Extract from The Guardian
The ALP is on track to take office on its own or as a minority
government with the help of Peter Wellington, who says he wants to
ensure stability
Queensland’s resurgent Labor party
is on track to either govern in its own right or hold sway in a hung
parliament with an independent who wants to ensure stability and avoid a
“Jacqui Lambie experience”.
The latest prediction in a seesawing, knife-edge poll count sees Labor taking 45 seats, the slimmest of governing majorities, including the marginal seats of Ferny Grove and Maryborough.
If either does not fall Labor’s way, it could hold minority government with independent Peter Wellington, who also backed the party in a hung parliament in 1998.
Peter Wellington, who has received overtures from both major parties this time, said he had made it clear to the Liberal National party they would need to abandon all their signature policies to win his backing.
In contrast, the Nicklin MP backs Labor’s plans to scrap the LNP’s privatisation program and its proposals on amending bikie laws, donor rules and changes to the corruption watchdog.
In another echo of 1998, the controversial Pauline Hanson, who led One Nation to 11 seats in that election, is on track to re-enter parliament by taking the seat of Lockyer, in Logan city.
If Labor finishes with 44 seats, the LNP would need the support of Wellington, Hanson and Katter’s Australian party (KAP) MPs Rob Katter and Shane Knuth.
The two KAP MPs, sounding the death knell of Campbell Newman’s “Strong Choices” era, have ruled out supporting privatisation or anyone from the departing premier’s leadership team.
Both Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk and Newman claimed before the election they were not interested in forming minority governments.
Wellington told Guardian Australia he would wait for the final ballot count to decide but he was concerned that “whoever forms government is able to govern with some confidence and we don’t have the Jacqui Lambie experience”.
In a reference to the mercurial role that Lambie, the Palmer United senator-turned-independent, has played at a federal level, Wellington said previous minority Queensland governments had avoided “those sorts of dramas playing out”.
“It’s really a matter of making sure the next government is able to govern with a degree of stability and if there are proposed changes to laws then they will be debated on the floor of parliament,” Wellington said.
Wellington blasted the LNP’s transparency record in power, calling for an overhaul of donor rules to make political parties publicly declare donations as soon as they receive them.
“With the technology we have today, the way the money transfer system happens, there’s no reason why when a donation has been made and received that the appropriate authorities should be notified there and then, and then it should be on the public record – no questions about that whatsoever,” he said.
He backed Labor’s policy of restoring the $1,000 limit to secret donations, reversing the $12,800 threshold brought in by the LNP.
Wellington said he wanted to restore the independence of the Crime and Corruption Commission, which the LNP “turned from a watchdog to a lapdog”.
“What we really need to do is give it the full capacity to investigate matters without fear of possible recriminations from the government, where they don’t have to jump to the tune of the government,” he said.
“I’ve spoken out about the need to investigate some allegations of connections between significant donations to candidates and government decisions.
“We only have to see the Icac investigations down south and what’s been revealed. We need to make sure we don’t have that appearing in Queensland and we need to have the CCC with the full powers and the willingness and the tenacity to get out there and undertake these investigations.”
LNP speaker Fiona Simpson has put her hand up for the leadership, while other contenders, treasurer Tim Nicholls and health minister Lawrence Springborg, are closely associated with the Newman era.
Wellington said whichever LNP leaders emerged had “some soul-searching to do, as they sat quietly by and supported Campbell Newman on every one of these extreme legislative programs they’ve enacted”.
“Now that he’s no longer here, they need to seriously consider their position,” he said.
The LNP’s relations with both Wellington and KAP had soured leading up to the poll on Saturday.
It was embroiled in a legal dispute with KAP over election flyers that said it was doing a preferences deal with Labor.
It also mailed out flyers in Nicklin telling voters that Wellington, a former police officer and solicitor who has been an outspoken critic of the LNP’s bikie laws, was “standing up for criminal gangs, not you”.
Wellington, seemingly unfazed, invited Scott Conley – a member of the “Yandina Five” who faces jail for going to a pub with alleged bikie associates under the LNP’s anti-association laws – to hand out flyers for him on election day after hearing that he was unable to get a job.
The latest prediction in a seesawing, knife-edge poll count sees Labor taking 45 seats, the slimmest of governing majorities, including the marginal seats of Ferny Grove and Maryborough.
If either does not fall Labor’s way, it could hold minority government with independent Peter Wellington, who also backed the party in a hung parliament in 1998.
Peter Wellington, who has received overtures from both major parties this time, said he had made it clear to the Liberal National party they would need to abandon all their signature policies to win his backing.
In contrast, the Nicklin MP backs Labor’s plans to scrap the LNP’s privatisation program and its proposals on amending bikie laws, donor rules and changes to the corruption watchdog.
In another echo of 1998, the controversial Pauline Hanson, who led One Nation to 11 seats in that election, is on track to re-enter parliament by taking the seat of Lockyer, in Logan city.
If Labor finishes with 44 seats, the LNP would need the support of Wellington, Hanson and Katter’s Australian party (KAP) MPs Rob Katter and Shane Knuth.
The two KAP MPs, sounding the death knell of Campbell Newman’s “Strong Choices” era, have ruled out supporting privatisation or anyone from the departing premier’s leadership team.
Both Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk and Newman claimed before the election they were not interested in forming minority governments.
Wellington told Guardian Australia he would wait for the final ballot count to decide but he was concerned that “whoever forms government is able to govern with some confidence and we don’t have the Jacqui Lambie experience”.
In a reference to the mercurial role that Lambie, the Palmer United senator-turned-independent, has played at a federal level, Wellington said previous minority Queensland governments had avoided “those sorts of dramas playing out”.
“It’s really a matter of making sure the next government is able to govern with a degree of stability and if there are proposed changes to laws then they will be debated on the floor of parliament,” Wellington said.
Wellington blasted the LNP’s transparency record in power, calling for an overhaul of donor rules to make political parties publicly declare donations as soon as they receive them.
“With the technology we have today, the way the money transfer system happens, there’s no reason why when a donation has been made and received that the appropriate authorities should be notified there and then, and then it should be on the public record – no questions about that whatsoever,” he said.
He backed Labor’s policy of restoring the $1,000 limit to secret donations, reversing the $12,800 threshold brought in by the LNP.
Wellington said he wanted to restore the independence of the Crime and Corruption Commission, which the LNP “turned from a watchdog to a lapdog”.
“What we really need to do is give it the full capacity to investigate matters without fear of possible recriminations from the government, where they don’t have to jump to the tune of the government,” he said.
“I’ve spoken out about the need to investigate some allegations of connections between significant donations to candidates and government decisions.
“We only have to see the Icac investigations down south and what’s been revealed. We need to make sure we don’t have that appearing in Queensland and we need to have the CCC with the full powers and the willingness and the tenacity to get out there and undertake these investigations.”
LNP speaker Fiona Simpson has put her hand up for the leadership, while other contenders, treasurer Tim Nicholls and health minister Lawrence Springborg, are closely associated with the Newman era.
Wellington said whichever LNP leaders emerged had “some soul-searching to do, as they sat quietly by and supported Campbell Newman on every one of these extreme legislative programs they’ve enacted”.
“Now that he’s no longer here, they need to seriously consider their position,” he said.
The LNP’s relations with both Wellington and KAP had soured leading up to the poll on Saturday.
It was embroiled in a legal dispute with KAP over election flyers that said it was doing a preferences deal with Labor.
It also mailed out flyers in Nicklin telling voters that Wellington, a former police officer and solicitor who has been an outspoken critic of the LNP’s bikie laws, was “standing up for criminal gangs, not you”.
Wellington, seemingly unfazed, invited Scott Conley – a member of the “Yandina Five” who faces jail for going to a pub with alleged bikie associates under the LNP’s anti-association laws – to hand out flyers for him on election day after hearing that he was unable to get a job.
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