People have good reason to be nervous, on past results and current polls Queensland is One Nation's strongest state. At the 2017 election, Queensland Treasurer and former Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Curtis Pitt, may lose his seat of Mulgrave to One Nation (who held it once before in 1998).
For city people who may not understand the dynamics of what is happening in regional Queensland, let’s go back to the disastrous Bligh Labor government. Following a Labor tradition, Curtis Pitt inherited Mulgrave from his dad, Warren Pitt. Having gone to Uni and worked in the public service in Brisbane, Pitt was first elected in 2009. This Bligh Labor government broke an election promise selling Queensland Rail, an institution in regional Queensland. The seat of Mulgrave, starting at Innisfail, stretches along the Bruce Highway and includes the townships of Miriwinni, Babinda, Bellenden Ker, Deeral, Gordonvale, Edmonton, Mount Sheridan and parts of White Rock on the southern edge of Cairns which was served for many years by respected mayor, Tom Pyne (father of Rob Pyne).
This area has extensive sugarcane fields, banana plantations, tropical fruit orchards and cattle farms.
So why is Labor about to fail in Mulgrave?
National Party voters are deserting to One Nation because, over the past few years, Queensland sugar mills have been sold off to multinationals: Proserpine Co-operative Sugar Milling Association to Singapore-based Wilmar International, Tully Sugar to Sucrogen and China Oil and Food Corporation (COFCO), Maryborough Sugar Mill to Thai company Mitr Phol to name a few.
These multinational companies have all made big capital investments in the mills and now want the pay off. Under co-operative type arrangements, previously the mills gave 2/3 of the profit to the farmers. The new multinational owners are now cutting back the farmers take drastically. It is similar to what happened with milk. Dairy farmers deserted their co-ops and sold out to multinationals with a few exceptions like NORCO and Dairy Farmers Milk Co-operatives.
Farmers and the national party were mad to sell the mills. So One Nation, is now the political beneficiary and Curtis Pitt is a good target because he is at the heart of Labor’s failure to listen to regional Queensland.
Labor Premier Palaszczuk says they she will “spend more time in the regions ‘listening and delivering’” and this “will help counter the rising political threat of One Nation”. But it is already too late for that, jobs in the regions have been lost by the last labor Treasurer (does anyone even remember the boy-wonder’s name?) amalgamating the shires. If the Qld Labor government lets One Nation in, only madness can result! No one can say they were not warned, many already know and the result in Western Australian election will confirm it. The reality is Labor’s sale of Queensland Rail hurt regional towns and cities like Maryborough, Rockhamton, Townville and Cairns.
Queensland Labor may think union members will hand out how-to-vote cards and save them again as they did in 2009, 2012 and 2014. But how many times do workers have to be kicked in the guts before they will revolt? Unions are better off defending their members’ jobs than worrying about a parliament that has failed to deliver on both jobs and security.
The only Labor person (now independent) that unions could support is Rob Pyne who opposed privatisation, supports women with the decriminalisation of abortion bills, tried to nail corruption in local government before Deputy Premier Trad stopped him, and was the only MP in the parliament to vote against Adani coal mine in central Queensland.
The financial crisis caused by privatisation and sell off of local and public assets is driving people to racism. It is the same all over: Brexit, Trump’s ban on Muslim travel into the U.S., opposition to Syrian refugees inside Europe and now One Nation, again!
Ian Curr
14 February 2017
