Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is Rick Farley; we are talking about the National Farmers Federation preferences, my friend—not many of which, I must say, were flowing our way. Nevertheless, I could not accept that proposition on an even money basis because only one of those four results would need to turn negative and I would have done my dough, but Rick very generously gave me odds of three to one. I think we really deserved about six or seven to one, but he was a pretty tough guy. One by one the dominoes fell—that is, Labor did retain government in South Australia and in Western Australia. The one I was actually really worried about was Queensland because it was 32 years in opposition. Queensland seemed to be saying that they were pretty determined to vote for the National Party and the Libs, but Wayne Goss got Labor across the line very well in Queensland. So the last one was the federal election and we won that too, after losing nine seats in Victoria with the collapse of the State Bank, the tram strike and a few other problems.

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