Lawrence Springborg is one step closer to achieving his grand dream of five years’ standing – a united conservative party in Queensland. This courtesy of new Liberal President Gary Spence, who, to the fury of some Liberals, has responded to the Nationals’ plebiscite by agreeing to a vote by rank and file members – and appearing to prejudge the result by embuing the “Liberal National Party” with an aura of inevitability.
That may be a tad premature, as the announcement of the “breakthrough” was quickly followed by anonymous Libs leaking about the possibility of a break away party should the Pineapple Party become a reality. There’s also the position – articulated by Brendan Nelson – that nothing should happen until discussions on amalgamation at federal level are finalised – at some indeterminate time in the future.
Unhappy Liberals are characterising the new party as a Nationals takeover.
So exactly who’s doing the assimilation? Resistance is futile, as the Star Trek version of the Borg intoned monolithically, because Lawrence Springborg has already been anointed leader in advance of any decision by the new party, and no democratic process is apparently envisaged for the division of the spoils of opposition. In fact, as Graham Young reports, so undemocratic is the process that former assimilation critic George Brandis has gone quiet after a deal for Senate preselection, which also protects Barnaby Joyce’s interests by giving him a Senate seat (Ron Boswell’s) even if he loses at the next election.
Continue reading ‘The Pineapple Party: The Borg’s assimilation agenda’
I’m pretty sure, as I’ve mentioned before, that I was the first to dub Queensland’s National Party leader the Borg when I was covering the Queensland state campaign for Crikey in 2006.
Now have a look at Laurence’s new website banner.
He’s stolen our bridge!
Note also the Liberal blue. The Nationals’ Green is entirely absent from his increasingly self-centred branding. And he’s obviously trying to position himself as an urban (and urbane) man. Sharp suit, no tie in a lot of the pics, new haircut, and symbols of Brisbane surrounding him constantly. The moleskins and the rural signifiers have been banished.
An open thread, where at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
It’s a long weekend in Queensland. We celebrate Labour day with a public holiday on Monday.
Thanks to David Rubie for the post title, though as DeeCee notes in comments on another thread, it appears sundry Liberal backbenchers don’t share the sentiment.
In my column for New Matilda this week, I look at the symbolism behind Kevin Rudd’s appointment of Quentin Bryce as the next Governor-General, which I think is more complex than is being reported. I might add that I argued that it’s also emblematic of a concern for equality of opportunity and meritocracy which is part of Rudd’s own understanding of social democracy, but that’s a theme in itself which warrants more extended treatment at a later date.
It’s been reported, albeit somewhat prejudicially, that Queensland Labor Premier Anna Bligh believes Queensland could legislate to become a republic.
Not being a constitutional lawyer, I would defer to the advice of others on how feasible such a move would be, either in Queensland or the other Australian States. However, if we assume that the Australian States could adopt republican State Constitutions in parallel with the Commonwealth being a constitutional monarchy, it offers an interesting way around the impasse in the republic debate.
One of the advantages of Australian federalism is that it enables policy innovation and experimentation. New policies, new processes and new institutions which are introduced in one state can be emulated by other states and nationally if they are successful. If they aren’t successful, the negative consequences will be confined to one state which will presumably abandon the innovation.
Continue reading ‘A federation of Australian republics?’
As I predicted, the Queensland Liberals yesterday canned Lawrence Springborg’s Pineapple Party.
A decision on whether the Liberals would sign up to The Borg’s “United Conservative Party” will now be delayed and referred to the federal working group considering an amalgamation. This effectively buries the push, and there will not, as Springborg had demanded, be put to a vote of the Liberal membership.
Liberal leader, Mark McCardle, has publicly stated that parliamentarians should now stay out of the debate, and get on with the job of opposing Anna Bligh, which is effectively a rebuff to The Borg who has staked all his chips on the UCP succeeding.
Under Springborg’s short lived predecessor, Jeff Seeney, there was strong speculation around the corridors of Parliament House that the Nats were wooing individual Liberal MPs, particularly at the height of the farcical coup against former leader Bruce Flegg, when the Libs couldn’t agree on a leader for over a week. Privately, Liberals are now warning that a repetition of such overtures, hinted at by Nats close to Springborg, would not be tolerated and would call the Coalition into question.
Continue reading ‘Pineapple Party canned’
Astute readers may have noticed that I’m taking a break from the computer screen while I recover from an eye infection, but I did get a chance to write this story for Crikey yesterday before I went off and bought an eyepatch - which is quite Borgian, when I think about it. Republished from today’s Crikey email:
After any chance of his “United Conservative Party” succeeding in drawing the Liberals to the Nationals’ fold effectively collapsed on the weekend with the leaking of their negotiations with various far right groups, Lawrence Springborg has taken the extraordinary step of shoveling dirt into the Nationals’ grave in a new advertising campaign he launched yesterday.
The self-dubbed Borg told AAP that the omission of the Nationals and Coalition brands was deliberate - “this is a leadership campaign”, he said. The big L Leader expects the “new party” to “to seamlessly morph into” his “better way”.
This is an extraordinarily high stakes gamble for Springborg. Continue reading ‘Pineapple Party: first time as tragedy, second time as The Borg’
From today’s Crikey email:
While most Australians were thinking about anything other than politics over the Easter long weekend, that doesn’t apply to various groups within the Nats, who were busily leaking to the papers on the ever more confusing “United Conservative Party” push in Queensland.
Laurie Oakes, as is often the case, had the pick of the leaks, revealing in his column that Ron Boswell was gearing himself up for one last fight against what has been dubbed the “Pineapple Party” — the stand alone Springborg/Joyce version which would swallow up not just the Libs, but also corral everyone on the right wing fringes from Family First through the Fishing Party to the remnants of One Nation. This was unconvincingly denied by Nats state president Bruce McIvor, but the timing of the leak is significant — the Liberals’ state council meets next weekend to deliberate on the UCP concept.
Unsurprisingly, Boswell prefers to push a straight Libs/Nats amalgamation, while leading moderate Libs such as George Brandis still oppose any sort of amalgamated or reformed party. According to Oakes, Nelson’s amalgamation gambit has to be seen in this context — as a pre-emptive maneouvre to slow the Borg’s momentum.
Oakes observes that the Federal Nats are more or less dead in the water. What he overlooks is that — at state level — the Queensland Nats are finally coming to realise that they are too.
Continue reading ‘Pineapple Party’
I wrote last week in Crikey about the importance of the Brisbane City Council election on March 15 – not just from the point of view of Lord Mayor Campbell Newman’s standing as the senior Liberal in government in the land but also in terms of the crucial policy issues facing a municipality with a budget twice that of Tasmania’s. But apparently local media have decided there’s not too much uncertainty about the result in the Mayoral horse race, because coverage has been very thin on the ground. Take two days in the Courier-Mail last week for instance – on Wednesday there was no coverage at all of the campaign, and the only story in Thursday’s rag related to a spelling mistake made by a Liberal candidate on a sign. There’s been zip on the ABC tv news.
All the while, of course, the two major parties and the Greens have been releasing policy, making announcements and vigorously campaigning in the wards.
I mention all this because, fortunately probably for the sake of democracy, there is a citizen journalism site covering the Queensland local government campaigns – Qld Decides – brought to you by the same QUT team who brought us youdecide2007 last year.
Much of the debate about citizen journalism and blogging and their effects on the mediascape seems to have as an unstated premise a vigorous mainstream media. As I argued in an interview published in Brisbane academic Terry Flew’s book New Media, where this is blatantly untrue is often in the coverage of local and state politics. While some bloggers might be under the illusion that they could become the national media, and parts of the national media under the illusion that bloggers and journos should have an antagonistic relationship, the real value added often comes from ferreting out local stories in market places where big media has decided not to bother. It’s happening more and more in America, although it doesn’t have the same profile of the “A-list” political blogs.
Continue reading ‘Queensland media missing in action’
I’d intended to post something today on the Four Corners story on Joh last night, but Jason Wilson beat me to it, and I’ve had my say in comments at Gatewatching. I’d be interested in others’ reactions. I thought it was a fairly purposeless program, unless the purpose was to allow Joh’s apologists to put their side of the story on the record. I hate to say it, but it sorely lacked balance - with the exception of Peter Beattie, there was really no one arguing that Joh’s regime was as abhorrent as it truly was in many ways. I fail to see the point of one-sided revisionism like this.
Whether or not you think a “Borg is back” t shirt has the same appeal as a Kevin07 one, it’s pretty clear that Lawrence Springborg’s attempt to do a Kevin on Anna Bligh is all about style and very little about substance. Whether it’s the “United Conservative Party” non-starter of an idea, or his crusade on parliamentary standards, Springborg consistently talks process not policy. He has very little to say about the big issues of state politics - health, education, infrastructure, and surprisingly for a conservative leader, not much on Laura Norder.
So it is with the current push for four year terms in Queensland. As Griffith academic Paul Williams observed in the Courier-Mail yesterday, Springborg has muddied the waters of his alleged bipartisan support for a referendum with a number of quibbles about FOI and standing orders. If he persists with these demands, Bligh will just junk the referendum.
In any event, I’m not sure four year terms are all that desirable. Continue reading ‘Against four year terms’
I’ve got a feeling I’m actually responsible for dubbing Queensland Nationals leader Lawrence Springborg “The Borg”. Interesting that he’s run with it - showing off t-shirts last week at UQ O-Week emblazoned “The Borg is Back in 09″. If that’s the image he wants to present, I have a feeling he hasn’t actually watched a lot of Star Trek. Unless the Queensland Nats stand for relentless assimilation of all that exists to a hivemind. On the other hand…
I’m not the first, though, to remark that he’s running a Kevin07 style campaign, though I’d disagree with Courier-Mail columnist Margaret Lawson that style without substance is politically effective. After all, Lawrence did the ironing in a towel stunt last time around, and had the fridge magnets, but of course was dumped by his own party in effect after losing a second successive election.
Lawrence Springborg represents a new generation of Queensland leaders with youth, energy and fresh ideas on his side.
And what are these fresh ideas? Continue reading ‘He’s no Seven of Nine’
In July 2006 I struck a small blow for freedom at Brisbane Airport.
At the security gate, after depositing the contents of my pockets on the conveyor belt, I was asked to remove my beret for a security check. This was the first time such a request had been made, and no such procedure had been in place on the previous occasions post 9-11 when I had flown from or to Brisbane.
I stood my ground and refused. The security staff eventually allowed me through and one of them applied the metal detector wand to the beret, even as it remained securely on my head. I then proceeded to the departure lounge, boarded the plane to Melbourne and completed the remainder of the journey without incident.
This episode satisfied me that it is not necessary for Brisbane Airport security to require all passengers to remove hats or headwear, because the wand can be used. Nonetheless, the company responsible for Brisbane Airport security continues to obsess about passengers’ headwear. According to the Courier-Mail:
Continue reading ‘Hatassery in Brisbane’
As the glittering office and apartment towers pile ever higher on the narrow peninsula that hosts Brisbane’s CBD, news came last week about a true atrocity from a developer - the demolition of part of the Regent Theatre, and its replacement by… an office tower. The irony here is that much of Brisbane’s built heritage was destroyed in the late 70s and 80s, and this is the second “Save the Regent” campaign. Developers, the Bjelke-Petersen state government and interchangeable Labor and Liberal Council administrations marched in lockstep to knock down much of old Brisbane, and the Regent was a pioneer for the policy of partial preservation which reached its apogee under Liberal Lord Mayor Sallyanne Atkinson - where many buildings were “saved” by the retention of their facades. In the case of the Regent, in 1980, the 1929 foyer and entrance hall were preserved and some of the fittings re-used in the “Showcase cinema”. You can read about the history of the building here.
The current proposal would preserve what is there, but fundamentally change the character of the building by alienating its purpose as public space - and as a cinema - and giving us yet another 38 story office block. The developers defend their project with the unoriginal claim that “the redevelopment of the Regent would see it given a new purpose.” Well, to be sure. But the lavish entrance hall will no doubt be protected by security guards and the only people who’ll enjoy its charm will be the suits who work there. It’s a nonsense to suggest that this sort of vandalism is in any way protecting the heritage of the cinema. Just as with the demolition of Festival Hall on Albert Street a while back, what will also be demolished is the material embodiment of many memories. To treat the Regent like this is to eviscerate its history and present design - as a theatre.
Continue reading ‘Save the Regent!’
From today’s Crikey:
As the newly resurrected Nationals leader meanders around Queensland having a conversation with the voters (he can’t call it a listening tour because Peter Beattie got there first), Lawrence Springborg might well be thinking that he might have done better to stay in Brisbane and listen to what his Coalition partners were telling him about his dream of a “United Conservative Party”.
Effectively, Springborg’s new party was buried the day after he returned to the leadership when four Liberal Senators, led by frontbencher George Brandis SC, gave it the public kiss of death. The promise Liberal parliamentary leader Mark McCardle gave him of an “eminent persons group” meant very little, so little that McCardle joined every other delegate at last weekend’s State Council in voting to put negotiations on hold - ostensibly to allow the party to fight the Brisbane and Gold Coast local government elections (due on March 15) without distractions.
The Nats shouldn’t have to think too hard to conclude that the implication of this is that the Libs believe that the new party is electorally unappealling. And they shouldn’t think either that the idea will get a run later on. Delay is equivalent to rejection.
The Nats’ trump card is supposed to be the prospect that they will go ahead on their own with a new party and appeal to “like-minded conservatives” to join. Continue reading ‘Springborg: Lazarus in need of a third bypass’
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