Australia's resurgent far-right has made significant gains from Prime Minister John Howard's Conservative Party in the Queensland state election, according to early results today.
The splitting of conservative support between right-wing parties such as One Nation led by Ms Pauline Hanson, whose party have campaigned against Asian imigration, would send the centre-left Labour Party back into power in Queensland, Channel Nine television predicted.
Mr Howard, who is expected to call a general election by November to seek a third consecutive term, saw his Liberal/National coalition slump as voters deserted to One Nation and other mainly right-wing groups.
Channel Nine said that with 50 percent of the vote counted, Labour's Mr Peter Beattie looked on course to retain power with 49 out of the state parliament's 89 seats.
One Nation, which campaigned against Asian immigration and special treatment for Aborigines, and for looser gun controls and an end to privatisations, look to have won at least three seats.
That is down from the 11 seats it won in the last state poll in 1998. But One Nation imploded soon after that election when its MPs deserted to form the City-Country Alliance or to stand as independents.
Written off as a spent force, Saturday's One Nation vote represented a powerful comeback, commentators said. It underscored the party's role in the upcoming federal ballot, expected to be called by November, after it won 10 percent in a state vote in Western Australia last weekend.
The far-right party stood in only half the districts in Queensland, and got an average vote of 21 percent.
Howard's Liberal Party appeared to have won only three seats in the Queensland parliament while the National Party, the stronger of the two in Queensland, was set to win around 12.
A scandal causing three Queensland Labor MPs to resign last year over a vote-fraud scandal, appears to have had liitle effect on Mr Beattie's campaign.
With Queensland regarded as a reliable indication of the national vote, Labour adviser Mr Bob Ellis predicated a "massacre" for the Conservatives at the next general election.
Reuters