Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That was an unfortunately sad contribution from the government Senate leader, George Brandis. What he knows and what, more importantly, the people of Queensland know is that the Queensland Labor Party have consistently put Pauline Hanson last. No matter what incarnation, ever since Pauline Hanson has been on the political scene in Queensland, we have put her last. When Pauline Hanson has been a threat in Queensland, we have benefitted from that because we made a principled decision to put her last.

It was interesting on Saturday night that, when this was a topic of conversation, Senator Canavan said of Tim Nicholls, who was happy to preference One Nation in 49 seats and happy not to rule out forming government with them, 'He was just being honest.' Unfortunately, I think he was. They were happy to preference them, and that sent a message to the people of Queensland. More importantly, they were happy to form government with them if they needed them to form a majority. This is what actually cost them seats in the south-east corner. It has happened before; it happened in 1998 and it happened in 2001.

When those opposite do deals with One Nation, they pay a price, but they don't get any benefit out of it. This is the point. They didn't do well in regional Queensland. They didn't pick up seats en masse from Labor in regional seats where One Nation did get a significant vote. But it hurt them in the south-east corner. It hurt them in Aspley, Mansfield and Mount Ommaney because people in Queensland—particularly in the south-east corner—understand the damage that would be done to Queensland's reputation if we had a government at the state level of an LNP and One Nation coalition. That is what cost them seats. That is what those opposite didn't understand 20 years ago. They've had numerous lessons and they still can't understand it now.

We have seen since the election result the differences of opinion. We've seen the member for Dawson, George Christensen, basically say that we need to appease those One Nation supporters. We saw Senator Brandis in question time, to his credit, say that any time you touch them you are damaged by it. But the state ALP failed to heed that lesson.

What we've seen from a Senate point of view as well—this is was a factor during the state election campaign—is that 85 per cent of the time in this place One Nation vote with the LNP. This was an issue we ran hard on, particularly in Ipswich. I just want to particularly make note of that election result, where my good friend Jen Howard convincingly beat former senator Malcolm Roberts. I want to dispel once and for all the myth that Ipswich has somehow been a One Nation heartland. Sure, Senator Hanson won a seat there more than 20 years ago, but the Labor Party has been representing that area for a long time. We've had some fantastic representatives at the state and federal levels, and I was particularly pleased to see Jen Howard's emphatic victory on Saturday night.

The discussion we have seen since shows that they have taken no lessons from that election campaign, and this goes to the chaos and dysfunction of those opposite—with the decision to cancel parliament and Senator O'Sullivan pursuing a banking royal commission. The divide between the Libs and the Nats in Queensland is only going to get larger as a result of this election campaign. That's why they performed so badly in regional Queensland. That's why they performed so badly in the south-east corner, where the swing against them was eight per cent on primary. That's why the principled stand of Annastacia Palaszczuk and her leadership, where we said, 'We will put One Nation last; we will not do deals with them', resonated across the whole of Queensland. In an environment that is really tough for political parties to win, it was an outstanding result for the Premier. She is someone who was prepared to stand on her record and was prepared to put principle before politics.

It shows how desperate those opposite are that Senator Brandis is prepared to throw around accusations that are baseless. They are absolutely baseless. We made a principled decision to put them last. Every Labor how-to-vote card in the state had One Nation last. Until the LNP realise that, they are going to continue to suffer from their relationship with One Nation. It happened in Queensland on Saturday and it's going to happen federally as well. We know that in most places in regional Queensland they actually came third; they were beaten by One Nation. (Time expired)