Judging by some conversations I was having this morning, and some buzz on FB over the weekend, a lot of folk are starting to focus on the reality of what Queensland will be if the LNP wins government. No doubt there’s not much mileage in it for Anna Bligh, but there is truth in the perception that the absence of an authoritarian regime and a much freer climate more supportive of creative endeavour has made a real difference to both a lot of Queenslanders who might otherwise have done the well worn trek to Melbourne, Sydney or elsewhere and also to the diversification of our state’s economy into knowledge industries of all kinds. There’s some real apprehension around about the clock being wound back.
This might, of course, be dismissed as a set of metropolitan concerns. I doubt that’s true. Cities such as Toowoomba, Ipswich, Townsville, Rockhampton and others are increasingly promoting themselves as university towns, as creative and educational hubs. Some of the Brisbane v. the regions and elite v. populist stereotypes beloved of just about everyone on either side of the purported dividing line may be false, or at least much blurrier than usually conceived.
Still, the geographical and cultural spread of Queensland makes elections here hard to read – or rather, for those sitting in Brisbane, harder to read as the crow flies further. There are real gaps between social and cultural and economic interests in this big state which are difficult to bridge. Whether we end up with an LNP government holding fewer metropolitan seats than Labor, or a Labor government with a much diminished regional representation (or a minority government whose complexion is determined by rural and regional independents), the next state administration is going to find it more challenging to govern in the interests of all Queenslanders.
That’s particularly because – on both sides – the vision has been so barren.
In this context, it’s interesting to point to Jason Wilson’s take – as someone whose perception of state politics continues to be shaped by his North Queensland origins. I’d recommend reading his whole article, but I’d also wholeheartedly endorse his conclusion:
There is a larger issue here that goes to the heart of our federation — people are rightly confused about what state governments are for, and what they represent, at a time when the central government is seizing the initiative in more and more areas but is itself confronted with enormous difficulties in steering the country through its current economic problems. The original federation was created to recognise not only different jurisdictions and different responsibilites, but different histories and identities. So what does it mean to be a Queenslander now? Neither of Queensland’s major parties seem to offer much of a clue on this score either.
If Queenslanders saw evidence of leadership, capability and bona fides among the candidates, their attention might be focused a little bit more on this contest. As it is, faced with disaster on several fronts, and no solutions, they might be forgiven for devoting their energies elsewhere. When ships are spewing filth over Queensland’s pride — its beaches — why waste time rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic?
Cross-posted at Pineapple Party Time.
mark says:
C’mon Mark, who are you trying to kid? QLD is still an economy based on rocks, bricks and glitz.
Joh “diversified” the QLD economy more than anyone else before or since. He may have been a tad “authoritarian” but he promoted growth in what had formerly been a sleepy hollow (remember the Brisbane line – thats how important QLD was!).
Before he came along it was almost totally regional-and-rural extractive industry economy. Joh drew the white shoes-blue rinse brigade up from MEL/SYD/CAN when he abolished Death Taxes. He steamrolled the development of the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast. This at least added tacky tourism and property development to the mix and boosted growth which drew in further population.
All that Richard Florida stuff about “Creative Class” is just a bunch of self-serving drivel by over-educated yuppies in search of cushy jobs. QLD has not diversified all that much since Joh left. If it had why did its stocks drop so drastically when tourism and mineral exports slumped late last year?
Havent you noticed how QLD’s commercial property sector has crashed recently. Thats why Bligh called the election.
mark says:
Sure, there are more educated people in QLD. Same as everywhere else. That comes with post-modernity.
With modernising and urbanising comes the inevitable liberalising of social views. So the QLD metro electorate’s views are coming more in line with the views of trendy inner-city types in SYD/MEL/CAN.
The critical question is whether civil modernisation is driving, or being driven by, fundamental changes in the earning capacity and diversity of QLD’s industrial base over the past generation. Evidently QLD’s abrupt crash in the post-GFC phase indicates that its industrial base is not so diversified as its touts are urging one to believe.
You only have to look at a randomly selected edition of the Melbourne Sun-Herald and compare it to the Brisbane Times to detect a distinct dumbing down in the mentality of our Northern cousins. That is because Melbournes economy is truly based on useful brain power. Not just “sweeping sea views”.
Ah, Jack, the Queensland expert.
??
Unlike Victoria, NSW and South Australia, Queensland never had a heavy manufacturing industry. Though perhaps you’re using the term idiosyncratically.
http://www.industry.qld.gov.au/dsdweb/v4/apps/web/content.cfm?id=6746
I could also cite the value of education exports to the Queensland economy – you might be interested to know that TAFE Queensland and the school sector export curriculum to China so it’s not just international students, but I might leave you to hunt out the stats yourself in the hope that in the process you might be confronted by a few facts along the way.
The Queensland economy is much more diversified than that of WA.
What counts as a creative industry? Accounting? Writing bus timetables?
No, but really… peforming arts, computer games, what else?
Alternatively, you could realise that the Brisbane Times follows the same online strategy of its Fairfax stablemates, The Age and the SMH, to present more superficial news stories to generate more pages views. It says very little about the relative sophistication of VIC/NSW and QLD.
So far I have to give it to Jack Strocchi, not on points, more like a TKO.
@6 – steve, that would be because like Jack, you like to believe what you like to believe. Though, to your credit, you’re not inclined to wrap that up in a package of quasi-scientific babble.
@4 – Definitions vary. I’d suggest that you have a look at the page in question for how the Queensland Government define CI and thus its economic value.
#3 Mark Mar 16th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Thats setting the bar rather low.
I’m not going to bother, Jack. Your risible insistence that your meandering prejudices are “scientific” is collapsing in the face of your complete unwillingness to inform yourself about any actual evidence on the sectoral composition and value created in the Queensland economy. Go back to your grand theorising, mate. Another great intellectual export from Melbourne to the world?
# 3 Mark quoted Jack Strocchi Mar 16th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
I just cant resist yanking the chain of a (provincially boosting) banana-bender. We Melbournians tend to look down our noses at the RoA. No convict stain blotting our pedigree. And we have our very own Kylie hogging the world stage!
Mark quoted Jack Strocchi ibid
I use the term “industrial” in the sense accepted by all econometricians everywhere always. It refers to a set of enterprises who draw their inputs from similar suppliers and flog their outputs to similar demanders. That is, there is such a thing as the mining industry, the “sex workers” industry, the music “industry” and so on.
Some parts of some industries, such as the educational industry, often have do nothing but conduct “work shops”. This usage is “idiosyncratic” in that no work is done and there are no sales made.
Mark says:
I am not sure this exciting upsurge in QLD’s “creative industries” is all a token of progress, at least in the public sphere. For one thing, as Mark himself has noted, as QLD’s politics have become alot more boring despite (because) its citizens and businesses have become more educated and “diversfied”.
A representative sample of the older, less “diversified” QLD can be found in the work of Kim Guthrie, a notorious ex-Seaview Ballroom identity with an eye for the charming and grotesque.
This was the civic raw material of the old QLD political machine, with its eccentric cast of characters from accross the spectrum, kind of gnarly and savage like saltwater crocs. But definitely representative of the local wildlife.
You had Vince Gair running the place like Tammany Hall. It was always worth turning on the telly to watch Joh “feed the chooks”. Pauline Hanson certainly livened things up. Bob Katter’s still dug in, peddling his own brand of agrarian socialism.
But now the suits have moved in and the place has the look of a bland, strip developed megalopolis the likes of which can be found in many parts of trailer-trash USA or Euro-trash USE.
Jack@8, its a fair point of comparison given that QLD and WA are generally held up to be two similar and competing resource-boom economies. The points of contrast between the two deserve examination.
And I have no idea what it means to ‘be a queenslander’, despite having spent my formative years here. Granted, I’m terminally blind to place-based politics most of the time, but maybe that’s part of the problem…
Au contraire, Jack – Mark is quite right. For all the noise about “white shoe” brigade development in the Bjelke era, the larger picture was economic stagnation.
First, QLD led the country in under-education – we all got 12 years instead of the national standard of 13.
Second, so much of what passed as development was comprador-style investment from outside which did far less than for bank accounts inside the state than the glitz blitz suggested; and more critcally, the “corrupt NP mates/ paper bags” apporach to property investment totally ruined the industry’s reputation in any case.
Mostimprotantly, there was no co-ordinated approach to governance and development – eg all the royalty agreemets made by Bjelke were rubbish for the state. As long as you donated to the NP (or directly to a Minsiter), it was a free-for-all giveaway. Goss was the first to get some decent return from extractive industries.
Above all, there was hardly any industrial manufacturing base – and ZERO tertiary industry.
Sorry – but they were rubbish! Any fool can give away natural resources and approve development applcation in return for corrupt payments. The question is whether you can develop a state’s economy.
Lefty E
“Any fool can give away natural resources and approve development applcation in return for corrupt payments.”
Well with the exception of the last 2 governments in WA that is (still a bit to early to call on the current one).
Major projects are extremely difficult to get underway in Wa even when there is money available. Theres one port development at Geraldton which has been under approval/construction/review/NIMBY for about 12 years. Now the boom has effectively finished it will either be mothballed or opened up just in time to miss the boom it should have been opened for.
And WA during the years of Brian Burke made Joh look like a piker as far as corruption went. (my father had a offer of contracts for cash, so no, its not just idle gossip)
For Mark McArdle, to be a Queenslander means to rip off pensioners, as this attack ad from Labor shows.
It’s pretty damning. I wonder when it’ll get on the air.
I’ve long held that it’s the sun. They are just as loopy in Florida and they seem to get more loopy as you go south, in Queensland they seem to get more loopy as you go north. Might be the spinning, near the equator you are spinning faster.
Saw that ad tonight during Nine News. In the previous ad break there were three LNP ads: started negative (“stadium instead of hospital” ad I think) and ended positive. Quite effective IMHO (although where’s the $$$ coming for all these ads?).
Then the next ad break had the ALP attack ad on MacArdle. In comparison to the previous LNP ads it came off as rather desperate: “This bloke that we have to name and point to (coz you probably don’t recognize his name) was a principal in a law firm that lost investors money.”
What happened to democracy in Queensland. Worthwhile reading at the following sites. Who can you vote for that will return democracy??
Queensland Democracy Stolen by State Government.pps
http://www.abpac-australia.com/assets/qldgovstoledemocracy.pps#325,61,Slide1
http://www.abpac-australia.com/
I’m not sure if science counts as a creative industry, but it certainly seems like it’s in better shape in Queensland than other states. I’ve noticed for a long time that I cover more stories emanating from Queensland than any other state per capita (still behind the ACT of course). Part of this is because the media unit at UQ is simply miles ahead of any other university, but that says something in itself I think.
I’ve been doing the job 11 years, so I have no idea what things were like in the Joh era, but I can’t imagine the research programs were anything like as strong – few people are as put off by being authoritarianism as scientists, who have to be questioning to be any good. Also much of the work is in environmental science, and we know what Joh thought of that.
The comparison with WA’s interesting – UWA is the only major uni in the country that won’t even send us media releases about what their researchers are doing, which speaks volumes for what they think of public engagement. We get very little from Murdoch or Curtin, so the impression is that the only research there is what the CSIRO minerals divisions do, plus eastern states people digging up fossils. I’m sure this isn’t right, but no one in WA seems to care about correcting the perception, where as Queensland seems to be bursting to show people just how good at science they are.
On the 22nd, just the same as after any election, the dunnies still have to be cleaned, the floor mopped, bills paid, mortgage fretted over, etc etc etc.
For anyone who ponders “…on the reality of what Queensland will be if the LNP wins government” please refer to previous pargraph.
Here’s some fun words and phrases that the Jack Strocchi At Steve’s Pub people should look up in order to broaden their horizons.
Value-added
Teritary education exports
Biotech
Tourism
TDL
ICT
Pineapples – appropriate end, rectums, for use of.
So Jack M. Gonna be in Atlanta for Bio 2009? Really no? That’s a shame. We could have had a good chinwag at Euclid’s or Blakes about how the industry needs to downgrade expectations in order to paradoxically raise more investment funds.
But what am I saying? No doubt you’re already on top of this issue and directing your funds accordingly. Any tips for us mere mortals?
The Labor Party have left the last week to make two of their biggest mistakes. 1. Anna Bligh expressing the view that we all knew existed under the surface, her view is the The Greens are irrelevant. 2. The ad campaign against Mark McArdle is doing one thing and one thing only, it reinforces the view that the incumbent government has few ideas but a whole heap of smear.
I don’t know if this is slightly OT, or bang on thread. Jack Strocchi, as some-one who spent literally years studying the Brisbane Line Controversy in detail,and published a book on it that was very well-reviewed, let me tell you the Brisbane Line did not exist. It was invented by General MacArthur in an attempt to blackmail John Curtin into doing what MacArthur wanted to do, rather than Curtin asking Roosevelt for more troopps to defend the northwest (which Curtin apparently really believed was about to be invaded by the Japs. After that the Brisbsane Line, even though it didn’t exist, was taken up by Labor politicians, especially Eddie Ward, from East Sydney,and by the Communist Party, as something with which to attack Menzies.
Jack, this material has been out in the public arena since about February 1998. I’m surprised you haven’t picked up on it, you’re so knowledgeable. It was most recently summarised in detail in Peter Stanley’s Invading Australia, and before that, by David Day in his biography of Curtin.
The question still remains though, how, after so many years of record collections of mining royalties, stamp duties and GST can the the government be so broke?
I think this harks back to the crux of some of the issues of this election – particularly Mark’s comments about SEQ vs the rest of Qld.
I don’t know if this is the primary cause, but from someone living outside SEQ, the amount of money pouring into SEQ is stunning (although most of it justified given the population growth). The problem is that whilst we struggle to get $25m for a significant piece of critical infrastructure, SEQ will get twice as much for what many see as a piece of fluff (i.e. $60m for ANOTHER sports stadium).
The infrastructure problems of SEQ have been there for a long time and need solutions – but it’s happening at the expense of the rest of the state and people, I suspect, have had enough.
Some argue that SEQ was at its carrying capacity maybe 10-15 years ago and that you’re now paying for your success (or should that be excess?). Would we have been better off restricting growth in the SE corner back then and pushed infstructure spending into areas where there was enough land, water and industry?
Interesting Paul.
I found out recently Brisbane line is probably why I was born in Brisbane rather than Mt Isa. My grandad was a miner before he enlisted, and his family were evacuated (or evacuated themselves) south in 1942. My great-aunt moved back and still lives there.
So, let me just say I feel very positively disposed towards whoever thought it up – even if it was a popular rather than official notion.
Lefty E,
I’m sure the term Brisbane Line was coined by General Douglas MacArthur. However, it was widely popularised by George Johnston, then working as a journalist in, I think, Melbourne, in, I think, the Argus. (The I thinks are because I’m to lazy to go to the bookcase and look it up.)As to the first politician to take it up, it was Artie Caldwell, but Eddie Ward appropriated it within days and ran with it for years.An ABC defence correspondent used the term describing new defence plans in about 1988, (not sure of the date). The response of Army Public Relations when I rang them for further details was “Oh, shit!’ Paul Keating lambasted John Hewston as ‘the fellas who brought us the Brisbane Line’ or words to that effect in the famous flag debate. I seem to recollect some-one in the Rudd Government using the term recently but I wasn’t taking much notice at the time, so I’m not sure when that was.
Apparently the LNP think ‘being a queenslander’ means doing an end run around every development control law on the books whenever they want – http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/use-it-or-lose-it-lnp-tells-councils/2009/03/17/1237054794108.html
Worst. Idea. Ever.
Sound’s like they want to bring back Jo’s white shoe brigade.
Paul Burns: Return of the White Shoe brigade. Would that be a bad thing or good thing?
Well, bad for the environment, good for developers, very good for the deep pockets of certain pollies of a conservative bent. If you get my meaning.
Its not just a question of environment. Lack of development control leads to all sorts of economic problems. Case in point is the amount of infrastructure coastal local governments are stuck replacing early, because unmanaged acid sulfate soils disturbance has damaged them. Its becoming a massive cost burden for ratepayers, and if the current legislative requirements for dealing with the stuff get sidelined then the problem is only going to get worse. Shenanigans like this have the potential to bankrupt councils entirely, no joke.
What really gives me the irrits is that most of those delays are caused by developers not submitting their DA’s properly. The IDAS Form 1 is supposed to be accompanied by a bunch of reports on stuff like engineering and environmental management, so local government can assess the whole project in one go (along with any state agencies that get a look-in). Unfortunately IPA was gutted by the last Nationals government, and that means that a developer can chuck the Form 1 in by itself and claim that the rest of the reports are ‘on their way’ – usually in the hands of subcontractors. This creates all sorts of back-and-forthing, and the timeframes for assessment of DAs mean that approvals can wind up being given to what really aren’t complete applications.
At that point, all developers have to do is promise they’ll be good, no really, and they’re off the hook. If they stuff up environmentally, its up to the EPA and LG to prosecute for enviro harm, but that implies that they’ve been capable of adequate compliance checking (that’s generally a ‘no’, there just aren’t enough people). And of course, cure is going to cost much, much more than prevention.
grumphy- well that’s exactly why reform is needed. I don’t suspect the LNP has looked at it from the angle Paul Burns suggests, if they had they wouldn’t announce it in an election campaign for that I am certain. But I recently quit the Greens as they sold us out to the worst Labor government in Australia (Queensland) so maybe I am in a bad mood for a few years and cynicsm has taken over.
I’ll post here instead of PPT, because it’s quieter here…
Can the local Crikey-ites please do something about those damn LNP shills? They’re driving me nuts, both on the Pineapple blog and Poll Bludger. I was finding the former blog quite useful to keep up with the election (I don’t live in Qld) until they turned up in force.
Steve@32 – well, that’s the other thing. IPA has been under review for sme time now, and a new bill is (finally) in the works. That entire process will very likely go down the tubes if Labour doesn’t retain power. That would be a tremendous waste of the time and money already spent on trying to fix the IP Act. This election is pretty poorly-timed from that perspective.