Campbell Newman's snap early election announcement in Queensland yesterday was a cheat to keep as many young people off the rolls as possible, says Bob Ellis, which still might fail.

Newman’s move is a tremendous cheat, of course – many, many people, in particular students, will not get on to the electoral rolls by Saturday; a goodly number are not even in Australia – and it may well keep his party in power. But it’s possible it won’t and it’s worthwhile reasoning why.

The LNP is a new party, and this is only its second outing. There was a fourteen percent swing to it, three years ago, and there’s a thirteen percent swing away from it now, according to Galaxy, a Murdoch poll. But it’s likely the swing is greater than that. A Bjelke-Petersen is the figurehead of another cashed-up conservative party. A Katter is running elsewhere, and Pauline Hanson herself, and the federal Senate isinvestigating Newman’s criminality. It’s unlikely those Senate findings will go unleaked.

There is also the matter of the people Newman sacked – nurses, firemen, public servants – after saying he wasn’t going to. Given the million voters that Abbott lost by a similar turnaround swearing jobs would be safe, and savaging the ABC, SBS, the universities and the submarine factories – it may well go harder with Newman, who has an uglier personality.

read more: https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/campbells-gamble,7237

 

Meanwhile the LNP deludes itself:

 

 

Federal Coalition MPs from Queensland have denied the Federal Government's unpopularity will be a drag on their state LNP counterparts in the run-up to this month's state election.

The recent poor polling of the Abbott government was considered one factor in the Coalition's loss in the Victorian state election in November.

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman's fortunes have changed since he led the party to a landslide victory in 2012, with polls now indicating the LNP is now neck-and-neck with Labor.

However, federal Coalition MPs have cautioned against reading national implications into the state poll.

"I don't think you can to be honest, I believe that Queenslanders vote on Queensland issues and I don't think it translates either way," Ryan MP Jane Prentice said.

 

 

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-07/federal-mps-deny-abbotts-woes-will-hurt-lnps-re-election-bid/6003574

 

See also below for links from: https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/ten-reasons-to-remember-the-newman-government--unkindly,7235

 

Scandals, controversies, conflict, defections and lost by-elections have, since, been the order of the day.

And the possibility that, three years ago, would have received nil credence has emerged: Mr Newman and his government may both be one-termers.

When electors go to vote, they like to judge a government on its performance. To make a rational decision, the electors must remember the key events of the Government’s reign.

 

 

1. Attacks on the judiciary

The judiciary plays a pivotal role in moderating the excesses of the executive arm of government. This is part of the unwritten Constitutional structure we inherited from centuries of democratic development in the United Kingdom. It is important, at all times, but particularly so when you have a government which has so many seats in the only house of Parliament.

It is an act of political cowardice to criticise judges, who are severely circumscribed in their ability to publicly defend themselves against such attacks.

In just one example, the Premier has said that since retired Supreme Court Justice, Richard Chesterman, was an "apologist for paedophiles", in response to criticism of the government’s sex offender legislation.

It is traditionally the role of the Attorney-General to defend judges against such public attacks. The impression created by the silence in the face of such cowardly attacks on judges by his leader is that Jarrod Bleijie was selected as Attorney-General because he could be relied upon to ignore tradition and give tacit approval to the Premier’s denunciations of the judiciary.

2. Attacks on lawyers

Lawyers have an important role to play in alerting government, and the populace, to the ways in which changes in laws may impact negatively on the individual citizen. Where a government seeks to make a criminal of someone on the basis, not of what they do, but instead because of those with whom they associate, then lawyers will be in the front line of the battle at some point.

The Newman Government has treated the peak bodies representing lawyers, the Bar Association and Law Society, with contempt, only allowing ridiculously tight timeframes within which to provide submissions on very complex proposed legislation intended to strip away rights of Queenslanders and ignoring any submissions which contradicted the government’s agenda.

Worse than this has been the tendency to attack individual members of the profession. Newman famously declared that solicitors who represented alleged bikies were

"... hired guns ... [who would] .... do and say anything to advance their client’s dishonest case."

Perhaps Premier Newman forgot he was not standing in the parliament, where he is immune from defamation claims, when he said those words.

The claim for defamation which inevitably followed seeks damages of well over a million dollars. Mr Newman and Mr Bleijie, who publicly backed the Premier, will presumably spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer’s dollars seeking to defend the claim. There has been no public apology, a step any sensible person in their position would have taken to minimise the damages.

Such profligacy, seemingly driven by an inability to apologise for an unjustified attack on the reputation of a professional for doing their job, is even more egregious in the setting of savage cuts to the funding for community legal services numbered among the ideological enemies of the government.

3. Attacks on doctors, nurses and midwives

In an attempt to resuscitate the ideology underpinning WorkChoices, Premier Newman instructed Health Minister Lawrence Springborg to get all of the doctors in Queensland Health signed up on individual contracts.

The quisling former President of the Queensland branch of the AMA, Dr Christian Rowan, sold out his members, trying to convince them to shut up and sign the proffered contracts, prompting the doctors to revolt and seek assistance from those parts of the AMA structure not beholden to the LNP.

It is perhaps unsurprising that Dr Rowan has now emerged victorious as the LNP candidate for Moggill. This was apparently the product of a profoundly undemocratic process, where members of the State LNP executive voted as a block to bring about the end of the political career of Dr Bruce Flegg.

4. Raising caps on political donations

For some time now, Queensland has been in the ‘brown paper bag’ period. A shutter has been drawn over the identity of the individuals and corporations which have been seeking to buy influence in this State.

The LNP raised the cap for reporting of donations to $12,400, with indexation meaning it now sits at $12,800. Prior to this change, the cap had been $1,000, the lowest of any jurisdiction in Australia.

The sole justification for this retrograde step is that it brings Queensland into line with the federal scheme, which is no justification at all. What has not been explained is why that parity is important, nor how raising the cap is consistent with the pledge Mr Newman made to restore accountability to government.

5. Cash for legislation deals

What makes the lack of transparency around donations more critical is the appearance that giving money to the LNP can buy some heavy-duty favours for the donors.

A few examples have been reported. It is anticipated many more such deals will come to light in time.

In the lead-up to the 2012 poll, the Belgian sand-mining giant Sibelco gave over $90,000 to Mr Newman to fund sending letters from bogus concerned ‘Straddie mothers’. It appears Sibelco then drafted legislation, subsequently, passed by the Newman government, which, if and when exercised in 2019 (the date under the legislation when Sibelco is required to exercise its rights to the extremely favourable deal provided for in the legislation) would allow an extension of mining on North Stradbroke Island until 2035 — an outcome which would produce an additional $1.5B for Sibelco and further significant impacts on the island.

In another example, Karreman Quarries was granted legislative immunity from an impending prosecution for illegal gravel extraction by the Deputy Premier, Jeff Seeney. Karreman had made a $75,000 donation to the LNP. More recently it has been revealed Mr Seeney has allotted $1.6M of taxpayer funds to clean up the mess left behind by Karreman’s activities quarrying in the area.

 

6. Muzzling the Anti-Corruption Watchdog

In 1997, the Borbidge Government made an abortive attempt at bringing the predecessor of the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) undone. The Newman Government has gone one better, succeeding in compromising the watchdog and rendering it ineffective.

The CMC was a badge of shame for the LNP, a reminder of the corruption of the Joh-era exposed by Tony Fitzgerald. It was also, while it remained a strong, independent anti-corruption body, a real threat to the way Premier Newman wanted to do business here in Queensland.

The perennial Acting Chair, Dr Ken Levy, went into print supporting the LNP’s controversial anti-bikie laws and subsequently drip-fed the true level of input by the Government into that opinion piece to the Parliamentary Committee with oversight of the CMC, the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Commission (PCMC).

Dr Levy remains under investigation by the Police Commissioner over allegations he misled that committee. The police investigation has been inexplicably stalled for over six months.

Structural changes have also been introduced into the new beast, the Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC), which will operate to make it harder for people to complain to the CCC, make it easier for the government of the day to influence investigations into the complaints which are made, and even give the Attorney-General the power to dictate into what areas the CCC is able to conduct research.

Of course, such measures are hardly necessary as long as an allegedly compromised LNP supporter remains at the head of the organization.

7. Sacking of the PCMC

The Dr Levy affair triggered the most blatant exercise of unrestrained power in the term of this government. When the PCMC was close to holding Dr Levy to account for his repeated failures of frankness, Premier Newman sacked the entire membership.

Parliamentary committees are important accountability mechanisms in any democracy. In Queensland, where the Parliament lacks an Upper House, they are absolutely vital.

The last minute decision to sack everyone on the committee created an incredibly dangerous precedent. It also allowed Newman to ensure the new Committee was constituted in a manner that he need no longer be concerned about it.

8. Media Manipulation

A recent poll showed the LNP was behind Labor and that more than 45 per cent of respondents thought Campbell Newman had done a poor or very poor job as Premier. It is tempting to speculate what the numbers would be if the mainstream media, in particular the Courier Mail, was properly performing the role of the fourth estate and fearlessly holding the Newman Government to account.

With a change in editors at the newspaper, once proudly at the forefront of instigating the Fitzgerald Inquiry, the content has become little more than a chorus of unwavering support for an increasingly unpopular Government.

Mr Lee Anderson, the Premier’s chief media officer, seemingly has no difficulty seeing glowing stories and editorials about the Government make their way into print on a daily basis.

The manner of Mr Anderson’s appointment is itself interesting. Mr Anderson was head of Channel 9 News until being forced to resign for his role in the ‘choppergate’ scandal. He then did a stint at the Courier Mail, before being re-employed by Channel 9 as the head of State election coverage in the lead up to the March 2012 poll — a job he did right up until election night.

Mr Anderson showed up the next morning to hand out the press releases for his new boss, the Premier. No explanation of precisely when Mr Anderson was offered this job has ever been provided.

9. Sacking Public Servants

On the eve of the 2012 election, Newman said that public servants had nothing to fear from an LNP government. The 14,000 public servants who lost their jobs and the families whose lives were disrupted as a consequence, may have wondered what a government looked like that was to be feared.

Fast forward to the aftermath of the Stafford by-election, when Premier Newman insulted the intelligence of those sacked public servants, their families and the public generally, by saying Queenslanders did not understand the reasons for the strong decisions he had made.

Tony Abbott has been reading from the same playbook and it has produced exactly the same results in terms of his popularity with the voters.

10. Silencing Dissent

One of the hallmarks of this government has been the readiness to savagely attack any person voicing dissent. Barristers have had government briefs removed after voicing public criticism. Doctors critical of responses to the risk of ebola infection have been stood down. The Attorney-General has threatened billboard companies in a bid to prevent advertisements from groups linked to unions.

The LNP have been most intolerant of dissent from within their own ranks. In just one example, Dr Chris Davis was dumped from the party after he questioned the increase on caps for political donations. He had earlier criticised the proposed changes to the CMC, after polling showed the electors of his constituency, Stafford, did not support the LNP agenda.

The Stafford by-election result, with a 18.6% swing against the LNP, illustrated the consequences of arrogantly ignoring the wishes of the electorate.

*****

The Newman Government has been incredibly destructive of the fabric of civil society and the principles which have traditionally provided checks on power. Like all negatives, it has also presented the people of Queensland with an opportunity.

The opportunity is for this Government to stand as the high watermark of unprincipled and opaque arrogance. This Government’s track record and destructiveness should forever put to bed the idea that we can somehow trust in our leaders to exercise restraint in the absence of strong institutions designed to operate as a check on power.

The opportunity stands before the next government of Queensland to reintroduce, strengthen and defend those principles and institutions which will limit that government’s ability to exercise power in an unrestrained manner.

By taking such admirable action, it may be able to avoid the loss of trust in government that has occurred in Queensland in spades as a result of the actions of the Newman/Seeney/Bleijie Government.

 

 

Premier Campbell Newman says there is no need to discipline a backbencher who twice lost her driver's licence for unpaid fines.

Broadwater MP Verity Barton yesterday admitted her licence was suspended twice - once in 2012 and again in 2013.

She apologised for failing to pay motoring fines that resulted in the suspensions and said she had since paid the money owing and now has her licence back.

Mr Newman said she had admitted to driving while she was unlicensed.

In 2012, David Gibson resigned as the LNP Government's first police minister after admitting he had been driving while his licence was suspended.

When asked how the two cases compared, Mr Newman said Ms Barton was a good local member who deserved some leeway.

"That's a good point you raise but David Gibson was a senior member of the Government in the critical police portfolio - a different kettle of fish," Mr Newman said.

"One must set a strong example when one is the police minister on such issues.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-09/newman-defends-gold-coast-mp-verity-barton-unlicenced-driving/6009224

Excellent... Small dead fishes smell less than big dead sharks in Newman's hard hat country...

 

UQ Professor John Quiggin explains why the Newman Government's 'Strong Choices' asset sales plan is not only an atrocious deal for Queensland, but fundamentally misleads voters.

Strong Choices or Weak Arguments?
How the proposed asset divestment program will weaken Queensland’s fiscal position

The central issue in the Queensland state election, due to be held by March 2015, will be the LNP Government proposal for the transfer to the private sector of major government assets. After lengthy public discussion, which provided evidence that the Queensland public is strongly opposed to privatisation in any form, the government has produced a proposal to divest publicly owned assets through long term leases. This proposal has been presented in the Strong Choices Final Plan, released in October 2014.

The Strong Choices Final Plan is unsatisfactory in a number of respects. Although it is presented as a proposal for ‘secure public finance’ it contains no analysis of the fiscal impact of the proposed problem. The reason is clear, although the Plan document does its best to obscure the facts. On the government’s own analysis, the fiscal benefits of reducing public debt will be more than offset by the loss of dividends and tax equivalent payments, a loss that will grow over time.

This review is organised as follows:

The first section deals with the claim, made prominently on the cover of theStrong Choices Final Plan, that the proposal does not involve asset sales. The primary conclusion is that there is no practical difference between the proposed leases and an outright sale.

read more: https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/here-we-joh-again-strong-choices-or-poor-arguments,7263

 

...

But the project was approved on December 19, 2014.

"Campbell Newman told me in my house that if he were to become premier, there would be no Acland stage three," Jones said on air.

"Campbell Newman lied to me. I have no reason to believe anything he's promising Queenslanders today."

Jones said New Hope Coal had donated $650,000 to the LNP, and hosted senior ministers at private functions including corporate boxes at Suncorp Stadium.

The mine expansion was approved on December 19 by Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney.

"It's called prostitution ... what was the price that New Hope had to pay to get Acland stage three approved?"  Jones said.

Jones' diatribe against Mr Newman and the LNP didn't end there, as he criticised the government's performance on jobs, debt management and its relations with the health and legal professions.

He also described Mr Newman as a bully.

"Campbell Newman is only interested in one job and that's his own. He couldn't give a continental about anyone else's."

Jones also maintained Mr Newman would lose the seat of Ashgrove come polling day, and the LNP should reveal who would lead the party in such an eventuality.

"I couldn't back Campbell Newman to win a chook raffle," he said.

read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/queensland-state-election-2015/queensland-election-alan-jones-accuses-campbell-newman-of-lying-20150119-12t6tm.html

 

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says he will not be joining Queensland Premier Campbell Newman on the state election campaign.

Tony Abbott has stayed away from Queensland, while Federal Opposition leader Bill Shorten and other federal frontbenchers have been joining Queensland Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk on the hustings.

Mr Abbott said he was not needed in Queensland.

"Campbell Newman is a very strong Premier, he's got a strong team, he wants to run his own race and who could blame him for wanting to run his own race," Mr Abbott said.

"He doesn't need Tony Abbott, Julie Bishop or Joe Hockey to hold his hand."

Queensland Treasurer Tim Nicholls told radio 4BC he agreed with the Prime Minister.

"Unlike the Labor Party we don't need the crutch of our federal leader to be up here," Mr Nicholls said.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-20/queensland-election-2015-tony-abbott-will-not-campaign-for-lnp/6027202

So the logic says that when Tony Abbott goes to Victoria to help the Liberal (CONservative) government win the election, the said government is weak, pissy and infantile since it needs Tony to "hold the hand" .... Is this why the Libs (CONservatives) lost the "race" in Victoria? The hypocrisy of the LNP (CONservative) party has no bound..., no shame and is full of BS.

 

Tony Abbott did not make it to Campbell Newman’s big launch last Sunday. He was, explained his harassed deputy, Warren Truss, on holiday.

Well, yes; but he had already broken his holidays to attend the smouldering ruins of the South Australian fires, a funeral in Cairns and his first political flip-flop of the year over Medicare. Surely he could have spared an hour for his colleague?

There would, said Truss, possibly crossing his fingers, be other occasions. Abbott would be campaigning in the Sunshine State soon enough. Perhaps he will, but not if Newman has anything to do with it. He has already said he does not need the prime minister to hold his hand; nor, he might have added, does Newman need Abbott standing beside him, or behind him, or anywhere else in the state, at least until the election is safely out of the way.

Abbott anathema is, of course, not a new phenomenon, and it is unlikely to disappear soon. Denis Napthine in Victoria felt much the same way about his inglorious federal counterpart, and Mike Baird in New South Wales may be harbouring similar thoughts. But in Queensland it is not just personal. The banana benders have had deep-rooted and long-standing resentment about federal leaders, whatever their political persuasions.

The late, great hater was of course Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen. In 1987, the hillbilly dictator declared open warfare on Canberra and all its works when he announced his demented Joh for PM campaign. His immediate targets were the Liberal leader John Howard and National leader Ian Sinclair, but basically it was scorched earth attack, sparing no one and nobody. Bob Hawke, as Labor prime minister, was mere collateral damage, as were the vast majority of federal members and senators, Labor, Liberal, National or indiscriminate: anyone who was not Joh’s sworn and unquestioning acolyte was his mortal enemy.

But long before that fiasco, Joh had his vendettas. Perhaps the most memorable was against Gough Whitlam, who made the dangerous mistake of dismissing the then neophyte premier as a pissant. It was meant to be an insult, but, in fact, “pissant”, as in “game as a pissant”, can be something of an accolade in Queensland, and so Joh chose to take it as such. Exasperated, Whitlam replied that the man was a bible-bashing bastard, an assessment with which many Queenslanders agreed. But he wastheir bible-bashing bastard. They didn’t want foreigners – aliens – to point it out. And then it was on.

Whitlam had made the fatal mistake of assuming that Queensland was part of Australia, but Joh and his supporters knew that it wasn’t; Joh had gone on record to the bewildered British media with the pronouncement: “There is no such thing as Australia. I am the premier of the sovereign state of Queensland and I know whereof I speak.” So when Whitlam appeared at the 1974 state election campaign to help the hapless Labor leader Percy (call me Perc) Tucker, Joh was ready.

read more: http://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/mungo-maccallum/2015/19/2015/1421638217/inglorious-bastards

Queensland Senator Matt Canavan has accused the ABC and the Queensland edition of Vote Compass of push polling, but his criticism is factually and fundamentally flawed, writes Clifton van der Linden.

Queensland Senator Matt Canavan's criticism of the Queensland edition of Vote Compass - which was reproduced in The Australian earlier this week - demonstrates a serious misunderstanding of both the subject matter at hand and the ABC's efforts to promote more robust democratic engagement in Australia.

Vote Compass is an interactive application featured by the ABC during election campaigns as part of its efforts to engage Australians in the public policy dimension of electoral politics.

Users respond to a series of propositions on relevant policy issues and Vote Compass calculates their alignment with the various political parties contesting an election race. Vote Compass does not instruct users as to how they should vote - it merely indicates their proximity to the major parties on the basis of the limited range of issues included in the application.

Although Vote Compass is featured exclusively by the ABC in Australia, it is designed by an international team of university researchers including political scientists, data scientists, and statisticians who have developed the application for more than a dozen elections worldwide. Vote Compass is obliged to abide by the principles and standards set out in the ABC's editorial policy, but its developers operate at arm's length from the ABC in order to ensure that Vote Compass is undertaken as an academic exercise subject to rigorous scientific standards. The ABC regularly reviews the methodology behind Vote Compass, but it does not determine the application's content.

The Queensland edition of Vote Compass was designed in partnership with a non-partisan team of experts in state politics at the University of Queensland, including both academics and former high-ranking officials from both major parties in Queensland. Based on the party platforms and public consultations they designed a set of propositions that reflect the campaign discourse.

On the basis of his opposition to the framing of one of the 30 propositions included in the Queensland edition of Vote Compass, Senator Canavan released a statement late last week accusing the ABC of push-polling, which is the practice of framing survey items in a biased and potentially misleading way in order to push a political agenda. Push-polling is conventionally conducted by political operatives lobbying for votes during an election campaign.

Senator Canavan's specific objection was to the formulation of a proposition on mining activity in the waters around the Great Barrier Reef. Vote Compass asks users whether they would like to see less, more, or about the same levels of mining activity as are currently in place in the waters around the Great Barrier Reef.

Senator Canavan argues that mining in the Great Barrier Reef is prohibited by federal law and thus the framing of the proposition is misleading as it implies that there is currently mining activity in the area. He goes on further to accuse the ABC - which in fact had no part in the construction of the proposition under scrutiny - of a deliberate attempt to associate the current government of Queensland with permitting mining in the Great Barrier Reef.

The fundamental shortcoming with Senator Canavan's argument is in the absence of any acknowledgement that there is, in fact, mining activity currently taking place in the waters around the Great Barrier Reef. Granted, a federal statute prohibits drilling in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park - which incidentally does not encompass the entirety of the reef - but mining activity extends well beyond drilling. This includes but is not limited to shipping lanes through the reef for coal exports, demands by mines on the local water supply, and the recently scrapped proposal to dump dredge from coal port developments on the Great Barrier Reef.

Asking Vote Compass users about how much mining activity should be permitted in the waters around the Great Barrier is thus a perfectly legitimate question.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-21/van-der-linden-holding-mps-to-account-is-now-considered-mischief/6030946

As in Plutarch's Parallel Lives, the fates of Abbott and Newman may be seen by future historians to have a similarity.

called a snap election in January to avoid being sacked by his party. And Abbott, in February, will do, perhaps, the same.

Because of the two coincident crises, Newman will lose his seat; and his party, possibly, though not certainly, government. And Abbott's Liberals will be wiped out.

Or this is one scenario of what will happen on Saturday and Tuesday. There may be a trip to Yarralumla by an affrighted Abbott when Palaszczuk is being sworn in. Or Turnbull that day may stand up in Question Time as Prime Minister.

It is hard to see either Newman or Abbott surviving. Both have behaved in a similar, stupid way, imagining you can get away with barefaced lies; imagining sacked people will forget the pain of their ruined lives and vote for you anyway.

read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/newman-and-ab...

Former Queensland premier Campbell Newman has echoed Tony Abbott’s criticism of the media in helping set what he said was a “template” for political coverage that led to their downfalls.

Newman decried the advent of a “reality TV” style scenario in which the community, mainstream and social media, and politicians themselves, were complicit in leading political debate into “a cold dark place”.

In an interview for an upcoming ABC Landline program, Newman said he partly blamed his shock election loss this year on members of the media colluding with his opponents to portray him as “a bad person” rather than questioning his policies.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/18/campbell-newman-says-media-partly-to-blame-for-his-queensland-election-loss

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A raw analysis would show that most of the media (70 per cent) in Queensland supported Campbell Newman...

Another analysis would show that 75 per cent of the media supported Tony Abbott...

Another analysis would show that 95 per cent of the media was against Julia Gillard, mostly because she was a woman, a red-head, an atheist, an unmarried woman, living in sin, had an annoying voice and had a fat bum. Welcome to the media Mr Newman...