Newmania: Six Months Out

If a day is a long time in politics, the six or so months between now and the next Queensland election is an eternity. Weekend polling has the renascent ALP candidate Kate Jones sitting comfortably ahead of Premier Campbell Newman, while the latest Newspoll is positive for the LNP. Translated to an election result, Queensland would retain its LNP Government, but without figurehead Campbell Newman. 

Currently, the LNP hold Ashgrove with a 5.7% margin. In Queensland, in 2015, that’s probably small enough to class it as marginal, particularly in light of recent by-election swings of near 20% away from the LNP. 

Senior LNP QLD boss Bruce McIver must be feeling some stress, despite the stubborn insistence from a column of current ministers that their leader will win Ashgrove. Local Government Minister David Crisafulli, Racing Minister Steve Dickson, Tourism Minister Jann Stuckey, Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek and others all sang from the party hymn-sheet yesterday: voters can judge Mr Newman on his strong performance as premier blah blah blah. Even the Australian has Newman losing to the ALP’s Kate Jones, although that little prediction is buried in paragraph 4. 

But what happens to Campbell Newman if Ashgrove voters don’t like his track record of savage cuts to services, the arts, and environmental programmes, his antagonistic approach to problems with unions, bikies and security, and his perceived arrogance?

The reality that Campbell Newman might lose his seat is one that must be faced, regardless of what the LNP want to believe. If the LNP state bosses Bruce McIver and Gary Spence aren’t chained to a whiteboard right now, devising Plan B, they’re completely crackers.

The first item for the whiteboard should be determining just how important Campbell Newman is to the Queensland LNP. He was brought into state parliament to provide leadership into the 2012 election. After years in Opposition, and with a series of failed leaders behind them, the LNP needed a new leader with name recognition and a track record who could get them into Government. He’s done that.

Is he still useful to the party? His personal popularity has been sinking for most of his term as premier, and his lead over Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszcuk as preferred Premier owes as much to Ms Palaszczuk’s blandness as it does to anything positive Newman may have done. Does the LNP still need Newman to lead them to victory?

The answer is probably yes, because without Newman, the LNP in Queensland is basically the same LNP that failed time and time again in opposition, albeit with a single term of governmental experience.

McIver and Co are certainly not afraid to parachute a candidate into a safe-ish seat, so should they move Newman out of Ashgrove now into a safer seat? . In fairness, Premier Newman himself has ruled out playing electoral hopscotch. He says he is committed to Ashgrove. 

On paper, a move is an option, but an option with consequences in the form of undecided voters who would see the move through cynical eyes. No electorate would not look fondly on a premier bumping an established local member to remain in power, and particularly not in a seat which was any distance from the Newman family home in inner-city Brisbane. There aren’t that many safe LNP seats close to centre of Brisbane from which to choose.

Just playing the hypothetical card for a moment, the most likely casualty in the event of a seat switch would still be Moggill, held by hapless former state Liberal leader Dr Bruce Flegg. Since the LNP came to power just two and a half years ago, Dr Flegg has attempted to fight off rumours that he continued practising as a GP while he was also Minister of Housing and Public Works. He’s also been engaged in very public spats with various members of his staff. It’s possible that the LNP might be glad to see the back of the negative headlines he generates.

Other candidates to step aside should Newman take up musical chairs may include Tracy Davis, currently Member for Aspley and Minister for Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services. Ms Davis’s single term in government hasn’t been smooth sailing either, with controversies around her daughter’s drug problems while working for yet another LNP Minister, Ros Bates.

The other possible shuffle would be Newman moving to Tim Nicholls’ seat of Clayfield, but it’s unlikely that the LNP would consider punting the Treasurer.

The red herring could be a move to Townsville where Campbell Newman’s experience as an Army man might work in the garrison town. The problem there is that the current member is John Hathaway, another former Army Officer, so any benefit would be negligible.

If Newman chooses to fight to Ashgrove, as he says he will, and he loses, the LNP must consider who is next in line to lead the state. The ReachTEL poll conducted over the past weekend asked the question about potential LNP leaders, but left Newman in the mix. The next most popular, after Campbell Newman, was Lawrence Springborg, who has lead the National Party to two electoral defeats in Queensland. A career politician from the National Party side of the LNP merger, he is unpopular in Brisbane, and the probability of Mr Springborg as potential Premier could cost the LNP several marginal seats in Brisbane. 

Other names to emerge from the ReachTEL poll were current Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney, Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek, Treasurer Tim Nicholls and Attorney General Jarrod Bleijie. Of the four also-rans, Langbroek fared best with 13.3%.

For now at least, the LNP seem to be backing Newman. It paid off last time, but the election is at least six months away. Six months out from the 2012 election, when ReachTEL conducted a similar poll in Ashgrove, Mr Newman’s primary vote was close to 20% ahead of Ms Jones. This time around, he doesn’t have that advantage.