Richard Belmore,
writing in Tuesday’s Crikey, professes himself “stunned” at my
suggestion that the non-Labor parties will have a better chance in
Queensland if more seats are contested by the Liberals rather than the
Nationals. His counter-argument boils down to pointing out that the
Liberals did really badly at the 2004 election.

No argument
there, they did. Contesting 47 of the 89 seats, the Liberal Party only
managed 18.5% of the vote. But the National Party did just as badly,
getting 17% from 41 seats. The Nationals won more seats – 15 to 5 –
because the very safe non-Labor seats are mostly in the bush. But it
was a bad election for the non-Labor parties across the board.

The
Liberals, however, were at least making up some ground. In the
Labor-held marginals contested by the Liberal Party, there was a median
swing against Labor of 0.8% – not much, but better than nothing. In the
Labor-held marginals contested by the Nationals, the median swing was
the other way – 1.6% to Labor.

Since last year, the opinion
polls have consistently shown the Liberal vote way ahead of the
National vote. (Recall also last year’s Senate election, where the
Liberals outpolled the Nationals six to one.) As I have pointed out before,
the obvious explanation for why this doesn’t translate into votes at
state elections is that the Liberals are not standing candidates in
places where the votes are.

The National Party insists on
keeping the Liberals out of seats like Burleigh and Broadwater, urban
coastal seats that the non-Labor parties have to win, but in which they
went backwards last year. What it and its apologists refuse to admit,
but which is plain to pretty much every other observer, is that these
places are just no longer National Party territory. The Bjelke-Petersen
era, when it could be a broad-based right-wing party appealing to urban
voters as well, is over.

Keep watch on this issue: it’s not
going to go away. If the Nationals refuse to give in gracefully,
there’s likely to be blood on the floor.