run in Brisbane, under the team name, "Redlands LNP".

 

 

At Young’s recent campaign launch, a woman bearing a striking resemblance to Madden appears to be wearing a blue LNP volunteer’s shirt.

 
(Screenshot via Facebook)

Young posted a picture of herself with the Maddens at a football game on her LNP candidate Facebook page in July.

 
(Screenshot via Facebook)

It’s both misleading and disingenuous of the LNP not to disclose these facts to voters in its policy brochure and to present this family as members of the general public. It is fine to use LNP volunteers, members or co-workers in political advertising as long as the party also clearly discloses such relevant facts in the advertisement.

In another development in the Queensland Election campaign this week — Katter's Australia Party threw the cat among the pigeons on the issue of repealing Queensland'sTermination of Pregnancy Act 2018.

Robbie Katter revealed this week that he plans to introduce a bill into the Queensland Parliament to repeal the 2018 legislation.

Journalists pushed Crisafulli to make a firm commitment on the abortion issue, including whether he would allow his MPs a conscience vote if a repeal motion was brought on by Katter. Crisafulli stuck rigidly to his scripted talking points giving an unconvincing, open-ended answer — that it was “not part of our plan”.

Crisafulli refused to elaborate or indicate whether he would support KAP’s proposed repeal legislationeven though it may not be part of the LNP's plan.

LNP Member for Scenic Rim Jon Krause also chimed in on the unscheduled debate when he was quoted in News Corp media suggesting ‘more like-minded MPs are needed to overturn abortion’.

Many Queensland women are extremely concerned that their personal medical choices and legal rights will be stripped back under an LNP government, and that copycat culture wars from America’s evangelical Bible Belt are infiltrating Queensland politics. 

It’s safe to assume that Queenslanders are quite happy with living in a secular society. It certainly hasn’t been raised as a hotbed issue in this state election campaign, or any other recent Australian election campaign.

Crisafulli’s answers on the abortion issue were vague and did not go anywhere near far enough to reassure the women of Queensland who are not in favour of abortion being criminalised.

Polls are indicating an LNP victory on 26 October  predictions are the rural vote will play a crucial role in determining the outcome of Australia’s most provincial and conservative state.

These polls do not indicate the saturation of Murdoch media in Queensland or how that skews polling and voting patterns. Just about every newspaper in the state is behind a News Corp paywall.

As with most elections, polls will probably tighten as election day nears even so, polls remain an unreliable predictor of election outcomes at any level of government.

What Queenslanders would like most from all candidates is truthfulness and some straight answers  this one decision will significantly affect their lives for the next four years.

 

Belinda Jones was an Independent candidate in the 2023 Federal Election. You can follow Belinda Jones on Twitter/X @belindajones68.

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