George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

There will no doubt be much discussion and analysis of the Queensland state election over coming days, weeks and months, but I want to draw to the attention of the chamber one phenomenon that was apparent during the Queensland election and, in particular, on polling day. Senator Ketter claims that the Queensland branch of the Labor Party took a principled stand of putting One Nation last. That was certainly their cover story, but, as is so often the case with the Australian Labor Party, you have to focus not on what they say but on what they do.

I can tell you, Madam Deputy President, as someone who spent a good part of Saturday handing out how-to-vote cards in three different electorates, that Labor Party booth workers, plainly operating under instructions, were saying to each elector who entered the polling booth, 'Put the LNP last,' and that was in seats where there was a One Nation candidate. So the how-to-vote card may have made a public recommendation, but the private recommendation of Labor Party booth workers and operatives was not to put One Nation last.

Furthermore, the Labor Party cause was supported at the polling booths not merely by the Labor Party booth workers but also by their surrogates, people from the various trade union movements and from the trade union council, handing out their own leaflets. They, of course, have as much right as anybody else to participate, express their point of view and make a recommendation to electors, but they as well, surrogates for the Australian Labor Party, were contradicting by their conduct the public message of, 'Put One Nation last,' by saying to electors, 'Don't put One Nation last; put the LNP last.' That's what they were saying, plainly as a result of a deliberate strategy. As we heard Senator Ian Macdonald say in a contribution to the adjournment debate some weeks ago, that was of a piece with conduct that he observed in North Queensland, where the Queensland Council of Unions mounted a campaign saying, 'Put the LNP last,' in seats in which there were One Nation candidates. So, as I say, don't be so concerned with what the Labor Party say and what their public position is; see what they do. I witnessed it with my own eyes and I heard it with my own ears on the ground in Queensland on Saturday.

I might also make the point that if Ms Palaszczuk forms a government, which seems likely, she will form a government on the basis of having won seats in Brisbane from the LNP—seats such as Mansfield, Mount Ommaney and Aspley—on the basis of One Nation preferences. I don't know what deals were done secretly behind the scenes between the Australian Labor Party and One Nation, and, by the way, I am not making that accusation, but it is a fact that, if the Labor Party in Queensland and Premier Palaszczuk form a government, it will be because they won seats from the LNP off One Nation preferences in at least three cases in the city of Brisbane that I can reference—Mansfield, Mount Ommaney and Aspley.

So be careful what you wish for, I say through you, Madam Deputy President, to those Queensland Labor senators opposite. Senator Hanson dobbed you in earlier in the year when she pointed out that your state secretary, Evan Moorhead, had made an approach to her for a mutual agreement whereby One Nation and Labor would run dead in certain seats, we have the phenomenon of Labor booth workers and their trade union surrogates saying, 'Don't put One Nation last,' and we know that three Labor MPs at least were elected on the basis of having received One Nation preferences. Those are the facts. (Time expired)