Cameron Atfield reports in the Brisbane Times (13.1.17) on the recent occurence of cross-party defections and resignations during terms of Queensland’s Parliament, finding that in the majority of cases over the last two decades the ‘defectors’ have been from the conservative parties.
‘Steve Dickson’s leap from the Liberal National Party to One Nation is the latest in a line of similar cross-party defections, almost all of which in the past two decades have involved the conservative side of politics.
‘Notwithstanding party resignations, which have seen ex-Labor MPs Billy Gordon and Rob Pyne sit on the crossbench in the current Queensland Parliament, cross-party defections over the past three parliaments have been exclusively from the LNP.
‘The Newman government, which ran Queensland between 2012 and 2015, was particularly badly hit by defections, although its massive 78-seat majority somewhat lowered the political stakes.’