In the event, the federal election turned out to be more about the economy than the environment. But there are steps the Coalition government can take to help conservation and boost the economy too.
Queensland has a proud place in Labor history. But the 2019 election shows the federal Labor Party no longer understands the issues that matter to Queensland voters.
This election showed that Australia is stuck with an increasingly polarised media, a highly concentrated media ownership landscape and no apparent way to do anything about it.
You could compare election opinion polls to penalty shoot-outs at a World Cup final: there’s huge pressure to get it right and we remember the big misses most of all.
Labor’s finance spokesman Jim Chalmers confirmed he is considering standing for leader, which would put him up against leftwinger Anthony Albanese, who is already campaigning hard for the position.
Election data suggests the Coalition’s victory wasn’t so surprising after all – long-term trends pointed toward a Labor loss, given the various factors in play in this election.
Observers will lament that Saturday’s result shows it is impossible for an opposition to win with a robust change agenda. It might, however, be the case that just too much was piled into it.
Especially in Queensland, right-wing populist parties like One Nation and United Australia Party had a significant impact on how seats played out, and especially taking votes from Labor.
Labor’s defeat revives a familiar problem in Australian political history: the left’s inability to show how its policies can improve people’s material conditions.
Senior Lecturer in Political Science: Research Fellow at the Cairns Institute; Research Associate for Centre for Policy Futures, University of Queensland, James Cook University