Gordon out of Queensland poll
Scandal-hit former Labor member endorses his ex-party’s candidate Cynthia Lui
Billy Gordon, the north Queensland member of parliament (MP) whose dumping by Labor amid a series of rolling scandals left the Palaszczuk government still clinging to power with his support as an independent, has bowed out of the 2017 state election.
Gordon yesterday announced he would not contest the seat of Cook, which takes in Queensland’s northern tip of Cape York and which he won in 2015 for Labor as only the second Indigenous man to enter state parliament.
Instead, he has endorsed the Labor candidate, Cynthia Lui, a Thursday Island-born child protection worker, who would make history as the first Torres Strait Islander in parliament.
Support system
“As an Indigenous Australian I am excited at the prospect of having for the very first time a Torres Strait Islander elected to the Queensland legislative assembly,” Gordon said.
“I wish Ms Lui all the best over the next few weeks and can only imagine what her election to the Queensland parliament will mean for Torres Strait Islanders all around Australia.”
Gordon’s torrid single term in parliament exposed the minority Labor government’s tenuous grip on power. Annastacia Palaszczuk has appealed to voters to hand Labor an outright majority in the November 25 poll to enact its agenda after the experience of the hung parliament.
But the major parties face a sizeable protest vote with the main beneficiary and potential kingmaker being Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.
Gordon was expelled from Labor to sit on the cross-bench just months after the 2015 polls, when it emerged he had not declared a juvenile criminal history when applying to be a candidate.