Julia Gillard's party is just about over as Labor routed in Queensland

LABOR hit the panic button as the size of the Queensland election catastrophe and its implications hit home.

By Gemma Jones

DailyTelegraphMarch 26, 201210:14am

LABOR hit the panic button yesterday as the size of the Queensland election catastrophe and its obvious implications for the Gillard government struck home.

Anna Bligh quit parliament after Labor was all but wiped out as voters linked Ms Bligh's broken promise on asset sales to Prime Minister Julia Gillard's on the carbon tax.

The rout echoed Labor's thumping in 1974 when the party was reduced to 11 MPs when Joh Bjelke-Petersen went to an election as the Whitlam government struggled.

With only enough MPs to fill a small van after Saturday night, it appears Labor will even fell short of the 10 seats needed for official party status.

New Premier Campbell Newman's LNP is expected to secure as many as 78 of the 89 seats in parliament.

Ms Gillard flew out to Korea for a nuclear security summit with US President Barack Obama without commenting on the result.

The rout of NSW Labor last year was dismissed as isolated to state issues and due to a scandal-plagued government but former Labor premiers and party figures lined up yesterday to warn Ms Gillard of the federal consequences of the Queensland humiliation.

They said she would have to buy a house in the state to have any hope of holding power.

Former premier Morris Iemma said the warning signs for the Gillard government were clear.

"The point for the Labor Party and Labor governments, those that are left, is that this is the third election - Victoria, NSW and Queensland - that Labor has lost," he said.

"Clearly it is more than just localised factors in Queensland. The scale of the defeats suggests there is something more at play than just the window that comes along every decade or every decade and a half."

One federal Labor MP said: "There's no doubt we are in a lot of trouble."

The MP said the Gillard government was fighting the same issues which destroyed the Bligh administration, including cost of living impacts from the carbon price and Ms Gillard's broken promise over the tax. The party feared there was no prospect of a "circuit breaker" to turn around federal Labor's fortunes. Another MP dismissed the result, saying the Queensland election was fought only on state issues.

If the Queensland result was replicated federally all eight Labor MPs from the state would be wiped out, including Kevin Rudd, Treasurer Wayne Swan and Trade Minister Craig Emerson.

Former Queensland premier Peter Beattie said Labor could not be an effective opposition with seven MPs, which could fall to six if Ms Bligh's now marginal South Brisbane seat is lost in a by-election.

"The guts got kicked out of the Labor party rank and file yesterday," Mr Beattie told the ABC's Insiders program.

"Federally the party at a national executive level has got to have a very careful look at what we do here. We have to rebuild or the Labor Party can lose the next federal election in Queensland alone."

He said the "Labor Party is in crisis," and added: "Julia needs to buy a house here. We have to sell what the Labor party has done or we will face a similar wipeout."

Former ALP powerbroker Graham Richardson predicted Ms Gillard would face a loss similar to Ms Bligh's defeat next year. "I can't see how she wins. She must lose and she will lose badly," he said.

"All that yesterday did was re-emphasise how difficult it is for her. What Anna Bligh did is exactly what Julia Gillard is currently doing and that is this whole line of we will stay the course, things will turn around.

"Staying the course is utterly useless and unless and until federal Labor decide to do something radical, something different, something big, they're not going to be listened to and they will head to a Bligh-like defeat."