{"id":273704,"date":"2020-11-01T08:31:57","date_gmt":"2020-11-01T13:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=273704"},"modified":"2020-11-01T08:31:57","modified_gmt":"2020-11-01T13:31:57","slug":"view-from-the-hill-victorias-pain-reinforced-palaszczuks-winning-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/11\/01\/view-from-the-hill-victorias-pain-reinforced-palaszczuks-winning-message\/","title":{"rendered":"View from The Hill: Victoria’s pain reinforced Pa\u0142aszczuk’s winning message"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Her win reinforced the accepted wisdom that this crisis favours incumbents \u2013 provided people think they are doing the right thing. (File photo<\/a>: Annastacia Palaszczuk MP\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In an election victory driven by her management of COVID, the dire second wave in Victoria likely helped Annastacia Pa\u0142aszczuk. Defending her tough border policy and her message about keeping Queenslanders safe, she had a real life example to illustrate what happens when the virus gets away.<\/p>\n

Her win reinforced the accepted wisdom that this crisis favours incumbents \u2013 provided people think they are doing the right thing.<\/p>\n

The Queensland outcome might at one level be galling for the federal government \u2013 which has been sniping at Pa\u0142aszczuk\u2019s border policy for months \u2013 but at another it is also reassuring for Scott Morrison, who has so far managed the pandemic response well.<\/p>\n

That said, Morrison has a rockier road to navigate to his election. The federal poll is a year and a half away, and (assuming the virus now stays under control) the challenge for him is economic, which will be complicated as he juggles withdrawing the current massive fiscal support without any disaster.<\/p>\n

While some details of the Queensland result are yet to be finalised, Pa\u0142aszczuk is set for an increased majority, with Labor securing a swing towards it. For a government seeking a third term, and one which had been \u2013 pre-COVID \u2013 under criticism for its performance, this is a remarkable achievement.<\/p>\n

Despite some pre-election speculation, and the plight of the tourist industry, Labor\u2019s seats in the north of the state did not collapse.<\/p>\n

The difficulties of the Queensland economy and its high unemployment did not translate into electoral damage for the government.<\/p>\n

And nearly a week\u2019s campaigning by the prime minister produced not the slightest sign of a Morrison \u201cmiracle\u201d for the Liberal National Party. On the other side, the absence of Anthony Albanese could have been a bonus for Labor.<\/p>\n

The Pa\u0142aszczuk government was helped by its opposition, with recent fighting between the LNP organisation and the parliamentary party. On the main issue of this COVID election, LNP leader Deb Frecklington could only say she too would follow the health advice. She may not have not been believed, given the attacks on the closed border coming from the conservative side.<\/p>\n

Apart from the result, the big story of Saturday was the collapse of the One Nation vote. What was left of that vote favoured Labor via preferences, probably reflecting older voters\u2019 COVID fears.<\/p>\n

Pauline Hanson was low profile during the election; whether she can gear up her party when the federal contest comes remains to be seen. It\u2019s clear how \u201call about Pauline\u201d is Pauline Hanson\u2019s One Nation \u2013 if she\u2019s not going flat out, there\u2019s nothing much there.<\/p>\n

Just as the Victorian wave played into Pa\u0142aszczuk\u2019s story line, so did the federal pressure on the premier. The smaller (in population) states are parochial: Palaszczuk benefitted by being seen pushing back against the \u201copen up\u201d brigade.<\/p>\n

The benefit was in net terms \u2013 she lost skin when some hardline decisions hurt interstate families who needed health care or who wanted to visit sick relatives or to attend funerals.<\/p>\n

Apart from the warm glow of a fraternal success, the Queensland result doesn\u2019t bring a lot that\u2019s positive for federal Labor.<\/p>\n

For it, the message about incumbency is not encouraging.<\/p>\n

The ALP also knows Queenslanders are quite comfortable with federal and state governments being of different stripes. The voters can judge who\u2019s who, and just because they trust Pa\u0142aszczuk Labor doesn\u2019t mean they are more likely to embrace Albanese Labor.<\/p>\n

Morrison goes down well in Queensland when he\u2019s campaigning for his own government.<\/p>\n

Federal Labor must work out its detailed positions on key policies \u2013 climate, energy and resources \u2013 and more effectively sell its leader, before its fortunes can improve in that state.<\/p>\n

Both will be difficult. Attempts to paper over the internal differences on climate and energy won\u2019t cut it, but forging genuine agreement is a struggle.<\/p>\n

Albanese is up against it when the times are suiting Morrison.<\/p>\n

Post Saturday\u2019s result, the premier has indicated Queensland\u2019s border ban on people from greater Sydney and Victoria won\u2019t be reviewed for another month. That would still leave time for Christmas reunions, but it could be a tight-run thing.<\/p>\n

Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Sunday: \u201cwe\u2019re now, I think, in a position where we would like to see New South Wales and Queensland be able as soon as possible to have free movement between the jurisdictions. And once everybody is comfortable that Victoria does have its contact tracing to gold standard levels, then I think we\u2019ll see a single national bubble in due course.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Victoria on Sunday recording zero new cases and community transmission in Australia virtually stamped out, Australia is at this moment in an extraordinarily good place on the health front.<\/p>\n

But with COVID rampaging again in Britain and many other countries, and the memory of the Victorian experience fresh, there can be no complacency.\"The<\/p>\n

Michelle Grattan<\/a>, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an election victory driven by her management of COVID, the dire second wave in Victoria likely helped Annastacia Pa\u0142aszczuk. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":273705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-michelle-grattan-university-of-canberra","mauthors-the-conversation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273704"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":273707,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273704\/revisions\/273707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}