Flip Flops, Queensland Style

A couple of prominent Queensland populist pollies have had trouble making up their minds lately. In the wake of two by-election defeats, and the Supreme Court finding that the inquiry into the health system was tainted because of ostensible bias shown by the Commissioner, Tony Morris QC, Peter Beattie was not going to appeal, might appeal, couldn’t rescue the inquiry, did set up another inquiry.

All in the space of about 3 days.

In the past, if you’d asked me about Beattie’s political prospects and the health crisis, I’d have said that they were good. The standard Beattie playbook is to appear as if he is not actually part of his government, apologise for stuff ups, promise to fix them, and increase his popularity. The classic exemplar was the Sheperdson Inquiry into dodgy electoral roll rorts in the Labor Party. It just preceded Beattie’s first massive majority in 2001.

The problem is that it hasn’t worked so well in Labor’s third term, first with underinvestment in electricity distribution, and now and much more spectacularly with health.

There’s probably a bit of a time thing going on here. When you’ve been in government for almost 8 years, people expect you to have actually fixed stuff. The hurried departures of Treasurer Terry Mackenroth and Speaker Ray Hollis are also the sorts of headaches you don’t want but get in a long term government. In Beattie’s defence, a lot of the health problems are literally systemic and intractable to greater or lesser degrees, some of the funding issues are down to the Feds, and most states would probably end up with similar horror stories if they had the courage to turn a Royal Commission’s spotlight onto their hospitals.

Beattie, after Justice Moynihan made his findings, should probably have said “I’ll take some advice and think on it over the weekend”. Instead, partly because of his compulsive habit of daily press conferences, and partly because he was trying to appear responsive to public opinion (and numerous interest groups including doctors in the middle of a heated pay dispute), he ended up adopting just about every possible position under the sun. And therefore looked scrappy and indecisive instead of in command and above it all.

Graham Young’s probably right about this:

How these by-elections play out on the larger canvass of state elections will be interesting. Evidence from the day suggests that Peter Beattie has some real public relations problems. People have switched off his style and were ignoring him as he walked around campaigning. Beattie needs to reinvent himself. That’s not impossible, but the approach he has run since 2001 will probably not work in the future. Saying you’re sorry and promising to fix problems is a good strategy, as long as you actually do fix problems and change things.

Peter needs to withdraw himself from the media almost entirely. He’s done this well thus far on effervesence, but survival requires not just some humility, but some sobriety. If he can keep his face of the TV screens, voters may have some faith that he is actually off somewhere, doing the job. Ultimately, actions speak louder than words.

But it’s difficult for an old dog to learn new tricks. And for a self-confessed media tart too.

I’d still back Labor to win here, but I’d say that the odds of Parliament going to term before a poll have shortened.

Meanwhile, eponymous Senator Barnaby has been publicly agonising over his Telstra vote, and lots of metaphors about weddings and fruitcakes are in the ether. There’s something a bit agonising about watching this too, and Tim Dunlop in a good post puts his finger on why the media coverage is as well.