March 25, 2019
Member for Flynn Ken O’Dowd believes The Greens and the Labor Party are far greater threats to rural Queensland than One Nation.
Speaking on ABC Radio on Monday morning, the LNP MP – who won Flynn with a slim margin at the last poll – said he believed One Nation should be placed higher than either The Greens or the ALP on his how-to-vote cards.
This is in contrast to other Coalition MPs who have said they want One Nation put “dead last” in the wake of the Christchurch massacre.
Mr O’Dowd, who will be visiting party members at Boondooma Homestead on Tuesday, told the ABC that The Greens and the ALP should be “kept out at all costs”.
One Nation has pre-selected grazier Sharon Lohse as the party’s candidate for Flynn.
She previously stood unsuccessfully for One Nation in Callide at the State election.
Mrs Lohse hit the news in 2004 when she and her husband Rob were told by the State Government their grazing lease south of Biggenden would not be renewed as it was required for a national park.
The family fought the decision in the Supreme Court and won. The lease was renewed, but only for 20 years and only as a right to graze on a national park.
One Nation’s preferences would be expected to flow towards Mr O’Dowd on a two-party preferred basis.
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Fellow LNP MP Llew O’Brien, the Member for Wide Bay, was reported in a Gympie newspaper last week as saying he wouldn’t rule out putting The Greens last, either.
Mr O’Brien had an easier win at the 2016 election, defeating his Labor Party opponent with 58.14 per cent of the vote on a two-party basis.
One Nation have not yet announced their candidate in Wide Bay.
Member for Maranoa David Littleproud has been non-committal about preference allocation.
He told Sky News he would work through the decision with the State LNP organisation.
At the last Federal election, Mr Littleproud secured 49.19 per cent of the primary vote, with the One Nation candidate coming in second with 17.82 per cent.
On a two-party basis, One Nation secured 34.14 per cent of the vote, compared with 65.86 per cent for the LNP.
Some honesty among the Nats! Amazing! I hope it is genuine and not just more politics. We need to see honesty right across the board – to date all the Nats have done is to run with the politically correct globalist “beast” and contribute to our national demise. Please Lord Jesus, let us see honesty in our leaders, or remove them as unfit for office and give us better men.
With respect, Mr O’Dowd can state this on the eve of an election all he likes. The decision is up to the voters, us. We should be looking beyond the status quo being maintained.
The clear majority of the nation’s lower socioeconomic class are in the regions.
The ALP are NOT the danger, we know this because we already live the results. The ALP simply cannot be the cause when some of the regions have never been under the ALP. Some have barely historically been under ALP. The Nationals have played this line for generations, the regions have bought it and suffered as a whole. Regions need change. The Nationals have maintained and overseen this status quo. We deserve more and need to make real change, not just go for another Conservative shade of the same “beast”, the LNP.
Most One Nation voters are old Country Party voters that are sick of the LNP