An election was held in the Australian state of Queensland on 9 September 2006 to elect the 89 members of the state's Legislative Assembly, after being announced by PremierPeter Beattie on 15 August 2006.
The election saw the incumbent Labor government led by Premier Peter Beattie defeat the National-LiberalCoalition led by Lawrence Springborg and Bruce Flegg respectively, and gain a fourth consecutive term in office. Beattie thus became the first Labor Premier of Queensland to win four consecutive elections since William Forgan Smith did so in the 1930s. Had Beattie served out his fourth term, he would have become the second-longest serving Queensland Premier, after Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen. After the election, Springborg resigned as Opposition Leader, being replaced by Jeff Seeney.
From mid-2005, after the revelation of the Jayant Patel scandal, the issue of health has become a focus of controversy, damaging to the Beattie government. After several inquiries and industrial disputes, a restructure of Queensland Health took place, and the state government is currently lobbying the federal government for more doctor training places in universities for Queensland.
Other issues of importance at the election included environmental management and land clearing, asbestos in state schools, the provision of transportation and infrastructure to rural and regional areas, and the management of South East Queensland's population growth.
The campaign started unusually with Premier Peter Beattie denying a general election was about to be called, while residents in some Gold Coast electorates received direct mail from the ALP stating that the election had been called for September.[citation needed]
At a press conference on 16 August, Liberal leader Bruce Flegg stated that in the event that the Coalition won government, and the Liberal Party won more seats than the Nationals, Lawrence Springborg would still become Premier.[1] Other Liberal Party MPs such as Michael Caltabiano disagreed, as this ran contrary to the coalition agreement signed between the two parties, which stated that whichever party won the most seats would form government. The ALP used this to attack Coalition stability in media and advertising.[citation needed]
Flegg was subsequently asked to leave a shopping centre in the Redcliffe suburb of Kippa-Ring for failing to obtain permission to do a campaign walkthrough.[2] Flegg later denied that he had in fact been evicted.[citation needed]
On 22 August, Flegg took part in a media conference with Julie Bishop, federal Liberal Minister for Education, where he endorsed a Federal Government plan for the mandatory teaching of Australian history in schools. Responding to questions from journalists, he failed to identify the date of arrival of the Second Fleet (1790), or the person after whom Brisbane was named (noted astronomer and Governor of New South Wales Sir Thomas Brisbane).[3]
Two sad twists of fate impacted the 26-day campaign - on 30 August, opposition leader Lawrence Springborg took temporary leave from the campaign after the sudden death of his father-in-law, and National Party deputy leader Jeff Seeney and Liberal leader Bruce Flegg continued the campaign in his absence.[4] The death of TV personality Steve Irwin ("The Crocodile Hunter") on 4 September in an accident off Port Douglas, Queensland, took the media's focus away from the election in its final week.[5]
Current Treasurer Anna Bligh has stated the coalition's major election promises of wiping out stamp duty within five years, increasing the first home buyers grant by $3,000 and introducing a 10% per litre subsidy on ethanol-blended petrol will cost $2.4 billion and has blown the budget. Lawrence Springborg says all his election promises are costed and affordable, with costings to be released two days before the election.[6] So far these costings have not been released.[citation needed]
On Friday 8 September, the day before the election, Premier Beattie and Opposition Leader Springborg participated in a "great debate"[7] at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, moderated by ABC journalist Chris O'Brien.[citation needed]
Although Newspoll and other published polls showed Labor well ahead on predicted two-party-preferred vote, Labor strategists feared that people would vote for the Coalition in a protest vote, expecting Beattie not to lose.[8] They adopted a strategy of denying Labor was in fact ahead.[9] The Roy Morgan poll suggested the Liberal vote had fallen, while the Greens had risen to 8%.[10]
Key dates
Date
Event
15 August 2006
Writs were issued by the Governor to proceed with an election[11]
Members listed in italics did not contest their seat at this election.
¹ Michael Caltabiano gained Chatsworth for the Liberal Party at the 2005 by-election. Alex Douglas gained Gaven for the National Party at the 2006 by-election. Terry Rogers gained Redcliffe for the Liberal Party at the 2005 by-election. The Labor Party had retained Chatsworth, Gaven, and Redcliffe at the 2004 election.
² Cate Molloy resigned from the Labor Party and contested the election as an Independent.
On 13 September 2007, Labor Premier Peter Beattie (Brisbane Central) resigned. At the by-election on 13 October 2007, Grace Grace retained the seat for the Labor Party.
On 26 July 2008, the Queensland Liberal Party and the Queensland National Party agreed to merge into the Liberal National Party. All sitting Liberal Party and National Party members became members of the Liberal National Party.
On 5 October 2008, Ronan Lee (Indooroopilly) resigned from the Labor Party and joined the Greens.
On 24 February 2009, Stuart Copeland (Cunningham) resigned from the Liberal National Party and sat as an Independent.
Since April 2006, the ALP held 60 of the 89 seats in the Legislative Assembly, the Coalition 23 seats (16 National and seven Liberal), along with five Independents and one member of the One Nation Party. Thus to win an outright majority (45 seats), the Coalition would have needed to win an additional 22 seats from the ALP, the Independents or One Nation, assuming that they retained all of their own seats. This would have required a uniform swing against Labor of approximately 8% (such swings are very rare).
Sitting Labor member for Noosa, Cate Molloy, had resigned from the Labor Party following her disendorsement as a Labor candidate, which in turn followed her repudiation of the state government's plans to build a dam on the Mary River at Traveston. Molloy recontested the seat as an Independent.
Members who did not recontest their seats
A number of members of parliament retired at this election:
Labor's high levels of support was maintained until mid-2005 when support for Labor slumped and the Coalition opened a minor lead on primary votes for the first time since 1996. However, this was eventually wiped out as Labor restored a huge lead in polls in the lead up to the election and the Coalition only managed a 0.5% swing. Even though some mid-term polls suggested a swing of up to 6% against Labor, a swing of over 8% was required for Labor to lose its majority.
Peter Douglas Beattie is an Australian former politician who served as the 36th Premier of Queensland, in office from 1998 to 2007. He was the state leader of the Labor Party from 1996 to 2007.
Campbell Kevin Thomas Newman is an Australian former politician who served as the 38th Premier of Queensland from 26 March 2012 to 14 February 2015. He served as the member for Ashgrove in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland between 24 March 2012 and 31 January 2015. He was LNP Leader from 2 April 2011 to 7 February 2015; Newman previously served as the 15th Lord Mayor of Brisbane from 27 March 2004 to 3 April 2011.
Cameron Paul Thompson served as a member of the Australian House of Representatives representing the Division of Blair in Queensland. A member of the Liberal Party, he served from 1998 until 2007.
One of the six founding states of Australia, Queensland has been a federated state subject to the Australian Constitution since 1 January 1901. It is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The constitution of Queensland sets out the operation of the state's government. The state's constitution contains several entrenched provisions which cannot be changed in the absence of a referendum. There is also a statutory bill of rights, the Queensland Human Rights Act 2019. Queensland's system of government is influenced by the Westminster system and Australia's federal system of government.
Lawrence James Springborg is an Australian politician. He led the National Party in the Queensland Parliament from 2003 to 2006 and again in 2008, before becoming the first leader of the merged Liberal National Party from 2008 to 2009. He led the LNP again from 2015 to 2016 before announcing his retirement. He currently serves as Mayor of Goondiwindi Regional Council, having been elected in March 2020.
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