While the attached article highlights those features which assist with progressive strength in Victoria, it is tempting to view Queensland as the polar opposite. Manufacturing was never an important part of the Queensland Labor base: its origins lay in different manual work which has long ceased to produce electoral dividends in the State where the Labor Party was formed. A different migration history and population patterns have made multiculturalism a more contested concept in the home state of Pauline Hanson. Like Henry Ford a century ago, mining companies in Queensland (and Western Australia) are adept at pushing their version of ‘what is good for Ford is good for America’. The idea plays so much to the frontier myth that it’s a hard narrative to counter. Queensland and WA Labor parties have managed to customise a local “product” which can sometimes secure them election, but federal Labor remains on the nose. It’s impossible to undo history and geography, and most of the factors which favour the left in Victoria can’t be transplanted to other states. The exception is education. It may not surprise that Queensland comes second last among states and territories for proportion with a bachelor’s degree or higher. Clearly, the Smart State was a long-term project, but one which over time offered rewards not only for its immediate beneficiaries but potentially for the tone and nature of political culture.
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