In case you hadn't heard, there's quite a big oil spill off the Queensland coast, affecting first Moreton Island, and now some of the nicest beaches on the Sunshine Coast.
You can't blame the Labor government for that, but I suspect the very slow and bureaucratic reaction to the clean up is quite likely to be the final nail in the coffin of the Anna Bligh government at the forthcoming election:
Indeed.The Sunshine Coast Regional Council on the south-east Queensland coast has been ordered to stop the clean-up of 8.5 kilometres of beaches that have been coated in fuel oil that leaked from the ship Pacific Adventurer.
The ABC has learned that Maritime Safety Queensland has told the council it is inappropriate to use machinery on the beach to clean up the oil slick and that staff should use hand tools.
Sunshine Coast Mayor Bob Abbot says he can not understand the ruling.
"We're just thinking that's a bit ridiculous," he said.
Mark Bahnisch says today that Labor is in deep trouble. That's good. There really was no way that Labor deserved to win the last election, but a hopeless performance by the Liberals in particular just meant that people couldn't bring themselves to vote for the Opposition.
The timing of this election for the LNP is good. The awful situation in the Bundberg public hospital with wildly over-enthusiastic surgeon Patel, although known before the last election, is in the news again thanks to his commital trial. The Health Minister made himself sound a completely insensitive idiot by saying he should be the one receiving an apology following a long delayed report on how one of his nurses came to be raped. (The core security problem is also still to be fixed!) The police minister Judy Spence has always looked and sounded incompetent. The 30 year old Treasurer Andrew Fraser might be a smart guy for all I know, but it's not a good look to be in that position just as your State's finances take a nosedive, no matter whose fault it is.
Anna Bligh is trying to keep all the attention on herself, but she doesn't have the same roguish appeal of Peter Beattie. (Although, that said, it's hard to imagine him being able to overcome the "it's time" factor of this election either.) Her appearances with Prime Minister Rudd, who manages to maintain popularity by sending voters large cheques every 3 months, do not seem to be doing the trick.
A surprising number of people that I know who generally appear to be Labor inclined have said that they don't mind Lawrence Springborg. (In fact, they seem to like him more than I do.) I think he just has to pretty much keep his head down and he's in.
I suspect that most people will vote with the attitude that the LNP could not do any worse, and it is time for a break from Labor. It's not an unreasonable way of looking at it.
And it is, of course, always a delicious irony that it's Labor that keeps putting up women Premiers who promptly go on to lose government as soon as they have to face the electorate. (Maybe they will eventually cotton on that they should put one up as leader of the Opposition first and let them get into power that way.)
People of Queensland: let's keep up this proud Australian tradition. It is fun to annoy electioneering feminists, after all.
2 comments:
I'm still doubtful, since, as someone pointed out on Tim Blair's website, the LNP need to achieve a 7 per cent swing towards them, right across the state, and the Greens are (predictably) trying to punish the LNP for various policies they dislike by directing their preferences to Labor.
However, I know very little about the general attitude to the Bligh Government in Queensland and as you say, this spill really could be the nail in the coffin of Bligh and the Labor team.
Then again, considering the freaking appalling state of the economy and the hospitals, the arrogant way Labor treated local councils in their recent restructure, and what you mention, I guess that could help a lot.
That refusal to apologise by the health minister really is freakishly stupid.
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