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March 22, 2009
Queensland, swinging one day, not really swinging all that much the next.
Wiser folk than I will no doubt explain the election result in way more complex terms than this, but it looks to me as though Anna won and Lawrence lost.
A couple of weeks ago Graham Young questioned the wisdom of an ALP campaign photo which portrayed Bligh as a dominatrix. My voting age daughter said the same thing yesterday. The severe figure in the photo was not responsible for Anna's high personal rating, which ended up reflecting the election outcome more closely than the polls.
It appears that large numbers of the large number of polled undecideds decided in Anna's favour at the last minute, and some of the previously decideds eventually decided the other way. What caused them to decide the way they did is anyone's guess, but I'm putting it down to Anna vs The Borg.
Had Lawrence comported himself through the campaign the same way he did during his concession speech, it might have been a closer thing. After weeks of braying and thumping and making up words Barnaby Joyce-style, he came across as someone you wouldn't mind representing you at an important function when it was all too late. He'd campaigned as the angriest person in the state, and while the state might have been a bit cross about some things, it wasn't beside itself with fury. And certainly not at a smallish woman whose smile could light up an AFL stadium. She has that in common with Beattie.
We'd settled in for a long, nail-biting night in front of the telly, but Possum called it at about 5.05pm when the exit polls came out. ABC coverage of the count started at 6.30 and while Antony Green tried to do the traditional suspense thing, it was all over before 7. After that it was the pure guest-politicians-in-the-studio theatre and the novelty of Pauline Hanson's result. She came in just over 21%.
Lawrence will stand aside and let someone else have a go at leading the LNP, which should be interesting. The conservative side of politics Australia-wide will go on wondering what's gone wrong. Barnaby will continue to be a one man, two parties kind of guy. Queensland will now be the first state to elect a female premier but will probably manage to maintain its parochial image. The Qld ALP will go on excorcising the ghost of Joh.
So you people in NSW, Victoria and SA might just get some water out of us yet, but don't go getting too excited. The Gold Coast will get its AFL stadium, which will make Clive Palmer cross. Anna will pick her own team, which has to be better than the one the factions chose for her. Brisbane will have one children's hospital and the public service can relax about their jobs. We can also stay friends with the big fellas in Canberra, which could come in handy in a recession.
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The size of the swing was however extraordinarily bad news for Kevin Rudd/Malcolm Turnbull/the Greens/Peter Costello, depending which school of spin you belong to.
For the rest of us, life seems not to have changed too much at all.