Queensland is an outlier in federal elections. Paradoxically, it’s the most European and American in how it…

Queensland is an outlier in federal elections. Paradoxically, it’s the most European and American in how it votes. The most receptive to small government, neoliberal and libertarian ideas. We don ‘t look enough at demography and geography in how we understand politics. Short 🧵/1 https://t.co/WhC0lsLCLS

Queensland is actually Australia’s most decentralised State. While it has the one large capital, Brisbane, as all our States and Territories do, it also has significantly sized regional cities like Townsville, Toowoomba, Gladstone, Cairns, Mackay etc. /2

Have Tweeted before about how the enormous number of electoral zones in the UK, a nation only a fraction of the size of one of our States, encourages an intense tribalism there that helps explain the allure of libertarian ‘freedom’ politics to the UK voter. /3 https://t.co/lTB0jevK4m

I think this goes a long way towards explaining why Queensland behaves differently in elections. It’s much more territorial in its focus, because of how people and territory are distributed there. Much of Australia’s calm pragmatism in other States is due to the populations…/4

…there being highly urbanised, concentrated in the capital cities. Urbanised populations tend to be less territorial and therefore less tribal in their politics, as they focus more on the constant negotiation of occupying a shared space. /end