I grew up in Queensland. From the time I was a boy to the time I left for a computing job in Canberra, Joh Bjelke-Petersen ruled with a sure grasp of the needs and wishes of Queenslanders. He was vilified, he was abused and he was ridiculed throughout Australia, but he won election after election by giving the people what they wanted.
I saw it time and again -- each election would see a string of southern journalists and pundits pack their bags and head for the sun, predicting that this time it was the end of the line for Joh. And every time they went back home wiping egg off their faces.
This Queensland election may not have Joh as a leading figure, but it certainly has the media and the political establishment in a frenzy.
One thing of which you may be sure, come Sunday morning, every political commentator and his dog will be coming out of the woodwork trying to explain the result and to put his own spin on it.
What's going to happen? Well, lets look at the possibilities.
For a start, Queensland has a unicameral legislature. This means that there is only one House, the Legislative Assembly, the Legislative Council having been abolished some decades back. MLAs are elected from electorates, which means that to win a seat in parliament, a candidate has to get 50% + 1 of the votes. There is no "quota" system such as may be found in the Senate or other Upper Houses, where a lower level of support, as low as 7.7% in some cases, is required to gain a seat.
So for One Nation to gain *any* seats, a candidate has to win a majority of votes in that seat. A big ask for a party only a year old, where most voters vote the way that they have always done. In Australia's preferential voting system, it is not strictly necessary to win 50% of the number one votes, so the task is made a little less impossible.
How preferential voting works is that when all the votes have been counted, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated, and all ballot papers containing a number one vote for him are distributed to other candidats depending on the second preference that the voter has marked. Note that this distribution depends on the way that the voters have marked their papers -- how the candidate wanted his votes distributed via a how-to-vote paper doesn't count.
Each vote is transferred at full value, so the newly distributed votes are added to the existing totals. If one candidate now has a majority of the votes, that candidate wins, otherwise the process is repeated by distributing the second preferences of the least popular candidate of those remaining. Eventually, one candidate will have a majority. If the count is close then only two candidates will remain. (Obviously one of these will have more than the other, so there is no need to further distribute preferences.)
So the fact that the Coalition has put One Nation ahead of the ALP in 77 seats means little. In most electorates the two most popular parties will be the ALP and the Coalition, and hence none of the major parties will have their preferences given away. In most cases the independents, the greens, the Democrats and One Nation will be eliminated one by one and their preferences given away, eventually ending up either with ALP or Coalition.
(As Queensland has an optional preferential system, a voter need only mark [1] in a box to cast a valid vote, declining to allocate any preferences. Many One Nation voters are expected to do this, but as this only matters when the One Nation candidate is eliminated, One Nation will not win that seat and it will go to one of the major parties.)
So for One Nation to win a seat in Parliament, a candidate must win a majority outright, or come first or second and gain enough preferences from eliminated candidates to gain a majority. As ALP and Coalition candidates will be running in every seat, this means that to even have a chance of winning, One Nation *must* win more votes than one of the major parties.
So it is a big ask for a fledgling party, and in that possible handful of seats where a One Nation candidate beats one of the major parties, it will all come down to preferences. If the beaten candidate is Labor, then the Coalition will probably win, as their preferences will flow to the Coalition. Only where One Nation beats a Coalition candidate is there a distinct chance of winning, as the Coalition is directing preferences to One Nation ahead of the ALP.
So we know that winning any seat is going to be difficult, but not impossible. What is plainly impossible is for One Nation to win enough seats to govern in its own right, or even as the dominant partner in a coalition.
So no, One Nation will not win the election. There will be either the Nationals with the support of the Liberals, or the ALP in their own right.
Victory for One Nation will be winning any seats at all. A stunning victory would be winning enough seats to control the balance of power, such as Independent Liz Cunningham has held for the last two and a bit years. (Two and a half years of stability, I might add, despite Peter Beattie's predictions of doom if once again neither side has a clear majority.)
But even if One Nation does not win any seats, this is still an astonishing performance for a party just over a year old, with very little practical experience. The DLP in their first State election gained 7% of the vote, and a generation later the Democrats under Don Chipp won 10% at their first trial. One Nation is polling over 15%, with every likelihood of doing better after a superb campaign.
The fact that a party barely a year old has done so well is astonishing. And no, this support has not been bought with slick advertising or promises of wealth. This support comes from the people who are sick of being fed the same old same old by the same old politicians. It's not a reaction against the Coalition, who have only been in power for a couple of years -- it's a reaction to the major parties and the traditional way of doing things.
The people want a change, they want to be listened to, and they don't want to be fed bullshit. That's what this election is all about, and if the major parties want to do away with One Nation, then the way to go about it is not to attack Pauline Hanson, but to take lessons from her.
Speaking now as a southerner with pretensions as both a journalist and a political commentator, I just wish I was up there in Queensland with all the rest. And no, it's not because I spotted the white gleam of snow on the mountains around Canberra yesterday. It's because this election is historic.
So what's going to happen on Saturday? Well, like everybody else, I don't really know. I see Pauline Hanson acting like a winner, I see Rob Borbidge looking like a loser and I see Peter Beattie stifling the whoops of joy.
But I think that once again fate will be unkind to Peter Beattie. I think that he is still navigating by the stars of the old political heavens, and that he is just not listening to the people. He has attacked Pauline Hanson and One Nation at every opportunity. He has made a virtue out of putting Pauline last on every ALP how to vote card in the State, and he has stated that she is irrelevant. Yet he has spent the whole campaign talking about her.
Certainly the signs are pointing to a Labor win, because ALP and Coalition are evenly matched, and it is a certainty that many of the Coalition voters who choose One Nation this time round will not let their vote return via preferences. A fall in the Coalition vote means an automatic victory for Peter Beattie. He only has to win one seat to win government.
But I've seen Pauline in action, and I've seen her appeal to the common man. She speaks for them and she is not the artful politician with the carefully-crafted speech. She speaks from the heart and she speaks what is in many people's hearts. I've seen her dancing on the lawns of Parliament House at midnight with lifelong Labor voters -- hardened CFMEU miners who wouldn't dream of voting for the Coalition, but were won over by Pauline with a few off-the-cuff words and a willingness to listen.
I think that Peter Beattie has put his foot right in it with his attacks on Pauline Hanson and his reliance upon the conventional wisdom. We know that the Coalition voters are deserting in droves, but I think that it is the traditional Labor voters who will give Pauline a tick as well. They might not want to admit it to anybody else just yet, but in the privacy of the polling booth, they will vote with their hearts. And a lot of those who do stay with Labor as their first choice will defy the party ticket, the politically correct line, and give Pauline their second preference. Far better One Nation than the Coalition.
I think that the young people will abandon the parties of their parents, and that the parents will give Pauline a run, just to see what happens.
This election campaign has been unprecedented. I don't think the result will be conventional.