By Denis Bright
After countless risky episodes during the recent election campaign, Australians warmed to the need for continuity in Labor’s commitment to a sustainable and caring social market as the better option. Such positive terms triumphed over hate politics and negativity.
At the height of a surge in the LNP’s pre-election polling Nine News (11 February 2025) took an interview from the National’s Senator Brigid McKenzie to assist viewers to evaluate the value of sending Gina Reinhart as a persuasive envoy to appeal to President Trump for moderation in his global tariff regimes. At that stage in the campaign, a landslide victory for Peter Dutton was still possible as reflected in the polling trends (Image: Wikipedia):
The leadership negatives for Peter Dutton were justified by the LNP’s commitment to the strong leadership needed for challenging times ahead. The LNP’s advertisers always assumed that Back on Track meant a return to old ways based on neoliberal values with a seasoning of strategic militarism. Voters worried that this meant more austerity for households as in 2013 with reinforcement from a real stagnation in Australia’s future economic growth levels as global trade and investment are indirectly diverted by successive White House administrations away from countries which were helpful in commercial relationships with our economy.
The wedge politics continued through the LNP’s preferred advertising agency in Topham Guerin (TG). This style of campaigning had worked well in NZ, Britain, the 2024 state election in Queensland and in the election of Scott Morrison in 2019. LNP’s success in 2025 still seemed inevitable.
Labor campaigning slowly turned around those awful polling results. Labor’s strategies emphasized future responses to cost of living problems and steadying interactions with the Trump administration in tandem with more responsible world leaders. The repetitive waving of Albo’s Medicare card always helped in this arduous transition.
Labor’s primary vote peaked miraculously at 34.5 percent. This was a long way short of the primary vote of over 49 percent attained by Labor in previous high benchmarks on eight occasions since 1910 when Labor scored a historic majority in both houses of parliament. This time Labor’s ascendency was again highly contested in the context of a highly fractured national vote.
In the once Labor stronghold of the East Innisfail School in the Kennedy electorate of North Queensland, voter alienation showed up in an informal vote of 7.2 percent and significant minority votes for One Nation (4.3 percent), the Trumpet of Patriots (4 percent). Here the outcome was another victorious lap for the Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) which achieved 72.5 percent of the post-preference votes. Had a minority government prevailed, the KAP would have triumphed as the negotiator on behalf of regional Australia in the event of a minority government from either side of the political aisle as in the hung parliament of 2010.
AT STATE LEVEL PRIOR TO THE QUEENSLAND ELECTION, KAP HAD ALSO TRIED THIS BRINKMANSHIP WITH ITS PROPOSED PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY BILL TABLED ON 1 OCTOBER 2024 PRIOR TO THE DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT:
The primary objectives of the Bill were to:
• promote consistency, transparency and accountability in decision-making processes around Public-Private Partnerships in Queensland (PPPs)
• aid in the prevention of corruption.
• ensure that all commercial activities of the state are conducted in accordance with the principles of transparency, fairness, stability, proper management, integrity, accountability and long-term sustainability.
• ensure that Public-Private Partnership arrangements deliver ‘Value for Money’ transparently and prudently by ensuring the right decision-making processes are in place.
• promote public trust in government.
These positive policies gave a progressive flavour to the KAP’s image but were offset by an exchange of preferences with One Nation with the ultimate flow of preferences to the LNP. There was no hesitation about this approach in 2025. The progressive rhetoric had a weak stump which offered no possibility of delivering ambitious plans for infrastructure in the outback.
KAP was also a champion of AUKUS. This was the ultimate exercise in unaccountable PPP public policies. The enormity of an estimated expenditure of $375 billion on the AUKUS deal will squander more than a full year of Australia’s current business investment in staged financial contributions for over a generation ahead (Budget Paper 1).
As late counting improved Labor’s representation in the House of Representatives, beyond all expectations, a sombre note was being played by factional insiders in the possible removal of Mark Dreyfus and Ed Husic from the new Albanese ministry. Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating blasted the treatment of Husic and Dreyfus. Let’s hope that the two ex-ministers reassert their leadership skills by helping to mentor the new generation of Labor MPs who are about to make their mark in national politics.
Perhaps a more expanded ministry could have avoided such sudden extinctions with a greater commitment to the management of PPPs for the delivery of government services particularly in health, aged care, defence, affordable housing, the delivery of essential infrastructure and the restoration of national identity in popular drama and film production over the current network of vacuous quiz shows on public television.
Such policy challenges deserve both mature and new perspectives. With the goodwill of The AIM Network, I would like to touch on the unresolved problems of PPPs at all levels of government in future articles.
Reclaiming the Labor heartland has largely been achieved in the more disadvantaged outer metro suburbs as reflected in the close counts in former LNP strongholds. The problems of bringing alienated voters in regional electorates back to the Labor fold should be a work in progress for the 2028 election. Networking can be a fun activity that involves a cross-section of society in the regions.
Instead of passively watching more news and streaming programmes, there are opportunities to change the world in regional Australia. Let’s make this happen through steadfast but polite advocacy for change with heightened national sovereignty and regional peace as in the Whitlamesque period:
Good Times Remembered
Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building in these difficult times. Your feedback from readers advances the cause of citizens’ journalism. Full names are not required when making comments. However, a valid email must be submitted if you decide to hit the Replies Button.
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