I’ve written before about why I think that the “media narrative” masquerading as psephological analysis that there’s some sort of automatic fall in support for state Labor parties because of some putative desire among voters to have different parties governing at different levels. I suspect the proximate origin of this meme is actually the “wall to wall Labor” scare the Liberals ran in last year’s election. As Kim was suggesting the other day, this is a political tactic that normally indicates despair among incumbents, and it’s completely wrong to assume it reflects some sort of psephological law or reality in voting behaviour. Anyone familiar with the political science literature knows that attempts to demonstrate any posited strong correlation between state and federal partisan choices over time falls down very quickly – even in New South Wales where it’s long been political myth that the strongest case can be made. In part that’s because there are two few cases of actual partisan change in elections over much of the postwar period – something that becomes immediately apparent when you think about the fact that the federal government didn’t turn over at all between 1949 and 1972.
There was another outbreak of this guff on Monday in The Australian, apropos of quarterly newspolls in New South Wales and Victoria. There was the usual news story and two op/ed pieces to ram home the point. It was intriguing to see the frame applied to the comments of ABC election analyst Antony Green:
Voters clearly see benefits in balancing a federal government with state and territory governments of the opposite political complexion.
ern
“All the state governments are suffering from the same thing,” ABC election analyst Antony Green said yesterday.“They no longer have the federal Coalition to run against,” he said. “They have to stand on their own two feet and can’t blame John Howard any more.”
“The Victorian poll shows it’s competitive and Labor can come back. The NSW ratings are terminal, unless Rees can leverage his popularity into votes.”
Any moderately careful reading of this passage would disclose that Green is not making the point which has been seized on as the current all purpose iron law of politics. What he’s in fact referring to is the fact that Labor governments find it harder to make excuses for poor performance on infrastructure and service delivery. Peter Beattie made much of the fact that Howard hadn’t come to the party in 2006, and the focus groups Graham Young and I conducted showed this message resonated. In turn, Kevin Rudd very successfully argued in 2007 the same thing in Queensland – implying that governments working in co-operation could turn things around, but not immediately. That, in turn, suggests that there’s a chance that Howard’s ghost is still available for Anna Bligh to run against in 2009 – because voters know there are long lead times for infrastructure and improvements in services, and the economy may also provide some sort of alibi. Different dynamics, and versions of this one, will be operating in other states. As Green points out – in direct contradicting the spin that his quote is woven into – Victoria’s circumstances are different to those of the putrid NSW Labor regime. Fixed terms allow governments to frontload unpopular decisions, and that’s what Brumby has been up to.
By the way, these comments aren’t intended to suggest that the state governments are all bright and shiny and the fount of all things good. I think Peter Beattie deserved in many ways to lose in 2006 – precisely because of a lack of foresight until quite late in the piece in improving service delivery and attending to infrastructure. What I’m trying to do is suggest that the analysis we’re being told is “common knowledge” is in fact wrong, and reflects neither actual voter behaviour nor some logic of politics, but is itself derivative of a partisan political strategy.
Elsewhere: Possum points out another gaping hole in the commentary on these polls – the fact that almost 30% of respondents in NSW are choosing to indicate a preference for neither major party, and that the same effect is present in more muted form in Victoria. That’s what’s worthy of analysis!
Labor is on the nose here in NSW not because of the federal party’s incumbency in Canberra, but because the NSW Government are a bunch of incompetent, shady gobshites.
I don’t think people give a continental these days about “balancing” parties at State and Federal level.
My old granny used to say such things and perhaps it was the done thing back in the days of Joe Scullin. But times change (unlike those who scribble for The Opposition Organ). To misquote Mao, people no longer care much what colour the cat is, as long as it catches mice.
And the mangy old moggie that passes for a Government here has caught nothing but fleas for years.
Time for a quick trip to the vet and a merciful needle.
I can only comment about NSW. Somebody on another thread on a similar topic I think remarked to the effect that Nathan Rees was given the poison chalice of the NSW leadership because he was on the left. Not so. There wasn’t anybody on the right who wasn’t on the nose in one way or the other. Looking at Rees over the past few days, I think he’s a Premier determined to turn Labor’s fortunes around before the next election. WQhether he’ll succeed I don’t know. I think it will depend on whether the Libs implode into religious nuttery again, not something beyond the bounds of possibilty despite their present discipline.
Umm, that’d be Deng Xiaoping. If you ever get a chance to see it, Hao Mao is a wickedly sharp up-to-the-minute-China satire, title and story based on your (mis)quote (hao mao= good cats)
Lazy, nonsensical, ideologically-framed analysis from “The Australian” as usual.
In the People’s Republic of the ACT we recently elected four Greens to the Assembly, giving them the balance of power. That’s pretty significant but ignored by The Australian because it does not fit their frame (and we are probably all communists anyway).
ACT voters wanted to give Stanhope a kick up the bum (for the decaying state of the city, and the planning mess) but there was no way anyone wanted to vote for the silly Liberals. ACT voters are well-educated and well-informed, have the courage of their convictions, and are prepared to elect a bunch of attractive young women (and one bloke) to press green issues through the Assembly.
Now, I don’t actually know that any of that is true, because voter psychology is a mystery to all of us, but it is no less legitimate than the stale drivel coming from The Australian.
The MSM is simply incapable of recognising the concern voters feel about the environment, and the disgust many feel for the rigid two-party system and its inablity to seriously address environmental issues. This trend will flow on to the States, mark my words.
What’s that saying… to elect one green is careless, but to elect four is madness? Seriously, I don’t think it can be said enough: congratulations on your showing remarkable good sense, like in wearing sensible shoes. If you can spare them a few weekends, maybe they can go on a bonds issue tour to those electorates where a “how to get over the electoral line” spruik might be all that separates Green candidates from doing just that. All the green candidate for South Brisbane has to do is beg borrow or steal 500 primary votes each from the libs and labs, and sweet talk most of the lib preferences, and Qld gets a new Premier. When even Mark hypobolicly admits
, it’s as good as saying “The Swing Is On” TM
Grace Pettigrew, they worked out you just bypass the Greens. They vote together and the Greens are isolated. The best example was Tasmania a decade ago, when the Tories and Labor joined to gerrymander the system, because the Greens were able to exert a moderating effect on “development”.
You friends in South Australia, btw, will alert you to the fact that the end of an era has ben reached, with the retirement of pssibly the last independent and conscious SA MP, Democrat Sandra Kank.
I don’t hold out too much hope up here in QLD where Labor is looking increasing tired and lazy – admittedly, much of that may have come from having Howard shoe horning them financially, but once Rudd got in they needed to move on things and they haven’t.
Brisbane is probably different (given the money that’s being poured into infrastructure spending down there), but out here in hicksville, they keep making tired and silly mistakes:
Like allowing the only Cardiac Unit outside of Brisbane to close down for 5 months. This directly affected us – Father-in-law had to travel to Brisbane for surgery – it made an already horrible situation disasterous.
Like saying that moving a Crocodile into Townsville as an experiment would actually be a “Tourist Attraction” for places like Magnetic Island (where businesses were actually forced to close because people were too afraid to enter the water).
Like pouring millions into a V8 race in the city that’ll only run for 3 days each year – whilst they seemingly can’t find money to expand the Hospital.
We’ve already seen a massive shift to the right in the Council elections where the Lib/Nats/Hansonites in disguise (they called themselves a group of “Independants”) were elected almost “on-mass” (Jenny Hill got back in but only, I suspect, because she has a name similar to one of the other candidates) despite there being suitable Green and Labor candidates. This was no small feat – they managed to convince punters to vote in an aligned group randomly spread across a ballot paper despite a ticket of nearly 50 candidates.
Add to this an opposition that doesn’t look like a pile of stinking mess (as it has for many years) – doesn’t make it functional, but as long as it looks coherent and keeps it’s head down, they’ll almost be a shoe-in. Alas, I don’t see any light either for the Greens. They’ll make a good showing but, without an upper house, they’ll never score a place in parliament and will remain irrelevant politically up here.
Tis sad after such an uplifting time (”bye bye Howard” and “bye bye Republicans”) – but I think we can pretty well write QLD off for the near future (but then, what else is new)?
danny@5: you might not be aware that we have a form of proportional representation here in the ACT that gives the Greens an even chance of being elected on their own merits. Sorry about Queensland. It is a bit of a mess isn’t it?
paul walter@6: ten years ago was ten years ago, and we have no Gunns in the ACT. And yes, we have noticed the demise of the Democrats across the nation. Sorry about South Australia. Not sure what your point is, though.
It’s safe to go back in the water there now GT: that’d be Whitey the now ex-crocodile, who choked on one QG glossy brochure too many? Just don’t drink the water down south after February, it could have nano-crocodiles and other bio-nasties in it. They couldn’t lie straight in bed Can we have an election before February?
GoTroppo, I can see the state government using the financial crisis as a nice little ‘right on time’. If they are returned, that will be a major factor.
The Oz today is running the line about conflict between Rudd and the states over the diminished pool of infrastructure funding. From a political pov, it probably does give the states something to work with – situation changed, doing our best for NSW/Queensland/Victoria etc. Though I think that the “attack Canberra” line has been completely retired by Rudd.
Having said that, I think we need to think about two things:
(a) Whether there are any other models than PPPs which could be used for infrastructure and service provision in a different economic environment;
(b) Whether those who want to argue that we shouldn’t put our eggs in carbon-intensive infrastructure (and I’m one of them) might not want to turn to serious work on policy development and sketching out doable proposals rather than just making a broad argument about the virtues of public transport etc.
I think you guys must be living in some psephological parallel universe.
In NSW and Queensland, Labor have comprehensively stuffed two great states economic future, which will take about 10 years from which to recover.
Ministers with personality disorders, mental illness and poor judgement have contributed to errors of governance to enable the disastrous policy decisions that have been made.
Psephologists should take some meteorologist advice.
If you want to know what the weather is, stick your head out the window, don’t watch Channel 9
Jack
Suggestion for 11(b): put up a swag of post-grad scholarships so underemployed graduates from varous disciplines, including from other countries, can put their heads together and do exactly as you suggest, within a serious framework. Getting supervisors might be tricky, but with 2.0+ technologies, remote expertise can be articulated locally to good effect.
Hint: we are virtually in China’s timezone, real-time shared desktop applications work.
That’s be one way, danny. I think that the various centres of urban planning expertise around the shop need to start thinking about some more open source models, rather than “community consultation” after the fact. Anyway, that’s given me an idea I might run past a few people, so thanks!
Well if you hear of any action whereby folks here might get to exploit the competitive advantage of us being 2 hours into China’s future in a real-time networked collaborative technologies environment, pointed at developing plausible locally-implementable co-greening (or at least co-de-browning) protocols for Aodaliya and Zhongguo, FB me pls.
I’m interested in what we here in FarSouthAsia might learn from implementations of China’s ages old system of Guanxi ( a Gemeinschaft? ) that could help in transforming or leveraging social capital latent in deliberate network communities into capital works. The experimental model I’m thinking of is a transnational online learning community which develops a globally distributed finance model designed to underpin a green power company. The linguistic corpus which emerges, and is captured from the discourse could be an interesting and valuable output, a form of embedded social capital in itself.
I think it’s more that Labour has held power at state level for at least 8-10 years in most states and seemingly forever in NSW and Qld. After a couple of terms, I’ve noticed that governments of any stripe become stale, lazy, complacent and devoid of ideas and direct their energy towards holding onto power rather than looking after their constituents and the health of their state.
I remember Maurice Iemma promising NSW that he’d clean up the government’s act and thinking, “You’d better, mate or they’ll punish you.” He didn’t and they will.
I also remember that after years of Robert Askin and other Libtard shenanigans, NSW voted them out for a good long time.
Ditto Qld and Jo and the other grubby Nationals who followed. In fact, I reckon the stench from old Jo, Hinze and the paper bag mob are the reason Qld Labour has lasted so long in government.
In SA, Rann seems obsessed with crap, water guzzling marina developments, when there are far more pressing matters to consider, like addressing the state of education, health concerns and genuine efforts to conserve water, to name just three. Mind you, the incredible whingeing about having a new state-of-the-art hospital to replace the old, run down rabbit warren that is the RAH says a great deal more about the attitude of a chunk of the voting public, rather than the government.
The other thing I’ve noticed, in SA anyway, is the lack, or perceived lack, of dialogue between the government and the public. In fairness though, it could be that we all have our hobby horses which loom large in our lives, but are not that significant in the overall scheme of things and are not the province of government.
Or I could have said that all governments have a use-by date and they’ve gone well past it in NSW and Qld. Sorry, I must have been channelling Dickens-never use one word where ten will do!
GoTroppo @ 7 mentions V8 races. As I don’t follow motor sport, I have no idea why the ALP has a rush of blood to the brain whenever V8 racing is mentioned. I am about to “follow” a V8 race because it will be so close to where I live. We have a perfectly good race track at Eastern Creek, but somehow that’s unsuitable — we must chop down vast numbers of trees at Olympic Park and trample all the objections of residents instead. I don’t get it. But if Barbara Perry weren’t such an excellent local member, the issue would be enough to change my vote.
I have no idea why the ALP has a rush of blood to the brain whenever V8 racing is mentioned.
It’s a dog whistle; “We like the things that Joe Sixpack likes, we’re not arty farty inner city latte liberal types. Stick with us, Joe, we speaka your language. Vroom vroom!”
It might have something to do with Kennett’s courting of the V8 vote too, Bored Pensioner!
I was cringing for everyone in SA last night when Mike Rann was doing his Obama impression on the news. Imagine having to put up with that sort of thing on a nightly basis. I’d always wondered if it was a cultural difference that made me think he came across as simultaneously hokey and smarmy.
Missed it Kim, I’m not at all sorry to say. Having made that remark, I wouldn’t give you two bob for the Libs either. So who do we vote for? More of the same or OTOH more of the same?
He was doing this thing, jane, where he said things like -
“Well funded public hospital system? Yes we can.”
It was really cringeworthy.
Bored Pensioner:
I agree, it’s a cheap way of appealing to the revheads. Bread and circuses.
Mark: public transport is only better than private vehicles if the PT is well-used. A group at RMIT a few years ago showed that PT (trams I think) were emitting more CO2 than cars, if the cars had passengers but the trams were near-empty (which in Melb they often are). And the cars often don’t have passengers, it’s clear.
PT is worth investing in for equity reasons, but trundling heavy electric trams around may not be the best type of PT. Robert Merkel will tell us
Sure, Ambi. It’s not my area of expertise.
But that’s partly why I’m saying we should move beyond slogans to more policy work and pragmatic proposals to put forward rather than just saying “let’s be greener” and not thinking further!
I wouldn’t say that the QLD Government is necessarily stuffed. The pineapple party are particularly ludicrous. The only liberals that really made it across to the unholy alliance with the hayseeds are the Santoro lot. They are prize jackasses of monumental proportions.
No, I don’t think Bligh is stuffed either, Tyro.
I must say I’m a little worried about some of the strategic advice she’s receiving though.
But a lot of people in this town will think twice before letting a crowd like the Santoro faction and the unreconstructed Nats back in. It’s useful to have a long memory in this city. One of the stupidest moves the Borg made during the 06 campaign was to start talking about how good the Borbidge government was. Incompetence, grubby deals with the police union, cutting off HIV/AIDS funding, attacks on Murris, hiring Kevin Donnelly to makeover schools, mounted cops attacking the 4zzz market day in Musgrave Park, broken promises on transport, tree clearing, etc. etc.
Some of the people around the shop who’ve taken against Anna might care to turn their minds back.
Agreed, Mark.
Let’s see the serious analysis.
BTW, in a small town in England a couple of decades ago we saw a very good “mini-bus” system. Small, easily manoeuvered buses carrying perhaps 25 max passengers; frequent on designated routes. And if a driver left some hopefuls at a stop, he radioed HQ and a spare bus was despatched pronto.
It was a small town. Bloody impressive though. Council-owned or subsidised bus service is my guess. I’ve heard of similar in Chile. Mexico has a huge bus network I hear.
Well, I’m going to lay my cards on the table and say that in the first complete round of state/ territory elections post Rudd, only WA (…obviously), NSW and Vic will fall.
Thats right, I don’t fancy Brumby’s chances one bit. I wouldn’t even mourn his loss, to be honest.
QLD, SA and Tas will join ACT and NT in holding on, despite the tide of history, owing to the woeful and unappealing nature of the LNP state oppositions.
Be interested to hear more of why you think Brumby’s a goner, Lefty E.
I wouldn’t be writing off The Borg at this stage, but the LNP is not the end of the ability they have to destroy their chances. The Borg himself is a big part of it.
And I wouldn’t underestimate the long term animus of anyone who lived under Joh and hated it for his inheritors. The Borbidge regime had to prove that it was a different kettle of fish – that’s why it picked up a bit of a public service vote disillusioned with Goss. They were soon disabused. And a lot of other people will recall the mix of incompetence and radicalism that that shoddy crew were. There was a very good reason why they were a one term government.
A lot of us who remember Joh have a powerful motivator to also remember what ended his regime, and a determination to be vigilant that the Nats in Qld never get within cooee of the Treasury benches if we can do anything to stop them.
Yeah. Tell us more LE, and also why you wouldn’t mourn his loss.
I thought he was a bit of a cleanskin. Am I wrong?
“I must say I’m a little worried about some of the strategic advice she’s receiving though.”
care to be more specific? doesn’t seem like to me, she’s getting any!
Err, Q2. Remember that? Supposed to lay the groundwork for re-election!
But, yep, you’re right. What I hear is that there’s an obsession with “announceables” and often the things announced aren’t ready, and interest groups who will comment haven’t been briefed, or reactions anticipated etc.
There was a reasonably clear strategic direction a while back. It’s hard to pick one at all right now.
Some attribute this to the return of a certain former Iemma offsider! However, I wouldn’t go so far as to vouch for that myself, without chatting to a few more people.
Thinking about Qld politics is actually on the to do list for early next year. Yikes!
I guess there’s the hard hat strategy. But again, it seems to be media op driven, rather than politically crafted. By this stage, we should be able to see a case being built for re-election and also a consistent line of attack on the LNP. But it seems like it’s autopilot territory.
Anyway, intend to have a yarn to a few people who’ve been involved in past campaigns in January and see what they think is going on.
Oh, well, in brief: The comedown from Bracks to Brumby is already reflected in the polls / the Lib opposition here is not nearly as odious as some others around the country (eg its led by someone who isn’t obviously mad) / and in that Victorian way, even has some prominent small-l elements / Bracks polled quite well in the country areas, but Brumby wont / Brumby is derangedly pursuing the most annoying tunnel-under-the city style unimaginative ’solutions’ to public transport challenges, so supporters to his left are dropping like flies, and to his right some catholic types wont like his abortion law reformism (which I give him marks for – but hey, we have a DLP rep in the upper house) et etc
As for why I wouldn’t mourn him – aside from the one tick above, he’s just such a boring, hope-killing bastard when it comes to urban governance we need for the future. Absolutely stuck in the go-nowhere more roads, PPPs, one extra train is doing something about the problem mindset. And his hideous recent assault on grass roots participation in the so called “conflict of interest” legislation has pissed off a lot of people. I couldnt go on, but too boring.
Interesting, Lefty E. But as a counterpoint to the current vogue for non-boring pollies. Two words: Jeff Kennett. Come to think of it, Joh B-P, Russ Hinze etc. were fairly colourful too. That was part of their insidious modus operandi. “The Joke” was on us!
On teh other hand, as a paid up member of teh left, all interesting pollies like Paul Keating are by definition good.
/irony
Hmmm, I wonder how the low-risk ‘yawning sensibly’ ALP state model will hold up in the post-crisis Obamaworld we enter.
That’s the big question, isn’t it? But I think we’re gonna have our fair share of crisis for a while yet. Inaction on global warming and conflicts over resources will see to that, among other things. It’s more what Obama makes of those crises. But I hope the forces behind his election work some magic here too.
Me too! Need a circuit breaker.
Despite a few volts with Rudd and the apology, I still think the patient braindead.
I think we’ve got one. The way some current problems are framed is going to change really quickly. And the whole right wing creed/crap has just been delegitimised in a major way. I hope people in the Australian political class understand these things!
Well, depends: I agree the opportinutiy is there. In my view this is a Berlin wall style moment. The old order is dying, the new yet to be born.
But its a question of how Rudd jumps.
eg if ABC childcare were nationalised (even if to be tendered to non-profits) then yes. We’re heading somewhere new.
But so far, even the big stimulus package was just still in the Howard style giveaway ballpark. I want to see a definitive new course charted.
Maybe we will, the time is right.
Yep the opportunity’s there, but is the will? Grasping the nettle, I suspect, would be politically better than softly softly.
And, you know, they could always tell Paul Kelly it’s a “narrative” and “reform”.
The trick is to tell Paul Kelly first, preferably half an hour before Insiders: maximizes the chances of it being a ‘narrative of reform’.
Hmmm, pessmism of the intellect may be a product of tiredness of the eyes. Nighty night!!
…and forward.
I resemble that remark. Please don’t mistake my advocacy of a ‘South Brisbane as Bennelong’ scenario, (with Anna losing her seat, and the natural order of the PV-centric-inner-city-soy-milk-ecco-cino demographic manifesting QLD’s first genuine Green parliamentary representative) with a death wish ie a Pineapple government: I remember the late Cloudland and the late Bob Sparkes all right .
As an occasional former fellow tuck-shop bumpee-inner-to of Ms Bligh, it distresses me to have to conclude: she’s turned out to be a dud, and worse. I don’t for a minute worry about the Pineapples actually getting up, and I have faith in the diablo ex machina, that Peel Street is like the Hydra,: chop a head off, and a new one will sprout. They’ll come up with someone to take her place, and a Green
frightconsciousness raising exercise is what I would like to see happen.Here’s a practical index of the problem: At how many of
Ye Olde Sunshine StateQld’s 13 Tafe’s can a coal industry refugee retrain for the renewable energy industry, in which PV installers are rate-limiting? Answer: One. Of course, that’d be canberra’s faultOTOH, I reckon giving the likely Green candidate, (and that wouldn’t be DH, surely, otherwise I take it back), experience in the House would be an excellent tonic for the hardened arteries, and DNA, of the state’s political processes, going, as they say, forward.
To my mind, it would be simple natural justice, since the Greens statewide first preference support is at more than a sixth of labor’s (8% cf 47%, vs zip seats cf 58). Oops, one seat, I forgot Ronan the Out of the Closet Green.
All is needed is a maverick Lib candidate who can beard for the Greens, who’ll doorknock the Kangaroo Point tower precinct and sell the “greens are the only way to de-Blight the electorate and state, lay back and think of Qld” strategy.
Danny @ 43, Andrew Fraser is the heir apparent, I’d say, and there’s no guarantee he’ll keep his seat of Mt Cootha from an onslaught of Libs and greens either, if you fantasize that Bligh can be dislodged.
Mark @ 32, 33 … oh that is what they call a strategy? Christ on a stick.
TR @ 44: My real estate agent co-short-blacker, (I’m a broad church) the same one that told that in that industry the Greens demographic is workably understood as ” Allternate Rich”, which seems to amuse “/sectarian-labor-stooge” types on this list, tells the story of Andrew Fraser being a tenant of his, not that long ago, and saying he was unable to get a job with his economics degree, the agent suggests he join the labor party.
The rest is, as they say, history. Can the qALP talent/culture/gene pool really be that shallow? Silly me, of course it can: Maxine, Pete, Sgt Bilko. Continuing to go down the other SOP card-carrying culture road leads to oblivion in the modern world outside Peel Street. Abusing the power of office to featherbed until 2018: unbelievable, what? The very definition of on the nose I reckon.
While being possibly apocryhal, my favourite Peel street (for non-locals, aka Unions Central, Anna’s south brisbane electorate, the one the shepherdson rort inquiry was about, which Kaiser, the re-elect-Iemma-plan-recycled-as-Q2-ex-wunderkind was sent to the naughty chair for ) piss-take is the one where a bunch of Unionists down at the very convenient corner pub started making noises about employment conditions of the pub staff, who were themselves pragmatically happy, so the pub management said righto, unionists are banned from this pub, which meant it was a lot further to the next alery and said big-mouths were understandably not popular.
… to paraphrase the immortal (K&K)Kim-ism:
Danny, re: the greens being the ‘alternate rich’, maybe that’s their voters (the soft-liberals) but their organisation tends to the young and seriously committed. And their only parliamentary member is a conservative Catholic right-to-lifer who also likes trees.
Also re: Andrew Fraser, I’ve met the guy, you know, more than once, he’s my local member. While I joined an alternate ALP branch from the one he’s in, he is a very capable person that I worked to get re-elected last time and will be very happy to get him elected over either whatever resentful second-hand car dealer the Nationals put up, or the alterna-hippy or ex-Trot (bonus points for both) that gets paraded around by the Greens. So I don’t choose to believe your second-hand story. Also as a student he won the University Medal, which indicates to me he’s definitely not a dud.
Queensland labor fails again, just consider only one the the failures “Nine” $9 billion ($9000,000,000+interest) on a water pipeline! because they could not make decisions on dams,to deal with the drought they knew was coming, but not honest enough to act on , and the same on transport etc. All because they would do and say anything to stay in power, and now they are going to regulate the shoveling of this recycled water down our throats, how long can the easy going australians bare this decision delinquent, big spending,over regulating, greedy taxing,inflation creating labor/green monstrosity.
TR: Didn’t mean to suggest dudd-ism applies to AF, just that for him to get the Premier gig @ grand old age of 31 would be an “interesting” carriage in a party where, ‘frinstance, Kev joined when he was 15, and for others the tribalism goes back generations. I reckon it’d be a great sign for it to happen and drive a stake through the dark heart of Labor’s tragic dynastic tendencies, but I’ll believe it when I see it. I just read his maiden speech, and if I were you, I’d feel comfortable about voting for him too, I have a spot for William Faulkner. Unfortunately I’m in Anna’s electorate, and her maiden speech was more like “Id like to thank Anne Warner for showing me the ropes”.
How long he’s carried a party card, and the circumstance of his joining, will just be a point of fact which you can ask him, and not particularly material for me, except as above, an indicator that, in your scenario, troglodyte labor will have got to it’s use by date. As your member you can get a meeting, I do with my members.
I reckon the more important take home ponderable is whether or not our Smart State economy could plausibly have an unemployed university medallist of any sort in it. Anna’s “Investing in Brains not Bricks” is, dissapointingly, porkies.
Hey, I used the word apocrypha didn’t I?
Kim @22, bloody hell! I’m even more pleased I didn’t see it. I don’t need a vomiting thing at the moment!
Unfortunately, the opposition doesn’t strike me as being any better. Martin Hamilton-Smith is full of bombast, but not much else and his cronies are pretty crap.
Where’s the razor blades, a gallon of gin and a hot bath?
I wonder if Dallas is also agin’ the Traveston Dam? But dams are no good if there’s no rain to fill them up. And water recycling is definitely a good idea. And perfectly safe.
Danny – yeah OK that’s a fair point, but actually I think that trogdolyte labour in retreat except for NSW. As a displaced NSWman I must say I find the whole ‘Smart State’ schtick amusing, especially as my employment specialisation is in the field of ICT. I can tell you for a fact that government IT projects (and QLD IT is dominated by Government, unlike in Sydney where in 15 years I rarely did any Government work) are complete time-wasting resource-burners which will never deliver what was promised, and still blow their budgets. In my view they should sweep half the vendors out of the place (esp. software vendors, replace them with open source equivalents) and sack every single IT manager who hasn’t delivered a successful project in the last 6 months. You meet so many talentless dills in those roles – and you know, they prefer to staff their projects with similarly talentless dills. In my view they can cut their IT budgets by 25% and actually deliver 50% better results if only they went about things even half-way right. But try telling anyone in Government that.
TR: There have been some pretty sharp players…I can think of one deliciously ironic counter-example, but to fully appreciate it, (which I think you will, considering your possibly pre-w95 vintage, and open-source enthusiasm), if you haven’t already at some time, read up the trumpet software vs ozemail courtcase where
Crude but effective, huh?
Take note of the respondent name, google that with turnbull, packer, kennedy, if you’re at all curious.
But for our purposes
My local member at that time was education minister, had carriage of that contract. You can find out who FTR was, ie into whose deep pockets a fair swag of Qld Education Department $$$ was going to go.
I observed how ironic and probably painful that scenario was, and got the impression there really was no-one else here other than overseas vendors at that level of enterprise capability (sic). One might ask what citec was all about.
“the founders” did very well indeed for a few early bulletin board types. When the www came along, and websites were strange and wonderful things, for which bornagain used car salesman types were getting away with charging a fortune for putting together, powerup, as it then was, put together a “website in a box” product which looked like it would cut everybody’s lunch.
What? There are several local integrators active in Brisbane – of varying quality.
CITEC is a complete joke. They pay peanuts, and barely get gerbils, let alone monkeys.
Tyro Rex! So!! you will feed you newborn infant child this recycled water will you? And while your there, lets hear your answer to the condition of the pipes, Oh the pipes the pipes have it! Oh danny boy. Now was that, .008ppm ?
And in WA we had the Daily Double of Sir Charles and Richard Court for the Libs, while on Labor we had Brian Burke.
Dear Mr Berghofer,
I don’t have a newborn infant child so the question is moot. But the answer is yes, and I will drink it myself, the water will be perfectly safe. The stories in the Australian are lies. At best unscientific misrepresentation.
So uhh … Colonel … what you’re telling me is that polluting our precious bodily fluids is some sort of communist plot? Shall we go to code red and launch the Air Wing?
Mark says:
Its silly to included Menzies in any analysis of our post-modernising political system. He belongs to the old days of rusted on voters, ideological politics and gerrymandered electorates. Baby Boomers show much weaker partisan loyalties than their Geezer Doomer parents.
There is some possibility of a kind of tactical balancing voting between state and federal jurisdictions, but within the federal polity. We’ve certainly seen it in the HoR v SEN (which is a “states house”) since 1972.
My theory is that state jurisdictions will tend to show a permanent bias towards the ALP for an indefinite period. Mainly because ALP state govts are in the business of being Santas with the welfare state. Most demographics nowadays favour govt handouts. So the ALP is reaping the political benefits.
The LN/P will still win the odd election, if it tacks to the Left of the ALP on economic issues eg the NSW LN/P did so in the electricity privatisation debate and has gained in popularity. Or if the corruption and incompetence of state ALPs becomes to obvious to be bearable.
But the most likely explanation for the recent swing towards the LN/P in the states is the most likely explanation for all swings: the state ALPs are suffering from recessional phase of the electoral pendulum.
The wall-to-wall ALP state govt era started in 2002. It is now late 2008. So most state ALP govts are well into their second or third terms. That is approaching the median term for any govt in post-Menzies AUS. Mumble lays out the stats:
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That is political reality in a post-ideological era, kind of boring isnt it? Also not good for pundits who make profits from pontificating on policies. As mumble says: “Elections rarely turn on those things commentators talk about.” (Thats why there are so few jobs for political pundits.)
Few punters give a damn about political brand loyalty these days. Once in a while they like to throw the bums out, just for a change.
Having come late to this thread, I totally second all that LeftyE said at #34
I have struggled to find anything good to say about Brumby, and his overt policies and covert politicking frequently madden me.
As a Greens voter he has given me cause to think the unthinkable – Would I preference Baillieu over Brumby? At least in the upper house, I feel like I have no choice. As far as climate change goes, which is at the top of my ‘reasons to vote’ list, Brumby could not get any worse, frankly. I’d love to know if there is any policy in this regard that he hasn’t managed to kneecap, water down, or plain abandon.
Anyone up for a drive in a six cylinder car on a brand spanking new freeway to visit some not-yet-quite-protected old growth carbon-sink, I mean forest?