Things turned out okay I guess, but I’m a little disappointed nonetheless.
Hilights of the night included Anna Bligh being elected the first female premier in Australia. A moment in history indeed. It was a pretty close race initially, with the Liberal National Party scooping up thirty seats — six of these from the ALP. This was expected though I’m glad we didn’t end up with a conservative majority.
Pauline Hanson came in third in Beaudesert, and One Nation looks to have lost all of its seats. This is a really good outcome, because wingnuts like this just shouldn’t be allowed to govern. It’s insane enough they managed to be elected in the first place, but thankfully they seem to be finished.
The real travesty is that while all of this was going on, Ronan Lee lost his seat in Indooroopilly by a very slim margin. The LNP managed 44.5% of the vote, whereas the ALP and Greens were 26.3 and 26.1 percent respectively. I can’t seem to find any information on how preferences were going, but I believe Labor was supposed to be preferencing Lee, which given an extra ~37 votes would potentially have seen the Greens elected. It’s just such a shame that the electorate’s lost him.
On a more positive note, the Greens got a state-wide vote of 8%, which is up a bit over 1% from last election. At least we’re slowly becoming a more progressive society. My own electorate of Mount Coot-Tha gave them 23.5%, but still not enough to make a difference.
I knew from the start I was going to be disappointed by the outcome of the election, but it makes it feel somewhat better that Springborg and his National cronies haven’t got power. Anna says she’s got the message and is going to do better this time around, but it remains to be seen whether she’ll weather the next three years.
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