Commentary: The grateful state: The 2020 Queensland election

ABSTRACT

This article explores the totemic 2020 Queensland state election, at which a two-term government plagued by a deteriorating economy and widely criticised travel restrictions amid the COVID-19 pandemic was returned with an increased majority. The article posits three arguments that COVID-19 created a new 'lens' through which electors evaluated public policy and that allowed voters to frame public health and safety over the more usual measures of economic performance;that Queensland voters drew on their traditional political culture - especially their predilection for strong leadership and state chauvinism - to evaluate the Palaszczuk Labor government's pandemic management favourably compared with contemporaneous events in Victoria;and that Queensland voters expressed similar confidence in a Labor economic recovery plan that contrasted favourably with the LNP's economic platform. In sum, this article argues that Queenslanders in 2020 cast a 'gratitude vote' for a government they saw as being in control of both public health and economic recovery. ©