Press Conference, Parliament House 6-10-20

October 06, 2020

 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA
TUESDAY, 6 OCTOBER 2020

SUBJECTS: Queensland LNP preference deal with One Nation and the Greens; will Morrison and McCormack intervene.

MURRAY WATT, QUEENSLAND LABOR SENATOR: I just wanted to raise one other issue that has arisen in my home state of Queensland over the last 24 hours.

Yesterday, we saw the Queensland division of the Liberal National Party announce that for the coming Queensland state election, for the very first time, they will be preferencing One Nation and the Greens in every seat above the Labor Party.

This has never happened before in any Queensland, or federal election, where we have seen the LNP decide to preference both One Nation and the Greens above the Labor Party in every single seat in Queensland.

Right now, in Queensland, as well as the rest of the country, we face a very, very uncertain time post-COVID, with the state of the economy and an extended recession. But this decision from the LNP risks bringing into place in Queensland a ragtag coalition of LNP, One Nation, Greens, Katter and Palmer to run our state at a time when, more than ever before, we've needed stability. So that is a massive risk to the Queensland economy and a massive risk to Queensland as a whole to have that kind of ragtag coalition trying to run a government at a time when we need stability and certainty around the economic future of our state.

But this decision also raises some very big questions for the Federal leaders of these parties. How does Mr Morrison explain that his party in Queensland is preferencing - in every single seat across Queensland - a party that has accused domestic violence survivors of fabricating their stories, that has spent decades vilifying Asians and Muslims and other Australians and has lined up with anti-vaxxers during and before the COVID pandemic? How does Mr Morrison explain that decision of his party in Queensland? How does Mr Frydenberg explain the decision of his party in Queensland to preference an anti-Semetic party in every single [seat] in Queensland?

And as for the Nationals, who spend their entire time going around accusing the Greens of being job destroyers, well, now they've decided to preference the Greens ahead of Labor in every single seat in Queensland. For every time that they go out there, Matt Canavan, George Christensen, Michelle Landry, the whole lot of them saying that the Greens are the worst people in the world and are going to bring the roof down, now they're actually deciding to elect more Greens to the Queensland Parliament.

So there's some very important questions for Mr Morrison and Mr McCormack today. Will they intervene to stop their Queensland division of their party from preferencing One Nation and the Greens in every single seat in Queensland?

ENDS