The good thing is that communities with high levels of social capital recover from adverse circumstances faster than those with lower levels of social capital.

Harrison notes a number of sources in the academic literature principally examining Hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunami.

It has been very positive to see the overwhelming response to calls for volunteers, and also the role Facebook and other social media have played in disseminating information and matching up people with others and skills with needs. They’ve also been helpful in dispelling some myths, rumours and misinformation. Similarly, I have nothing but praise for the superb communications efforts of the Queensland Police (mentioned in my post last week) and the Queensland and local governments more broadly. And Anna Bligh did a fabulous job.

I wouldn’t discount the “demonstration” effect of social media in encouraging volunteering and giving either, and the general affect on people’s morale and spirits, as well as the more specific reassurance able to be given to family, friends, contacts.

Not all is positive, of course. Some volunteers report being distressed to see site seers driving past them gawking as they work. I’d be a little cautious in rushing to judgment, though: we don’t know what people might also have done, and people help according to their capacities and resources, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s a downside, too, to social connectivity: the attempts of linkspammers to take over Twitter tags, the misuse of social media to exploit the floods to build marketing lists, the use of social media to spread counter-productive misinformation.

I was interested, also, to reflect on a comment made by a friend on Facebook that social capital is increased by greater social equality. Without wishing to minimise the inequalities we do have, compared to other societies, we are capable of generating higher levels of trust through networks and among strangers, through a greater sense of civic identity and belonging. Thus we can, mostly, avoid the pathologies resulting from survivalist/libertarian mindsets that disasters bring out the underlying “war of all against all”, and I hope, the gross distortions of the social fabric inherent in some disaster reconstruction efforts elsewhere.

We do, however, need to be cognisant of the fact that differential impacts exist now, and shouldn’t be allowed to compound. To that end, and because we also think that there is great scope for extending the base for donating and giving, LP will be announcing a fund raiser with moneys directed to needs that may be overlooked.

Ps: Thanks, on a personal note, to all those who posted good wishes on my Brisbane Floods thread of last Tuesday after I lost regular net access. Really very much appreciated. And I’m glad that many found the information conveyed useful.

Update: Latika Bourke on Tweeting the floods.

Anyway, Abbott’s latest effort, at the Menzies Research Centre yesterday, had some very similar blah to his last one – you know the drill by now: “party of ideas”, “constructive opposition” and so on, framing lots of statements like “we will oppose” this or that. After all, Abbott says, you don’t win government by agreeing on stuff… Oh really? John Howard circa 1995 and 1996 might disagree.

Somehow, he still hopes that government will fall into his lap. I’m not sure, then, why he’s gone to so much effort to annoy the Independents over the fracturing parliamentary reform agreement. Given that it was a signed document, the whole notion of “only believe what I put in writing” seems to be a thing of the past.

In pursuing a constructive course (supposedly), Abbott’s first cab off the rank isn’t anything as blatantly political as some of the thought bubbles (perhaps attributable to Christopher Pyne) about putting up motions calling on the government to give billions of dollars to hospitals in Denison, Lyne and New England, but some legislation. Abbott will show he is not just about opposition by putting forward a bill to overturn the Queensland government’s Wild Rivers legislation. Think about that for a moment (being constructive by stopping, overturning).

This, I presume, is mainly designed to ensure that the government is defeated on the floor of the House. And also so the Coalition can make a lot of noise about greenies, Labor states and its Noel Pearson endorsed primacy on Indigenous issues.

Of course, the Gillard government has already acknowledged that it may be defeated on the floor of the House. And that won’t matter unless it’s a confidence vote or a supply bill.

The other thing Abbott may not have factored in is that the politics of opposition will be different this term. He won’t just have to convince The Australian‘s leader writers and opinionistas, but actually make a case on the merits to the Independents. Nick Xenophon has already said he’ll be willing to listen to both the Queensland government and those Indigenous people who oppose Pearson’s stance (and they’re out today saying they’ll be taking that case to Canberra).

It’s a very complex policy issue, and if the various positions are actually subject to deliberation and public debate, “defeating the government” may not be either as easy as the Coalition might presume nor mean what they think it will mean.

No doubt the momentum of the asset sales is now unstoppable. But it’s a tragedy that one of the many reasons for a backdown is going to be ignored yet again by the Bligh regime.

NB: Previous LP coverage of the Bligh privatisations here.

In the wake of the privatisation imbroglio perpetrated by the Bligh government, expectations were that solidarity between Labor and labour wouldn’t be at the forefront of the Brisbane May Day March. Anna Bligh, and I believe Treasurer Andrew Fraser, disappeared to North America, first purporting to show an interest in bionics, and then holding a ‘virtual Cabinet’ with the provincial government of British Columbia.

What these ventures have to do with anything is anyone’s guess. Commenters on the Brisbane Times‘ story correctly pointed out that Peter Beattie is already paid 250k a year to represent Queensland’s trade interests in North America, and that a ‘virtual’ meeting could surely be virtual for the Canadians, and in Brisbane for the Premier.

To his credit, Deputy Premier Paul Lucas fronted the march, but was met with the jeers which the State Labor crew richly deserve. Kevin Rudd kept his distance, preferring to march with the LHMU, a union well back in the parade, and concentrating on the Resources Super Tax in his address, an initiative I warmly welcome.

In a nutshell, the impasse of Labor politics, and the scissions the Labour movement has fallen prone to, is encapsulated in the events of this day.

It’s a longer story, but I’ve previously argued that (late) modern Labor’s political Janus face results from at least two factors: the corporatised economism of state politics, where slogans about jobs mask a wholesale surrender to business interests; and the weakening of the links between workers, unions and the professional political class.

John Quiggin has provided us with some reflections on Labour Day:

Among his thoughts, he argues:

The old-style politics of class (with the working class represented by male manual workers, gathered in large, naturally solidaristic workplaces) is no longer relevant to the great majority of Australian workers. That doesn’t mean that class has ceased to matter, but it does mean that workers experience class and power relationships more in terms of individual experience than as collective interactions between classes. So, in particular, unions need to be seen more as mutual aid associations that protect their individual members against exploitation and unfair treatment than as vehicles for the mobilisation of the working class. The kinds of legal changes sought to reverse the generally anti-union trend of past decades needs to reflect this orientation.

I think this underplays the degree to which the union movement, particularly as represented by the ACTU, has long practiced a broader class politics transcending trade and occupational union particularism. While I also think that class politics has to move beyond a masculinised workerism, and to take account of the changed social and cultural conditions of twenty first century Australia, I’m not sure things are so simple as John suggests, though he’s surely right that the casualisation of work and a host of other social and economic changes have individualised work relationships.

But I don’t think unions need to return to being essentially mutual benefit societies. They do have a role in building solidarity where there is none, though this role may have to include creating the conditions for more solidaristic workplace relations, through rethinking how unions can intervene in shaping the labour market itself.

I think there’s a great need to develop an approach which does respond to the fracturing of class, the refashioning of the workplace, and the naturalisation of expectations around insecure work. It’s something I’d like to do more work on, and will be writing further about, but it’s also something I think is well worth a preliminary discussion on a very fractured Brisbane Labour Day.

NB: My previous May Day post is here.

I

The Bligh government’s decision to privatise a range of public assets, most significantly Queensland Rail, certainly requires explanation. It’s politically irrational, and as John Quiggin argues, the economic case for privatisation has no merit. Most observers of the 2009 Queensland election campaign concur that Labor’s victory was secured only in a few short days before polling day itself; in part because electors started to focus on the real prospect of a Lawrence Springborg led LNP government, but importantly also because Labor ran a more activist campaign than could have been anticipated – highlighting the need to preserve public sector jobs, and standing up to credit ratings agency in favour of an economic growth agenda to protect Queensland jobs and workers’ standards of living. Debt and deficit scares were pushed aside in the midst of the GFC.

Yet, a few short months later, with no advance warning or consultation, Anna Bligh and Treasurer Andrew Fraser dropped the privatisation bombshell. The polls essentially haven’t moved since, and the public trust that Anna Bligh herself had created collapsed almost instantaneously. Though the LNP opposition led by John-Paul Langbroek is hardly a convincing alternative government, they’ve looked ever since like they have a very smooth path to victory at the next election.

So, the political rationality of this push stands in question, and particularly so given that obvious compromises to reverse part of the privatisation have not been made. Though you can hardly walk up George Street without hearing rumours of coups against Bligh, it appears clear that it is now very unlikely that there will be any backdown, despite a very prominent and active community and union campaign (led by the ETU, in particular).

Labor faces a large defection of support – notably in the suburbs and regions – to the LNP, and a probably slightly smaller swing in inner city seats direct to The Greens. The optional preferential voting system, and the habit inculcated by years of ‘Just Vote One’ campaigning by Peter Beattie in the face of conservative disunity, make it likely that many electors will vote for The Greens, then walk out of the polling booth in disgust, without giving Labor a preference. The ALP’s rational political strategy would be to reverse at least the privatisation of QR, and make a turn to the left, but this almost certainly won’t happen. Rather all the government can offer – including to its own backbenchers – is a strategy of toughing out public criticism and hoping it will all be forgotten before we next go to the polls.

II

A number of possible explanations can be advanced for the privatisation craze. One would be in terms of the factional and political dynamics within the Labor party and caucus, the elimination of any real independent powerbases in Cabinet, the group around Bligh, and the relations between the ALP, the Labour Movement, and the community. Another would be the influence of local business, economists, bureaucrats in Treasury and the Premier’s Department, and the inter-relationship of a resources economy and global flows of investment, exports and capital.

As others will be focusing on these aspects of the privatisation push, I’ve chosen to look at the decision more in the light of longer term structural factors – particularly the influence of the twin forces of globalisation and the centralisation of state power in Australia, and the exhaustion of both Queensland Labor political culture and the New Labor style of state governance and politics. For me, the most important question, which I think could only be answered by Bligh and her crew in sound bite speak, would be what exactly the purpose of the Queensland Labor party is.

III

It’s not as widely known as it should be that, far from being the red neck state of Joh era mythos, Queensland has a very radical past. The work of writers such as Carole Ferrier and historians such as Ray Evans, and in particular their co-edited book Radical Brisbane and Evans’ History of Queensland, documents a continuing tradition of radicalism. Queensland saw the first Labor government in the world, Brisbane experienced a General Strike in 1912, T. J. Ryan was the only leader in the British Empire to oppose Conscription in 1916 and 1917. This state was the first in Australia to have free public hospitals, women’s activism dates back to the 1870s, and even the dispute which brought down the Gair government in the Split of 1957 was over a substantive issue of the extension of workers’ rights.

Space prevents me from developing this argument in full, but my contention would be that the Queensland Labor tradition was a far more properly democratic socialist one than the experience of NSW Labor, for instance, an obvious comparator.

IV

So, where does the State Labor government stand today?

It’s simplifying things a bit, of course, but it seems to me that Labor does three things in government:

(a) Acts as cheerleader for and enabler of fractions of local and global capital; from the ever present developers to international coal. Little attempt is made to question the virtue of development in general, or specific developments in particular – including those which will do much harm to the government’s purported climate change abatement strategy. Anna Bligh appears captive and supine in the face of business interests, caught up in a spiral of zero sum competition with other Premiers, reliant on a drip feed of donations and jobs from resources industries and others to implement her ostensible economic aims;

(b) Plays to the worst in the communitarian New Labor text book; using “nudge” ideas to govern the soul, to shape our behaviour in the face of risks perceived or beaten up by the Sunday Mail or talkback radio. There’s a puritan element to Labor administration, which runs directly counter to a Left tradition I’d like to see revived; that of enhancing and facilitating the ability of citizens to develop autonomous capacities for self government and for using leisure time for self development and other directed activity in the family, friendship networks and local and wider communities.

Struggles over working time – to free the capacities of citizens through both greater leisure and a high standard of employment rights – have been displaced by a narrow economism which celebrates jobs and growth for their own sake.

(c) Ducks for cover when anything goes wrong in the services the state still has responsibility for delivering to its citizens. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen Ministers on the ABC tv news throw up their hands and say “but the Department didn’t tell me!”.

IV

Much of this futile activity, shaped by a now well established set of political tactics (“Labor has a plan!”, “Jobs, jobs, jobs!”, etc), takes place in a context where state governments have little power to stucture really distinctive outcomes outside service delivery. Even ten years ago, let alone fifty or a hundred, their influence was much greater. For example, the pay equity reforms, on which I worked as a consultant in 2000, held out the possibility of a real reconfiguration not just of conditions but also of social relations in a gendered workforce. And the Beattie government, perhaps suffused in something of a nostalgic glow now that we know what came next, pioneered an industry policy agenda based around human capital and endogenous growth theory, emblazoned as ‘The Smart State’. Much of this strategy, though continuing to influence the thinking of Rudd Labor, and Wayne Swan in particular, was dismantled by the Bligh regime.

Peter Beattie also understood, in resisting the push from powerful quarters for the privatisation of QR, that jobs were worth more to individuals, families and communities than a matter of mere calculation. There’s no question that he was right to be sceptical of PPPs, and to reject privatisation and the attack on working conditions and jobs which will follow in its wake. He had some awareness of both the dignity of labour, and the way in which public economic power could be leveraged for social purposes.

The Queensland government now stands empty of promise, displaying an inability to unify its areas of residual responsibility with any theme other than anodyne slogans, often ones imported – via the temporary return of Mike Kaiser – from a strategy which supposedly reinvigorated NSW Labor. We all know how that turned out.

And in its own domain, decades of managerialism have ensconced a drive for constant re-organisation in the public sector, a make work culture of reports on reports and the cult of the Excel spreadsheet, where productive activity is secondary to the reduction of all of us to worker bees in the public part of the capitalist hive, dreaming only of a credit card driven escape. Corporatisation and managerialism pave the road to privatisation, and the attendant adoption of a narrow balance sheet mentality (seen also by the fixation on numbers – numbers of jobs, billions of export dollars) which is what passes for thinking among some Ministers.

Purpose is lost.

V

Much could also be said, and will be said by others today, of the significance of global flows of investment, capital and exports. I’d prefer to emphasise, though, the sociological force of homogenisation as a globalising factor. Queensland becomes more like everywhere else, content, or apparently content to feed on the scraps of the resources buck; an increasingly deracinated and featureless landscape.

This homogenisation, which is also a social force, has huge implications for the evisceration of tradition and any vision of an alternative future; any ability to conceive of something different which blends the best of the old and the new. Another world is possible, but not here.

VI

So, too, we see homogenisation in politics. One State Labor government is much like another. Queensland’s distinctive culture is lost, and no real vision advanced of a future for its citizens which would be both transformational and liberatory. The irony of the late arrival of the privatisation push in the Sunshine State is that it’s a reflex of the dying New Labor beast – as if the government were saying, we’ve done everything else except privatise. Decades on from Thatcher and the first throes of neo-liberalism, it’s a perverse form of modernisation, in a register heavily ironic. To privatise is what New Labor governments do, so let’s do it!

Here, if we had more time, we could focus more on the precise trajectory by which the links with past left tradition, with the labour movement and with public culture have become attenuated; the particular pattern where a governing impetus becomes deformed into the routine action of a political class, with all its connections into finance capital, and resources capital.

But, the central contention for me is that Queensland Labor has forgotten what it’s for. I doubt, I’d reiterate, that anyone in Cabinet really knows, beyond their own dreams of endless power. It’s this evisceration of purpose, driven by the diminution of responsibility and the globalisation of the same, which really explains the privatisation push. Ideology, stripped of ideas and a social purpose, reveals itself as irrationality, venality and stupidity.

VII

So, what is to be done?

For me, one of the greatest irony in a litany thereof, was Anna Bligh’s supposedly knock down argument, delivered as part of her half-hearted defence of the privatisations, that it may have been appropriate for Labor to run State Hotels and Butcher’s Shops in the 1920s, but not in 2010. I’m not defending State Hotels per se, though perhaps they might stay open longer than Bligh’s wowserish desire to ensure that we can’t enjoy a drink because we can’t be trusted to do so implies. But there’s a significance in the trashing of the Queensland Labor tradition by its current leader which goes to a total failure of purpose and imagination, and a failure to see that public purposes have a role to play in socialising the benefits of economic life.

What we need now, I’d contend, is to start to reimagine what our forebears saw as the purpose of state government; to extend to the citizens the fruits of their labours, and to develop capacities for personal, civic and communal action beyond the narrow repetition of the same which is work in late capitalism. We need to start thinking of what public services are for, what democratic management of enterprise means, and what we can do, collectively, to both articulate and realise a dream of a more socially just and sustainable State.

In the wake of the GFC, and the exhaustion of neo-liberalism whose parallel is to be seen in the exhaustion of Labor’s purpose, I feel hopeful that we can actually begin to articulate such an agenda, and begin to dream big dreams again.

Elsewhere: John Quiggin’s talk at the same event.

Previous discussion on LP here.

There’s a great line up of speakers, including Professor John Quiggin, Peter Simpson of the Queensland ETU and Dr Patricia Ranald from the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network, as well as myself.

Proceedings start at the Brisbane Workers’ Community Centre at Paddington at 1pm, Saturday 10 April. More details here.

Update: Text of my talk posted here.

While the election is a long time away, Labor’s polling has been appalling since very shortly after Anna Bligh’s government was returned, with the vastly unpopular privatisations being accurately seen as a symbol of a fundamental loss of public trust in state Labor. To return to a position where they’re even competitive would probably require both a new leader and a reversal of the asset sales decision.

The Greens’ primary vote should be very encouraging for them – it’s very high in the Queensland context, and a lot of it would be concentrated in marginal Brisbane and coastal Labor seats. I would imagine that a lot of Labor’s primary has moved straight over to the LNP, and that The Greens’ increase in support is probably coming from the more ideologically committed segment of the ALP vote. With the primary vote all important in Queensland, the rational move for the ALP if it were to pursue a save the furniture strategy would be to go to the left to rebuild its primary and maximise preference flow. Don’t hold your breath, though. We’re more likely to see more hard hat bluster.

Anna Bligh certainly wasn’t exaggerating when she observed that Queensland Labor had a bad week. Nor has this week started off well for her, with a Galaxy Poll showing her approval rating plunging to 33%, just barely ahead of a disastrous Labor primary of 30%. Nor, seemingly, are many disillusioned ALP voters parking their votes with The Greens. The Liberal National Party scored a 48% primary, and all this washes through to a 59-41 two party preferred lead for the LNP.

As William Bowe notes at The Poll Bludger (where he also has more detail on the poll), the numbers may be inflated precisely because of the beating Bligh took over recent days. But there’s enough evidence around (including a poll commissioned by the ETU on the privatisation of public assets) that the Queensland regime’s support has collapsed very quickly.

Galaxy asked a range of questions stemming from Tony Fitzgerald’s accusations last week about corruption and cronyism, and found a large majority of Queenslanders disillusioned with both their government and the Queensland Police Service. Bligh would have taken cold comfort only from Wayne Goss’ favourable comparison of her with her predecessor Peter Beattie in remarks he made recently, given that Goss also pointedly referred to the dangers of long term incumbency in creating a climate where ethical lapses flourished.

It’s unsurprising that comparisons have been made with the last days of the National government, which Goss himself swept out of power almost two decades ago. But a better analogy for Anna Bligh’s current plight might be the re-election of the Keating government in 1993.

Keating threw away the trust of electors by raising indirect taxes in his first post-election budget, tearing up the basis on which he’d come to power — opposition to John Hewson’s GST. Anna Bligh’s credibility was one of the few things the ALP had going for it in the March state election. Her opposition to the dictates of ratings agencies was a hallmark message. The announcement after Labor squeaked back in that the fuel subsidy would go, that public sector wages would effectively be frozen and jobs disappeared through efficiency dividends, and, particularly, the plans for the sell off of state assets have seen the trust the electorate had in Bligh collapse.

Fully 86% of Galaxy respondents oppose the privatisation plans.

This is the political context for the corruption and cronyism crisis. Bligh may well have acted quickly, banning consultants from reaping success fees, pre-empting a CMC enquiry by prohibiting Labor MPs from attending “pay for view” business fundraisers, and ratcheting up the pressure for full public funding of elections. But the public aren’t inclined to credit her for decisive action — because the basis of trust that existed between citizens and their Premier has already dissipated.

So it’s the backflip on Bligh’s election promises, and rhetoric, which has proved fatal to her chances of handling the Fitzgerald backlash effectively, no matter how skillfully she responds to public concerns. The LNP could always self-destruct, but the smart money at this stage would have to be on a change of government at the next election.

If that comes to pass, Bligh and her advisors will rue the day that they decided the Queensland public would cop a complete backdown on the policy stance they took to the people in 2009.

The Labor Party won’t want issues such as health, which remind voters that it’s had eleven years in office, to be central to the campaign.

Rather, the ALP will want to differentiate its economic approach from the LNP’s. Anna Bligh will be arguing that the state government is doing all it can to kickstart the slowing economy – an argument previewed by Fraser when he pointedly observed that the government had chosen to continue to borrow for infrastructure spending rather than cut its borrowing cloth to the demands of Standard and Poor’s. Jobs above all else was the message.

Graham Young’s polling for the National Forum shows infrastructure still in first place among voter concerns, but the economy rocking up the charts. There’s an obvious connection to be made between the two issues, and the Borg’s constant mantra about debt and the evils thereof boxes the LNP in and prevents them from making big ticket announcements. If they do, they’re destroying their own claims about public debt, and suggesting there’s tons of interest at the moment in public-private partnerships is hardly going to be credible in this economic climate. Labor ends up with a twin focus on the economy and leadership, and it’s hard to see this favouring the opposition. From the point of view of where governments’ political support goes when put to the test in an economic downturn, this will be an interesting campaign.

Elsewhere: Derek Barry:

Embarrassing or not, Dr Nicholas Gruen thinks the downgrading could spread to other states. Gruen is the CEO of Lateral Economics and writes for Club Troppo and is a frequent contributor to the Australian Financial Review. He told Woolly Days today that although he was not across the specific budgetary details of each government, it seems likely there will be a trend given worsening budget positions. He also defended Fraser’s position saying that now is not the time to cut back on capital works. As Gruen wrote in the AFR in September (unfortunately no link, the article is behind a paywall) “the electorate likes to see governments investing in the future. And the alternative – arbitrarily restricting investment whilst commuters nurse their resentments in traffic jams or waiting for late trains – is a political road to nowhere.”

Meanwhile UQ academic and economist John Quiggin believes that an AAA rating is overrated and rating agencies are themselves part of the problem. He says the global crisis has exposed fundamental weaknesses in the way in which ratings are determined and adjusted. According to Quiggin, the likes of Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s have suffered credibility issues in the crisis and a need a lot of improvements to restore independence and transparency. “The privileged position held by these agencies can no longer be justified,” he writes.

In any case, downgrading is not a purely Australian problem. Both Spain and Greece were downgraded earlier this year. Now the Telegraph.co.uk reports that Britain too could be stripped of its AAA rating. The Telegraph says Standard & Poor’s have indicated it might downgrade Britain’s rating because of its asset protection scheme. The scheme provides insurance for so-called “toxic debt” but the Telegraph warns the scheme leaves “the taxpayer exposed to losses on billions of pounds of bad loans made by the banks.” Yet as the article itself points out, it is very unlikely the UK Government will ever default on its debt commitments. A credit rating downgrade is clearly not the end of the world.

Nicholas Gruen thinks credit ratings should be taken seriously but governments need to take risks in tough times. That means taking on projects and debts that the private sector is now shying away from. He says that an obsession with an AAA rating now stands as an obstacle to governments playing their rightful role in dealing with the economic crisis. “There’s a dynamic to fiscal responsibility and fiscal management,” he said today. “Had the Queensland Government invested more in the easy times, it would be worth more now.”

I think the first is bad policy – and it doesn’t give us much hope that Bligh is capable of either holding her nerve in the face of political shenanigans or of practising what she preaches about infrastructure and long term planning. It’s certainly not difficult to envisage the dam levels dropping back down in a few years time, and the whole point of this plan was to ensure continuity of water supply in such an eventuality. The work that has already been done has effectively been wasted.

Traveston is a different kettle of fish. In my view, it was always ill thought out and I’ve long thought it was mainly there to serve as a wedge between Brisbane voters and the Nationals before the 2006 election. I was surprised that Beattie ever went ahead with it after it had played its political purpose. In theory, the change to the scheduling of environmental mitigation measures is a good thing, but environmental concerns as well as its dubious contribution to water supply should actually have seen it canned rather than delayed.

Writing in Crikey today, Richard Farmer appears to think Bligh has executed a cunning political maneouvre. I can’t see it. The delay rather than abandonment of the two initiatives means he’s wrong that “two potential vote winners for the Opposition are now gone”. And the somewhat muted nature of the announcement, which was a lot more confused than Farmer seems to think, only adds to the sense that Bligh is buckling under pressure. Peter Beattie would have made a huge song and dance about it, and apologised from the depths of his being. For those who’ve been watching closely, all this adds to the sense that the political advice Bligh is receiving is questionable at best.