In recent years, “anti-political” sentiment has taken root in Queensland, perhaps more so than in any other part of Australia. Its most obvious symptoms are declining support for the major parties and distrust of politics.

The long-term causes are structural: politics has been hollowed out as the membership of civil-society organizations — unions, church groups, etc. — steadily declined, depriving both Labor and the Liberal National Party (LNP) of their traditional social foundation. Meanwhile, wages have stagnated, and the fruits of successive mining booms have been squandered. As the links tying people to politics disintegrated, anti-political sentiment and alienation thrived, and the hard-right populists of One Nation reaped the rewards, increasing their vote while other parties declined.

The 2020 Queensland elections represent a dramatic reversal of these trends — although it’s too early to say whether this marks the beginning of a new one. Votes for both the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the LNP went up significantly — by 4.1 and 2.2 percent respectively — returning Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Labor government with an increased majority. One Nation was the big loser with its vote plummeting 6.6 percent. Mining magnate Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party only registered 0.6 percent of the vote.