Tonight’s crop of election stories encapsulates a lot of what’s wrong with the Labor campaign.
Premier Anna Bligh appeared on the news talking authoritatively about Cyclone Hamish, but then undercut her own “in command” posture by the on and off talk about “suspension of the campaign” and by taking a partisan swipe at The Borg. The impression left won’t be helped by later reports that she’s taken Crown Law advice on her responsibilities during a caretaker period. It hardly paints the picture she’d want of a strong leader at the helm during a period of potential disaster, putting people before politics.
The second big election story of the day was a series of health initiatives funded federally. Essentially, this is the “lock step with Rudd” strategy long predicted coming into play again, but it hasn’t been reinforced with the obvious political point that health had problems because of a previously uncooperative federal Coalition government. Voters are left with no explanation as to why health is in a state requiring urgent injections of additional funding, not even Peter Beattie’s standard lines about population growth and the evils of Southerners (matched with the simultaneous demonstration of the wonders of Queensland). Meanwhile, the largely confected LNP outrage about the Royal Children’s Hospital was left without any effective rebuttal.
The health announcement probably should have been left until after the cyclone has subsided anyway, particularly since its impact will be lost and its timing questioned – after Bligh undercut her own announcement with talk about the “suspension” of campaigning. A lot of voters will be suspending their belief.
All this suggests that Labor is trying to be a bit more flexible – recognising that just because they say the election should be about economic management, it doesn’t mean that voters aren’t angry about services. But there’s no compelling story about why Labor – after eleven years – should be trusted to fix the problems. And we’re still seeing a sort of “campaign by numbers” approach. Today’s issue was health, pity about that cyclone, oh well… It’s not a good look.
Elsewhere: Graham Young has a similar take on the own goal of the “on and off suspension”.
40 Comments
I don’t think people are listening to Bligh anymore. She can announce X billion/million at every hospital in the state over the next two weeks, and voters will say “yeah right”. It also makes you think even she realises there is a problem with health when she has to go and splash Rudd’s money around like that.
I though the plan to indefinitely have Public Patients go Private at the governments expense looked really bad. It showed that the system is obviously broken. The government may as well pay for health insurance for us all as the public system can’t help us.
Bligh certainly can’t spin and BS at election time like Beattie. She is just lucky to be the Labor person in the right faction at the right time to be premier.
Of Course they are not listening to Bligh at the moment, joelunch, they have all got their ear to the ground for any signs of fully costed promises from the Nationals. But so far all we have is deafening silence on the Redcliffe Railway, the Toowoomba bypass, Coory to Curra Road etc,etc.
Well Bligh is just passing on her debt, I mean election promises to her Socialist Party mate Rudd to pay out of Federal coffers. Surely that funding isn’t conditional on Bligh being in power. That would be a bit biased. Springborg could just start splashing that cash around.
Well splash the cash around but let’s see the accounting for all their promises before the election. That will be the breaking point of this election. At the moment all we have seen from the Nationals is empty, noncore, unfunded promises.
How are they going to pay for this one!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/09/2510917.htm
A 3% Efficiency dividend and sacking public servants apparently.
The public servants need to be sacked in this state as they are full of Southern garpetbaggers.
Steve could you please refer to the Nationals as the new look LNP so voters in Queensland aren’t confused.
Paul N, you can change the name as much as you like, but at the end of the day they are still the bloody Nationals.
They changed their name from the Country Party to the Nationals in 1974 and know as of last year they are the LNP.
They already are confused Paul’, didn’t the Nationals takeover the Liberals in a hostile takeover? Should we begin calling Bluescope, BHP and xstrata, MIM, ? Just so there is no confusion.
It wasn’t hostile everyone accepting that this was the best way forward for Queensland.
Was that why there was a Supreme Court challenge on the eve of the takeover by the Liberals to try to stop the merger going ahead?
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24074748-952,00.html
What was Mal Brough’s opinionon of the merger?
Glem Milne seems to think the LNP is just a confederarion of warring tribes. Maybe he’s right.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25157127-7583,00.html
No, they are closeknit National Party now GG. Forged together by a reluctance to fund promises.
Mal was against it.
The Southern attempt to scuttle the merger failed former Queensland Liberals who remember their partys original origin in this state as the Queensland Peoples Party are happy to be under the LNP banner to provide Queenslanders with a better state.
Funny that the merged party now has a few thousand members less than at the merger too.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24215736-2702,00.html?from=public_rss
They’ve got no money to form another political party this is an old debate why go over it the LNP is here to stay whether you intelletuals like it or not.
Remember Steve the Former Queensland Nationals paid for all the debts the former Queensland Liberals were libel for. To set up a new political party you need money and lots of it so unless you southerners are going to do some fundraising its just pie in the sky talk.
Depends how bad the blood letting is if they can’t find enough Indys to support them making up the numbers to form an unstable minority government really, Paul.
Even if the LNP loses the election theres no way the LNP will break up its too important for Queenslands future particularly in another tier of government.
Oh, good one Paul, so the Treasurer will be from the bedt ridden faction of the merger, will he?
Stop being so intellectual Steve – just agree with Paul its easier!
Last I heard the LNP has 14,000 members. How many does Labor have in QLD or other states?
The QLD Socialist Party is scared as this has brought out former Libs and Nats who were inactive to join the new LNP. This is why the LNP has been blitzing the Socialist Party in the number of info booths out for months before Christmas. In our area the Socialists just started getting out last week, and they have a sitting member…
Should we be referring to the socialists as teambeattie still?
Remember this one?
http://www.teambeattie.com/
The socialists are trying to disown it now.
joelunch,
Any source for the 14,000 member assertion? Or, did you just make it up?
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This thread should be reserved for comments that are directly related to the topic of the post, or arise directly from it through further discussion.
Meanwhile, the largely confected LNP outrage about the Royal Children’s Hospital was left without any effective rebuttal….
While the LNP are happy to have a wedge for the government, this is a real outrage, rather than a confected one. The plan to have a single hospital of paediatric excellence has been railroaded by budget constraints, so that a huge amount of money will be spent to get less service than we have now. The ALP are hoping that their intransigence on this issue will be forgiven, but I am aware of voters in our inner city Brisbane electorate who are planning to vote the Liberals ahead of the ALP for the first time ever.
Thanks, andy.
Can you provide any links demonstrating the claim that services will decline? I’m not expressing scepticism per se – just that I don’t trust the AMA as far as I can throw them to present an objective view on this issue.
There used to be bi-partisan support for a single pediatric hospital, it was ALP and L-NP policy at the last election.
The only debate that should be happening is where is the best place for the Hospital to be located. Not the crud that we should have two.
The LNP need to provide some kind of evidence that the Mater site is inferior, they cannot.
The AMAQ has said that it respects the decision.
http://www.amaq.com.au/index.php?action=view&view=36082&pid=1139
An epetition was launched by Shadow Minister McArdle that had the candidate for Brisbane Central as the lead petitioner.
http://www.lnp.org.au/lnp-media-releases/lnp-state-media-releases/lnp-launches-save-the-royal-childrens-e-petition.html
Leigh Atkinson on the so-called “closure”:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24823882-5012449,00.html
I just saw one of the Borg’s ads on channel ten. “Labor will close the Royal Children’s Hospital, the LNP will save it”. Unsurprisingly, no mention of the alternative plan. It’s highly disingenuous, at best.
Mark,
As well as the statements found here: http://www.smarthospitals.com.au/The-Facts.html , I have been made aware of several other issues:
1. there is no provision for specialist paediatric emergency services supported by co-located inpatient beds anywhere on the northside;
2. several speciality units are to be inappropriately housed e.g. the EEG department, measuring brain electrical activity, is next to the air conditioning plant, which is expected to interfere with the detection capacity of the unit; the gastroenterology unit, of fewer than a dozen doctors, will be split over three floors;
3. specialist medical staff will be housed in open plan offices, providing real problems with patient confidentiality;
4. access to the site at South Brisbane is already problematic, prior to this construction;
5. calculation of “equivalent” bed numbers by the government has included daytime chairs for the provision of chemotherapy and haemodialysis for the new hospital but not the old;
6. despite superior breadth and depth of pathology services at Herston, Mater pathology has been granted the contract for the QCH.
I do not argue that any of these issues are insurmountable, but successive drafts of the plan for the QCH have had diminshing space, driven by cost. The “alternative plan” of increased funding for emergency services at suburban departments without inpatient beds is a classic election promise, easy to say, but difficult to make work.
Thanks for that, andy. I really don’t know enough about the intricacies of the issue to be in a position to judge.
Here’s a more recent Leigh Atkinson story:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25156645-5018787,00.html
I’ll still argue that the LNP’s campaign on this is highly deceptive, because it implies that Labor is closing the RCH without any alternative.
Here’s an interesting one about the Liberals wanting to change the Federal Consitution of the Party to stop state mergers.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25163720-5006786,00.html