By GREG ANSLEY
CANBERRA - Australia's conservatives have already gone into mourning before today's Queensland election, convinced that a blend of internal combustion and Pauline Hanson will return the minority Labor Government.
State Opposition and National Party Leader Rob Borbidge, struck down with laryngitis as his campaign reached its peak and crippled by a rebellion of 17 of his MPs, has been called "dead man walking."
But Premier Peter Beattie, fearful of the power of a protest vote and previous polls that have underestimated the strength of incumbent governments, has portrayed Labour as the underdog.
The only person crowing so far has been Hanson, brasher than ever since her One Nation Party's triumph last weekend in Western Australia.
Hanson was set to again play kingmaker and put several MPs into the Queensland state Parliament.
In a message heard all too clearly in Canberra as well as in Brisbane, Hanson warned that the big parties were in her sights and would stay there until the federal elections expected to be called late this year.
"I'm not here to keep the bastards honest," she said referring to the policy that launched the Australian Democrats as a third party that now holds balance of power in the Senate.
"I'm here to get rid of the bastards."
Whether Hanson can do this, or repeat the pivotal role she played in Western Australia by directing preference votes against sitting MPs, has yet to be seen.
There was a good case to argue that even without One Nation as spoiler, the Opposition National-Liberal Coalition was doomed to three more years in the political wilderness.
The closing days of the Borbidge Administration were marked by bungling and mismanagement that alienated supporters already furious at state and federal Coalition policies. They turned to One Nation to vent their frustrations.
The run of elections in 1998 fragmented the conservative vote in a trend that put 11 One Nation MPs into state Parliament. That would almost certainly doom Borbidge again.
In theory, Borbidge should have been able to claw his way back.
Beattie won power in 1998 only with the help of an independent.
He has agonised through a term scarred by policy rows, the conviction of one of his MPs on paedophilia charges, and a continuing scandal over election frauds that has so far claimed three ministers.
But Borbidge has been distracted by ructions within his own party, the rise of Hanson and the influence of federal policies on a rural electorate that believes that the Nationals and the Liberals have abandoned it.
Three days before the election, Australian Communications Minister Richard Alston reinforced this belief when he said the sale of the state-owned telecommunications giant Telstra was still on the agenda.
To rural voters, this was akin to putting an axe through the Holy Grail. No amount of reassurances to the contrary would soften the sense of betrayal in time to save Borbidge.
The fear of Hanson was too great for 17 of his MPs, who refused his order not to deal with One Nation and instead cut deals under which they would direct preferences to each other on how-to-vote cards.
For all her confidence, Hanson has problems.
Her party disintegrated after the 1998 elections, crippled in Queensland by the defection of all 11 MPs, deregistration and the forced personal repayment of $A500,000 ($616,000) in electoral funds, similar deregistration in New South Wales, and a bitter fight for control of the party with her closest advisers.
Opinion polls have shown One Nation's statewide support at 3 to 4 per cent.
But Hanson taps the deep vein of conservative discontent with her policies - mandatory death penalty for drug dealers, diluted gun control laws, Government-subsidised apprenticeship schemes, an end to competition laws, tax cuts and abolitions, and an emphasis on Australian history in schools.
But how significant the direction of preferences will be is hard to judge, as Queensland allows voters to select one candidate without putting others in order of preference.
Conservatives battered and bruised before the battle
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