I generally don't pay too much attention to State politics, but my reaction to Labor losing at the weekend is one that I reckon is pretty widely shared:
a. It was definitely due to a combination of the "it's time" factor and a huge amount of media attention give to crime and youth justice over the last couple of years.
b. To be honest, the media attention to crime has been deserved, despite it also obviously playing into the hands of conservative politics. Part of the reason I say that is because the type of crime that attracts a lot of attention (stolen cars for joy rides, often causing huge danger on roads) is one that is exasperatingly pointless and stupid. It's not like we're dealing with the starving stealing food to live on.
c. If you are going to have a Liberal/National Party leader in Queensland, you could do much, much worse than David Crisafulli. He is striking me as pretty moderate in tone, and somewhat similar to Labor's Chris Mins in New South Wales in that he claims to be more into pragmatic approaches and not too ideologically driven?
d. This will be a real test of how difficult it can be governments to quickly get on top of a wave of pointless and stupid crime in a hurry, and whether criminologists will get any real input and/or be proved right or wrong with their forecasts. Interestingly, the ABC is today running a story about the inability of the tough talking Northern Territory government to handle the existing number of prisoners, let alone any increase the approach of the new conservative government may get.
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