When Campbell Newman called the Queensland election it was clearly a test run for the federal Coalition’s political strategy. That test run has been a smash-up.



Like Newman, Tony Abbott has been selling voters the message that “tough” decisions – even unpopular ones – are necessary in the national interest. And he’s been banking on those voters ultimately deciding that Labor, who they so recently rejected at the ballot box, is ill prepared and too much of a risk.

He’s also made exactly the same mistakes that meant, for Newman, that strategy didn’t work. He’s squandered the electorate’s trust, with broken promises and harsh policies not mentioned before the election. He’s falsely believed that slogans, rather than painstaking explanations, would convince people to accept his policies.

Newman seemed to think Queenslanders would come around if he just said the word “strong” lots of times. The Abbott government seems to have the same expectations of the phrases “debt and deficit disaster” and “cleaning up Labor’s mess”. But those phrases do not substitute for clear explanations about why the federal government thinks its chosen spending cuts are the best and fairest ways to improve the budget bottom line.

And, like Newman, Abbott seems to be banking on reminding voters of Labor’s past failures, and asserting that Labor does not have a plan. Ominously for him, the Queensland result showed that, when they are sufficiently angry with the incumbent, voters are prepared to risk an alternative leader who seems solid, even if they aren’t visionary and don’t have inspiring alternative ideas.

Federal factors did play some role in the Queensland result – even though Newman called his election in the Christmas holidays to get away from them, and both major parties concentrated on state themes. The fact that the federal Coalition managed to talk about the goods and services tax, the Medicare co-payment, industrial relations changes, knighting the Queen’s hubby and its own leadership woes in just over three weeks when most of them were on leave really beggars belief.

But the biggest question now is whether Abbott can overcome the political factors thrown into stark relief by Newman’s failure. Has he still got the authority and the trust to make the case for the agenda he will outline to the National Press Club on Monday? Has he got the ability to explain, not in soundbites, but it in a way that respects the intelligence of the electorate?

The Queensland result will loom large in the way the federal Coalition party room answers those questions.





