The Liberal National party’s embrace of One Nation through preference deals at the next Queensland election could trigger a costly plummet in international student visitors to the state, the Palaszczuk government claims.
Jackie Trad, the deputy premier, citing previous slumps in student numbers coinciding with the rise of anti-immigration politician Pauline Hanson and her party, said a repeat could cost the state economy $300m and 1,900 jobs.
Trad said this was “the price the leader of the opposition [Tim Nicholls] is prepared to pay by pandering to extremists”.
LNP president Gary Spence last week hinted that the party would break a longstanding bipartisan convention to put One Nation last on preferences, saying most branch members would agree “we need to put Labor and the Greens last at the next state election”.
Nicholls has denied any decision had been made on preferencing One Nation but that “we have to respect the views that people have in supporting Pauline Hanson”.
Trad told state parliament on Tuesday that the LNP’s interest in “preference deals with One Nation in backrooms” would have an effect on the international education sector and “drive down investment and jobs”.
She referred to figures drawn from a 1999 study published in the Journal of Tourism Studies which linked the “Hanson factor” to “dramatic, even alarming numbers” of students avoiding Queensland.
“Let’s look at what happened last time One Nation rose to prominence in Queensland: in 1994 and 1995 Queensland had the highest rate of international student growth in this country, at 23% and 30% year on year,” Trad said.
“But it plummeted to be one of the lowest following the election of Pauline Hanson in 1996.
“In 1998 – the same year One Nation won 11 seats in this parliament – the number of international students coming to Queensland fell by double digits, by more than 10%.
“If that happens now, it could cost the Queensland economy nearly $300m annually and 1,900 jobs – just in this one sector alone.”
Trad accused Nicholls of making the “extraordinary choice” to put “his own political interests ahead of the Queensland economy and Queensland jobs”.
The 1999 paper “Tourism and Politics: The impact of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party on Australian visitor arrivals” by James Cook University associate professor Stephen Litvin, found that the “perception of ant-Asian racism is impacting and impacting dramatically on Australian tourism”.
It found around 20% of visitors to Australia in 1999 said they would specifically avoid Queensland.
In the absence of the issues of race raised by Hanson’s political statements, tourism arrivals to Australia would have increased at double the rate, according to the paper.
Hanson, one of four One Nation senators in the federal parliament, in recent years has shifted her anti-immigration stance towards Muslims.
Last week she renewed her call for a ban on Muslims entering the country after the death of British backpacker Mia Ayliffe-Chung at a north Queensland hostel.
Hanson referred to “another attack involving Islamic extremism”, but police have ruled out any extremist motives in the alleged murder by French-Algerian man Smail Ayad, with no evidence he is even a practising Muslim.
Middle Eastern markets including Saudi Arabia have become a growing market for Queensland education providers in recent years.
