One of the big credibility problems The Borg has with his “new face of Queensland” nonsense is that at least on the National Party side of the Pineapple Party benches, he’s surrounded by a bunch of time serving geriatrics. The younger members – including Deputy Leader Fiona Simpson – have hardly made much of an electoral impact either. There’s a risk to running on “age” and “renewal” – Anna Bligh is no John Howard, and she’s not that much older than The Borg himself. Nor has she been in Parliament seemingly forever – “fresh” Lawrence is approaching the 20th anniversary of his election. Sam Clifford from Public Polity takes a look at another big fissure in Lawrence Springborg’s narrative – the fact that the ALP has been renewing itself with some genuine talent.
It looks like some of the Class of ‘89, those ALP MPs who entered politics when the ALP finally defeated the Nationals, are going to step aside for the next election. MPs like Rod Welford, the Education Minister, will be sorely missed but there needs to be renewal in government to maintain strength and contact with the world outside. There are a number of promising young Labor politicians like Ronan Lee, Andrew McNamara, Grace Grace, Stirling Hinchliffe and Andrew Fraser who will form the next generation of Labor’s front bench and will shape the future of the state (much to the ‘Borg’s chagrin).
Ronan Lee, who wants to extend the CityCat network substantially, is probably the “Greenest” of the state MPs and, with Andrew McNamara, represents a new breed of ALP politician. This new breed aren’t as hell-bent on big road projects to solve traffic problems and we might be fortunate enough to see a government strongly pushing for increased public and active transport rather than building bypass tunnels. There’s been speculation that once Campbell Newman’s finished with the tunnel-boring machine, it can be deployed in the CBD to build underground rail stations at places like Eagle St, QUT and Woolloongabba.
It’s certainly going to be interesting to see what sort of people get preselected to fill the vacancies in outer suburban seats like Aspley, Enoggera, etc. who face traffic problems and don’t have as high access to rail as those in seats like Clayfield, Indooroopilly and South Brisbane. With petrol prices continuing to rise, will there be a call from the community to expand transport options so residents don’t have to rely on increasingly expensive private car transport or will there be calls from short-sighted, narrow-minded people to increase the state fuel subsidy and build more and bigger road projects?
I agree with your comments on Ronan Lee. He seems truly dedicated to finding alternative solutions to our traffic problems, which is a wonderful thing at a time when many other so-called solutions consist of someone saying ‘Erm… we’ll build another tunnel!”
Rachel Nolan is another outstanding young talent with a safe seat in the growth corridor of Brisbane. Genuine front-bench material.
Hinchliffe is my local MP (I ran against him, too) and I’m impressed with his introduction of flat-fare taxis around the Prince Charles Hospital to fill gaps with buses. He’s pretty young and seems quite on the ball, he’ll go far with a bit of luck.
Just clarifying, Sam – Fraser and McNamara are already on the front bench, as no doubt you know! But it’s a little confusing in respect of the bit about “form the next generation…”!
I guess you could say they’ll form the core of the front-bench, then.
Bligh’s 48 and Welford is 50. Why is Welford retiring? Pretty sure Bligh will be around for a while.
Maybe Welford just feels like it’s time for a career change? Contra Lawrence, I don’t think chronological age is actually all that important. Ie Fiona Simpson’s young(ish) but hasn’t ever established much of a media profile. And I don’t think Anna’s “new” image has much to do with her age. Nor was Howard’s age really a big issue – it was more that he’d been around forever and didn’t appear any longer to be able to adapt to the times.
The “renewal” bit is more important.
The fact that the ALP has newer members who have talent is a much more significant political factor than any number of 20 or 30 somethings that the Borg might want to recruit for his Pineapple Party if they’re cut from his own clueless cloth.
Fiona Simpson is a youngster of 43, and possibly the biggest airhead in the Qld parliament. She is a spunkrat, useful for getting votes & funding I suppose, but no help with policy, at which she is a complete idiot.
Welford has plenty of engergy left, presumably he is sick of wasting it on politics, a bit clueless, but he couldn’t possibly be as much of a disaster for Qld and the ALP as that arsehole zealot Fraser is going to be.
The state ALP may have talent, but there isn’t much sign of it in the current cabinet.
I’m just looking through the Wikipedia article on the 2006 election results and the people who are potentially on their way out (elected 1989 or earlier) include:
Gary Fenlon – Greenslopes
Ken Hayward – Kallangur
Jim Pearce – Fitzroy
Warren Pitt – Mulgrave
Pat Purcell – Bulimba (1992, but he’ll be going)
Rob Schwarten – Rockhampton
Rod Welford – Everton
Dean Wells – Murrumba
There are some urban Southside seats which will be affected by the major road projects such as the NSBT and the proposed East-West Tunnel. They won’t fall to the Libs unless there’s a major swing and the Greens can somehow encourage their voters to not preference the ALP. The seats of Bulimba and Greenslopes have a decent public transport network but there are still major traffic congestion issues in Bulimba and the SE Freeway makes the airshed in the area almost toxic. Can the new MPs get the funds allocated to improve public transport and take cars off the road at the same time?
Don’t forget there’s a redistribution, Sam. That’s going to have major implications for turnover of existing Labor MPs.
Sam, cast your mind back to 1996:
One of the big credibility problems
The BorgJohn Howard has with his “new face ofQueenslandAustralia” nonsense is that at least on theNational Party side of the Pineapple PartyCoalition benches, he’s surrounded by a bunch of time serving geriatrics. The younger members – including Deputy LeaderFiona SimpsonPeter Costello – have hardly made much of an electoral impact either. There’s a risk to running on “age” and “renewal” –Anna BlighPaul Keating is noJohn HowardMethuselah, andshe’snot that much older than The Borg himselfabout the same age as Howard. Nor hasshe been in Parliament seemingly forever – “fresh”Lawrence is approachingHoward has passed the 20th anniversary of his election.Labor spent the first term of the Howard government wondering how on earth Keating the hare had been beaten by Howard the tortoise, and all that wondering meant that the gift of the 1998 election (where Labor won 51% of the votes) went unopened. History may not repeat, but it does rhyme ocasionally and it would be silly to fall for that trick again.
Mark, NSW Labor has renewed itself to billy-o, but it’s fair to wonder what difference that has made. Watch young tearaways like Meagher, Tripodi and Roozendaal at work, and weep.
Yeah Steve, she could be the next Kerry Chikarovski.
Andrew E, that was Mark who added the italicised stuff.
As for New South Wales Labor, they’re an example of the factional patronage system gone horribly wrong. There are some good people like Tebbutt and Firth (and Debus who’s now in Federal parliament) but their performances are overshadowed by crooks, criminals and thugs like Roozendaal, Costa, Orkopoulus and Sartor. NSW Labor’s problems are institutional as opposed to the Qld Nationals whose problems can be boiled down to a lack of vision and personality.
Much as it might pain people from the “Premier State” to realise this, not all generalisations made from NSW apply elsewhere! Qld Labor has different factions, a different system for preselections, and probably most significantly, is still living on the capital of the reform movement of the 80s and federal intervention – which democratised, overhauled and renewed the party structures – including entrenching power-sharing in a way that never really happened properly in NSW where the Right has a permanent majority mentality. (Hence federal pollies like Rudd and Swan!) So while these newbies on the block in NSW are cut from the same Sussex St cloth, a lot of the newbies in the Qld caucus are the products of a system not without its faults but much more open to talent – and while it’s early days, I’d say Fraser and McNamara both have a lot of promise as Ministers, and I’d agree with Sam as well about the good work Ronan Lee and Stirling Hinchliffe have done, and with Ben about Rachel Nolan. And Grace Grace is my local member!
Sam, I would not be surprised if Ronan Lee has climbed as far as he can in Labor politics and probably hasn’t got the numbers to even get a Parliamentary Secretary position next time around, let alone see ministerial leather.
His best chance of any further glory would be to join the Greens and become their first state member in parliament. It will be an interesting one to watch after the next election but I think your assessment is far to generous. My assessment would have been too immature and work shy to be ministerial material.
If the ALP in NSW want a serious shot at being in government in the future, they need to reform their internal processes, democratise their party and look at how they can energise the rank and file (really, this is a challenge for all parties). Sooner or later, the Liberals are going to cotton on to the idea of promoting a united front behind a modern, charismatic leader and it’s going to be all over for the ALP. O’Farrell could be the one who finally beats the Carr-Iemma-Costa dynasty and the shift to opposition will cause the NSW ALP to implode and fight each other for the spoils of defeat just as the Federal Liberals have.
Democratising the party while in opposition is going to be tough; just look at the Qld Coalition’s attempts to reform themselves. There’s an election looming and if they don’t get themselves sorted out this year, there’s the risk of them presenting some hideous Chimera of a beast at the next election that has no policies, no clear leader, no charisma, no organisational strengths and no chance of being elected. Even if Bligh is not opportunistic and holds back until the latest date possible, the restructuring will kill the party.
Reorganising while in power gives you the opportunity to show off that you’re serious about moving forward and you’ve still got the benefit of having the public service to create policy. The NSW ALP are probably on the way out and would be best to restructure their party now to avoid a Nelsonian character taking the wheel when they get booted out and have to do some soul-searching.
Steve, the Greens won’t have him; apparently he’s pro-life. He’d lose as a Green in a general election anyway, his campaign money and support comes from the ALP/AWU and the people of Indooroopilly aren’t that green.
Sam – as misguided as you often are, you truly excel yourself with your touting of Ronan Lee as front bench material. This man is lucky to be in parliament let alone gracing ministerial leather. I guarantee you this would-be “oncer” will never be Executive Council material.
PS – The NSW government need to persist with their privatisation of the NSW electriciy, the mandate of millions of NSW people electing them to government surely outweighs the thoughts of 700 people at party conference!
Ronan Lee? Ministerial material… you have got to be kidding.
The talent that the ALP have to bring through the ranks:
Andrew McNamara = thoroughly wasted on climate change, sustainability and innovation. Could go much further if he had some decent issues to address. In all seriousness he could be future leadership material, if the factional planets come into alignment
Michael Choi – hard working, decent local-MP, solid parly sec. Ticks all the boxes except eloquence. Not a flaw to be underestimated.
Kate Jones – cute, not afraid to have a go, smart as a button. This kid is one to watch, when she gets her training wheels off.
Stacey Palaszczuk – Has a definite ability, could do much better if she could work with her colleagues.
Lastly Jason O’Brien — worth a few quid as a long-term investment. Has a few issues with being a big fish in a small pond I think, I’d like to see him get up.
Other than that, they need to look at a pretty heavy-handed overhaul. Inports like Grace Grace are a waste; Brisbane Central is a gift seat to the ALP, and the opportunity went begging to import some senior talent to build long-term growth on. IF the borg can drill some discipline into the Libs and give Bligh a run for her money, ultra-safe seats like Bris Central would be better for hiding poor-local MPs who have good executive skill-sets.
I am not sure if Team Beattie is going anywhere.
I’d love to see that dreadful Judy Spence go but it doesn’t look like she’s considering a career change *sigh*
Judy Spence is possibly the only current Minister able to handle her portfolio without stuffing up in full view.
Unfortunately her copybook is somewhat blotted by her performance in previous portfolio.
Jason O’Brien? No ticker. No class. Most of the others mentioned? Not so well known that I have ever heard of them.
Is she calling herself Stacey now? Used to be Stacia! I knew both her and Andrew Mac well at Uni (as well as Paul Lucas) – Parliament and the staffer ranks are something of a UQ Union alumni re-union. On the perception that too many ALP pollies are just staffers/union officials, it’s interesting to note that both Andrew McNamara and Paul Lucas worked as lawyers in private practice after graduating.
I don’t know if anyone’s done any analysis of this, but I think there’s a wider “gene pool” that the Qld ALP has been drawing on than in some other states.
So, Mark, can we expect to see you parachuted into the seat of Bulimba to replace Purcell?
I’m on the wrong side of the river, Sam!
They were talking about Morningside Councillor Shayne Sutton as the new candidate, but I imagine that’s unlikely now that she’s Labor leader in the Council.
Anyway, I’m a day older than Lawrence so I must be really old!
Yeah, I can’t see Shayne Sutton getting involved. She’ll likely be Deputy Mayor in 2012 when the Liberals bankrupt the city and don’t have the ALP to blame. Perhaps Catherine Bermingham, who lost Holland Park (and used to represent East Brisbane), will step up to State politics. It could also be a senior staffer or a junior union official, though.
It’ll be someone anointed by the Ruddster himself, I think. Sutton was one of his proteges. It’s his turf now!
Andrew Mcnamara – is not a talent for labour he is a liability.
He is providing to be a weak minister more concerned with local networking and business interests than a proffessional accountability for the party or his government. He only got elected by a margin and as a local to Hervey Bay I know the public is fast becomming disenchanted.
Take Andrew of your list – Ill tell you a story.
Andew Mcnamara endorsed Lenthalls Dam gate installation ($10 Millon) in our local paper ( Fraser Coast Chronicle) saying words to the affect that he had had ” enough bottles of wine with Tim Waldron ( dam operator) to know the project was a good one”
Now this might not seem so bad to the old labour cronies who do deals this way – but it was a shocking admission and not well thought out.
This sort of loose comment (bottles of wine?) does not marry well with public expectations with respect to our politicians.
The Lenthalls Dam Gates installed December 2008 – failed to operate (ie lower in flood events) from January 2008 to today – the gates still do not work as designed.
The locals at Hervey Bay had been led to believe that these gates would open in flood events to perform both an environment and public saftey function. We were shocked that due to Andrew Mcnamars personal friendsip with the dam operator ( Tim Waldron) he would make light of an expensive infrastructure failing.
This is what happened:
Gates constructed in December 2007 at Lenthalls Dam on the heavily impounded Burrum River failed to lower to release flood water as designed in Febuary 2008.
Wide Bay Water was the constructing authority and responsible for the design and operation of the dam gate infrastructure.
Our upstream farm house, where the tributaries join the dam proper was cut off when flood water continued to back up much higher than the constructing authority Wide Bay Water had predicted the water levels would ever go.
Three family members were stuck at our farm house. The emergency evacuation plan found in the Lenthalls Dam Emergency Action Plan called for evacuation after water levels reached RL26.91 – water levels reached 27.4 at the dam wall flowing over the blocked gates and backed up to RL28.5 at our house. No one evacuated the famuily members stranded in rising water.
No one from the constructing authority Wide Bay Water contacted us to undertake evacuation or explain the risk we faced due to Crest Gate Failure.
We believe the CEO Tim Waldron was overseas at conference (the friend Andrew Mcnamara drinks with as quoted in Fraser Coast Chronicle)
The Operations manuals for the dam place responsibilty with the CEO (Andrews friend) as does the action plan. He has not been called to account for his failure to take responsible action to ensure an evacuation would occur in his abscence if required.
If the rain event had not stopped the three people cut off at our flood impacted farm house would have been inundated by metres of water.
We heard about the dam failure from other locals close to the dam wall who had heard the gates have failed – we now have full evidence to verify the dam gate failure.
What our situation highlights that in Andrew Mcnamaras political world his relationships with movers and shakers (WBW) is more important that public saftey or operable infrastructure.
We were very lucky the rain event that caused the flooding to back up over the failed dam gate, stopped.
See the article:
Resident fears dam gates risk flooding
Posted Wed May 21, 2008 8:26am AEST
Updated Wed May 21, 2008 8:25am AEST
• Map: Hervey Bay 4655
A land-holder upstream of a major dam south-west of Hervey Bay says multi-million dollar barriers on the storage are broken, putting her family at risk of flooding.
Queensland Deputy Premier Paul Lucas will officially open the $16 million project at Lenthalls Dam, which is designed to more than double the storage’s capacity.
In what is claimed to be an Australian first, the two metre high crest gates sink when the dam reaches capacity to prevent flooding upstream and provide for environmental flows.
But Esther Allan says in February the gates jammed, causing water to back up onto her property.
“This is an extremely expensive piece of infrastructure. Ratepayers paid for this and their expectation would be that it would be operable,” she said.
“If it wasn’t, we need to know why – not only because our family’s safety was put at risk, but because ratepayers expect to get a result from the infrastructure they pay for.”
The local government corporation that runs Lenthalls Dam says the gates do not work, but it was monitoring the rising water.
Wide Bay Water general manager David Wiskar says adjustments were needed during the dam’s commissioning and are continuing.
“The gates were all needing some fine-tuning. At the moment we were able to complete that tuning on three of the gates,” he said.
“There’s two that remain to be done, but we’re waiting until the level in the dam falls to an adequate level to [do] those final two.”
The Lenthalls Dam Gates are still not fully operational today September 2008 and heading into the QLD summer flood season.
We can evidence what we are saying.
Infrastructure once built needs to be operable ongoing it is teh publics expectation that the state govt – that is Anna Bligh and Andrew Mcnamara will ensure our saftey – not spend time drinking ” bottles of wine” with the operator and doing nothing about the risk.
Infrastructure needs to be able to operate as designed in all conditions – this is the public expecation. Our expectation of Andrew Mcnamara as our local member is that he will ensure this – he hasnt.
Andrew Mcnamar is no talent for labour and should be appraoched with caution – in the mean time the risk for our family remains.
We tend to be labour suporters but have lost a lot of faith lately and you the faithfull should be more alert to the issues or you might see the borg win government next time.