As evidenced by the regularly increasing number of federal seats that Qld is entitled to, the population has been increasing rapidly over the last few years. Most of that population growth has occurred in the south east corner, primarily in Sunshine Coast / Pine Rivers and Gold Coast / Albert regions.

Some other areas such as Brisbane City, Cairns and Townsville have also been growing very quickly. Other areas have struggled to keep up with the average growth rate, and yet others, primarily in the bush and the non-coastal areas of Far North Queensland (excepting around Kuranda) are falling way behind.

What this comes down to as that two or three (probably three) seats from outside the SEQ growth area need to be abolished to allow for three new seats to be created. These new seats would be in the Sunshine Coast / Pine Rivers area (probably two) and Gold Coast / Albert region (probably one).

The Liberal Party has opportunistically suggested that the one One Nation seat (Tablelands in Far North Queensland) & one Independent seat (Nanango in South East Queensland), and one ALP seat (Fitzroy in Central Queensland), be abolished to allow for the creation of three new seats in South East Queensland

In my view the Liberals have sited very questionable reasons for the selection of those seats for abolition, excepting perhaps Tablelands, which I had also independently selected as one of my choices prior to seeing the Liberal Party submission. Further consideration however, based on the detailed submissions made by Mr R.J. (Bob) Richardson of Gordonvale leads me to believe that Tablelands should not be abolished (of which more in a future post).

The National Party submission is fairly similar to that of the Liberal submission, the main difference being that the National Party argue for the abolition of only two seats instead of three. They also suggested Tablelands and Fitzroy as the seats to be abolished, but not Nanango, which presumably they think that they can regain in the near future.

At least the Liberal Party put a lot of work into their submission. The ALP’s ‘effort’ is a disgrace in my view, and appears to have hastily cobbled together in half an hour before knock off time on a Friday afternoon. To make matters worse, the ALP couldn’t apparently be bothered to make any follow up comments at all, unlike the Liberals and Nationals and various other private contributors such as the aforementioned Mr Richardson, who went to considerable and commendable effort to make very detailed submissions and comments.

For anyone with the time and interest to read Mr Richardson’s work, I suggest that you read his comments before you read his actual submission, as it will then be easier to understand the considerable detail of his submission. It is well worth the effort. Mr Richardson’s comments begin a few pages from the start of the second comments link on the QEC page.

The cut-off for public comments on the original public submissions to the QEC has now passed. The comments are now available for perusal on the QEC website, (2 links) just under the original submissions, (4 links) about a third of the way down this page… http://www.ecq.qld.gov.au/asp/index.asp?pgid=375

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/01/22/the-borg-returns/

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23096810-3102,00.html

http://nebuchadnezzarwoollyd.blogspot.com/2008/01/born-again-borg-lawrence-springborg.html

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/libs-nats-commit-to-merger/2008/01/22/1200764234092.html

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23077623-3102,00.html

You are right…would it be out of the question to create a coalition of independents to reshape the political landscape?

Maybe fed from the national boy who is still wet behind the political ears?

I’m not sure that democracy will be served under the so called political two party system.

To progress, maybe the ideology needs a shift.

What the conservatives need is not a united party (cos it would never be united anyway) but some decent leadership and ideas. If they think that just by combining their assets the electorate will follow them they’ve got rocks in their head.

It’s the only way to escape the culture.

Leave the rednecks on the outer.