QLD Election

On the face of things, the results from the Queensland state election on Saturday were nothing short of remarkable. The previously ruling Labor party were decimated, left with 7 seats in an 89 seat parliament, down from a total of 51 at the previous election. The conservative Liberal National Party picked up an unprecedented 78 seats, catapulting Campbell Newman into the premiership.

 The Labor Party had blown itself into oblivion shortly after the last election, announcing the privatization of vital state assets, most notably Queensland Rail. This left them completely and utterly indistinguishable from the LNP, and waiting for the eventual beating at the election. It was an interesting election for more reasons than one, foremost being the demonstration of the absolute bankruptcy of the ALP as a working class party, and subsequent punishment. Secondly, the fact that the majority of metropolitan working-class voters punished the ALP by voting LNP, demonstrates the stark disenfranchisement of the Australian working class. By the virtue of the LNP machine now having total dominance over the resource rich Queensland state, and the ALP having done their privatising dirty work for them, Queensland is now primed for even further imperialist penetration and domination. It would be unreasonable to expect the ALP to oppose this, which brings us to the next point of interest from the election.

Bob Katter's Australian Party managed 11% of the vote and took 2 seats in the parliament. While Katter and his party may hold some reactionary social positions, it stands in stark opposition to the neo-liberal agenda promoted by the ALP and the LNP. Their two MPs stand to be the real opposition within the Queensland parliament. It stands to oppose further imperialist penetration of the Australian economy, seeks to halt privatization and renationalise privatised assets and develop jobs and a sustainable economy through the development of a state-owned biofuel producing area in the canefields of Queensland. Significantly, Katter was the only MP apart from Adam Bandt to support the complete removal of political police targeting building workers. It is hard to agree with them on some points, but their success represents a genuine anti-imperialist sentiment amongst the electorate, and we must aim to work with this, educate and take this sentiment to a whole new level.