Larvatus Prodeo

19 Responses to “Borg bombs in Brisbane”

1. 1 Kim
   Feb 9th, 2009 at 2:35 am

   the state budget is not delivered in May.

   The journo should have picked up the phone!

2. 2 danny
   Feb 9th, 2009 at 2:39 am

   I’m guessing Mary Carroll’s ( the Borgia’s South Brisbane candidate, and party state secretary) less than sterling performance in preparing and signing off on the party’s AEC donations disclosure will make it a bit hard for her to campaign against Anna with a straight face. Apparently she slipped up by not including straight up first time anything about 2 x ~$100,000 pressies, one from Clive, and the other from a “Chinese Media Magnate”. I love the way former Queensland Liberal state director Geoffrey Greene was so forthcoming with confirmation that “the money was received by the Liberal Party in Queensland and should have been disclosed as required by law”. With friends like these?
   She may as well drop out now: she, or her replacement, will be made mince meat of over it. Even the LNP will have to admit it’s a waste of time and resources, or worse a statewide electoral liability, presenting a target for ridicule just by campaigning in the seat. They’d be better off letting South Brisbane become a tussle between the encumbent and the Greens, a la for Grace Grace, and see if the greens can better their 42.15% 2 party preferred result in the ex-premier’s seat there, (or even the 47% they got in the 2 horse scenario in Mayo). Remember the voter turnout in the Grace scrape-in was only 67%. Who didn’t bother? What would have happened if the Tories had encouraged their constituency to get over their watermelon fears about the Greens, declare that they are preferable to Labor, so do vote, and vote for, or preference, the Greens candidate? Which is what they should now do in South Brisbane, they’ve got nothing to lose there now, their candidate already has had her garage sale. The other thing that’s new supporting that strategy is: now there actually and surprisingly is a significant LNP/Greens policy convergence to refer to, both of them are running the Sunshine State as Solar Energy Economy Central line, so there is a genuine place to start, if they were hungry.
   Yes Yes I know, you don’t have to say it, again: you and everyone else, except Ronan Lee, thinks Anna’s bullet proof. I agree, this time, but only because the Greens and the Tories wouldn’t know a chance to take some skin if it was handed to them in a eco-friendly brown paper bag with their names on it. IMO.

3. 3 Rx
   Feb 9th, 2009 at 4:41 am

   It pays to be cautious with predictions. Recalling this article on how the WA Liberals were travelling before the last state election.

   Liberals hit new low with voters

   The State Opposition has hit an 18-month low and Liberal leader Paul Omodei’s stocks have plummeted, putting further pressure on his shaky leadership.

   In the latest Westpoll, the Liberals’ primary vote fell to just 35 per cent compared with the Government’s 43 per cent but with the Greens surging in the poll to 10 per cent of the vote

   The West, 8 July 2007
   http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=33673

   Of course Omodei didn’t survive, but the Liberals did get across the line – just, and with some help.

4. 4 Kim
   Feb 9th, 2009 at 7:44 am

   Another good reason to discount the early election speculation!

5. 5 Kim
   Feb 9th, 2009 at 7:46 am

   Btw, looks like the tip about a young left wing woman running against Ronan Lee for Labor if the Sweetman column suggesting Sarah Warner or Yvonne Li is right…

6. 6 Kim
   Feb 9th, 2009 at 7:50 am

   Danny @ 2 – in the Brisbane Central by-election, Boccabella basically ran against Labor from the right. Virtues of small business, evils of union boss (=Grace Grace) etc. I know you’ve got a strange belief shared by no one else that Anna Bligh is vulnerable, but is that the sort of angle that makes it worth voting Green anyway?

   As I understand it, the candidate in South Brisbane is cut from different cloth.

   Btw – another unlikely scenario in the article is a Greens/Labor preference swap. I think every party will be running “Just Vote One”. That makes the Greens campaign in inner Brisbane seats interesting insofar as:

   (a) They’re able to influence the policy agenda by forcing Labor to pitch over their heads to their voters;

   (b) They soak up some Liberal votes – or rather protest votes that might have otherwise gone Liberal but won’t go LNP.

   I don’t believe they are a serious chance of winning any seat bar Indooroopilly, where I don’t think they’re the favourite.

7. 7 Friendless
   Feb 9th, 2009 at 9:43 am

   What’s the Borg got to do with it? I thought Clive Palmer was the leader of the opposition? Every story seems to be about something he’s doing.

8. 8 danny
   Feb 9th, 2009 at 11:52 am

   “I thought Clive Palmer was the leader of the opposition?”… when the story breaks that Clive is hedging his coal interests and kick-starting a renewable energy power company via a ginormous steam’N'mirrors solar thermal power plant on his sun-baked central queensland mini-state to take advantage of the LNP’s 44c/kwh feed-in tariff offer and the supply-side opportunities of the nation’s mandated renewable energy requirements (45,000GW by 2020), all will become clear. Hint: do the numbers on the cash flow from 250 MW scale installations like the Greens policy is pimping.
   There’s a few wrinkles to be worked out, like getting people’s investments in the green power company declared superannuation-scheme compatible, and levelling the rebate-attracting playing field for people’s investments in utility scale installations compared to the (economically and technically) way less efficient rooftop pv panels program, with it’s $2+ for $1 subsidy.

9. 9 feral sparrowhawk
   Feb 9th, 2009 at 1:05 pm

   If the LNP goes nowhere in Brisbane, but makes significant gains elsewhere the National control of the party will presumably be intensified. Unless there are quite a few former Libs running in the non-Brisbane seats they can pick up the Lib share of the partyroom will drop even further. So next time Labor will be in a perfect position to do the same thing again – running against the Nationals in Brisbane.

   Vicious cycle for the LNP, and I can’t see how they break it, unless the Nationals either voluntarily surrender a lot of power, or Labor gets so unpopular that Brisbane voters hold their noses and switch to the LNP.

   Whether or not there are a lot of Liberal independents this time, I’d say there will be in 2012.

10. 10 yeti
    Feb 9th, 2009 at 5:13 pm

    a Green Tory alliance… I don’t know how I feel about that. I would love to see the Greens become the main opposition party in Brisbane though.

11. 11 Sam Clifford
    Feb 9th, 2009 at 9:09 pm

    The LNP are a disaster not so much waiting to happen but constantly happening. The ‘Borg announced a tax rebate for those maintaining their payroll. Cut jobs now to save on wages, reap the benefits in a year when you don’t employ anyone new.

12. 12 Benjo
    Feb 11th, 2009 at 3:04 pm

    I am probably in the David Fagan camp on the borg’s economic policy. Nothing spectacular, no real meat but that is okay they don’t need any. It actually cuts through to the MStream.

    http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25036684-13360,00.html

    My concern is Narangba and what thhe state government with one of the worst track record’s environmentally is going to do about it. Being a Greens voter with brothers in the Union movement, I will be more than happy to take this government out!

    http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25017560-27197,00.html

13. 13 danny
    Feb 16th, 2009 at 1:46 pm

    Reasonable question I think: Will we be getting a thread about Anna’s “carpet bombing” eCampaign? Or are election2.0, esp in qld, sorts of things just so old hat and marginal now, post Obama and K07?

14. 14 Mark
    Feb 16th, 2009 at 7:36 pm

    danny, I think it is becoming less noteworthy and more standard practice for campaigning. I’ve had a day tied up in meetings from 9am to 4pm so haven’t really had the time to blog, but I might put something up about it tomorrow. Is there anything in particular you found noteworthy about the site and/or its promotion? I haven’t really had much of a chance to look beyond seeing the stuff on Facebook.

15. 15 danny
    Feb 17th, 2009 at 2:07 pm

    Agreed, electioneering2.0 is so 2007, the junk mail of the noughties. Only interesting thing here is how it all went wrong, it being detected that she gave the eCampaigning gig to “southerners” when the overegged theme of the site and campaign is “Jobs for Queenslanders”.
    That’s what got picked up and went mini-viral, including in teh Courier, (
    

    “Ms Bligh did not give her usual post-Cabinet press conference, but came under fire after it was revealed her new website, Anna4Qld, which carries the slogan “protecting Queensland jobs” was developed interstate” … Ouch, not happy Jessica Holly Jan )

    ABC radio/site and the mass Gen X/Y afternoon metropolitan freebie paper MX, whose awe and imagination the whole 2.0 shenanigans was presumably meant to capture. Again, Ouch, half of these pps will be, or know, a web monkey who needs a break.

    Yes, Virginia, the MSM does pick up stories from the web.
    Graham and his commenters over at AmbitGambit seems to have said all that needs to be said.

16. 16 Mark
    Feb 17th, 2009 at 4:30 pm

    I’m with Graham. The parochialism angle is a waste of time. If the folks at the C-M actually wanted to put the government under some real scrutiny, they might be asking why the campaign as a whole is effectively outsourced away from the state ALP…

17. 17 Mark
    Feb 17th, 2009 at 4:32 pm

    Anyway, here’s the post!

    http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/02/17/another-day-another-election-false-alarm/

18. 18 darin
    Feb 17th, 2009 at 4:38 pm

    “If the folks at the C-M actually wanted to put the government under some real scrutiny, they might be asking why the campaign as a whole is effectively outsourced away from the state ALP”

    I’ve never been able to understand why the CM or the borg don’t just run an ad campaign consisting of pictures of the signs in hospital emergency departments. eg “you might be waiting here 8 or more hours, please sit quietly and don’t take it out on the staff”

19. 19 Danny
    Feb 17th, 2009 at 4:44 pm

    Agreed. That’s be Hawker Britton?
    Who does the Tories, do they outsource to advertising industry “pros”?
    I see another Dick, Cameron, is up for polishing the leather.