Anna Bligh

We’re off to the polls on 24 March. If you’re confused about what’s happening in Queensland with our State election, I’d like to help confuse you more.

The biggest complicating factor for the Queensland General Election, which is due before the end of March was the local government elections were due on 31 March. That left Premier Bligh with either dates of 18 or 24 February, or get mixed up in Easter or wait until May and by then she wouldn’t have a mandate.

The Electoral Commission Queensland has asked repeatedly for a six-week buffer between the two general elections. To her credit, Premier Bligh has respected that and shunted the local government elections to April or May and scheduled the General Election for 24 March.

Continue reading "The QLD election decoded" »

Are you reading this piece using wi-fi? You wouldn’t be if Australian scientists had not invented technology that wirelessly connects computers, TV sets and phones across the planet.

Australian science has led to the development of Relenza – the first drug successful in treating the flu -  meaning that fewer Australians suffer or die from it every year. In a typical Australian winter, around 1,500 deaths are attributed to the influenza virus.

Australian science has given us climate-ready crops. Crops that will make sure families can continue to place basic food items on the table despite changing weather patterns. Crops that give us wheat to export when other nations fall short, and that keep our balance-of-trade figures looking vaguely respectable.

Continue reading "Science; it’s not just lab coats and specimen jars" »

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh called it ``the New South Wales disease’’ where the leadership of the ALP, even in office, became a revolving door decided by faceless factional heavies.

Last Saturday, the NSW branch of the party, the source of that ``disease’’ and the biggest single brick in the Labor wall, crashed to the ground. The 16-year-old government, led defiantly by Kristina Keneally, was not merely defeated, it was humiliated. The backlash was unprecedented in its ferocity with voters dishing out the worst defeat of any government in Australian electoral history.

Facing a state election within a year, Anna Bligh, of course, is desperate to stop the rot at the Tweed River. But she may not be able to hold back the tide. Fear in Labor ranks is now giving way to panic just as conservatives are rubbing their hands. In a world of diminished party loyalty, instant information, social media, and a borderless 24-hour media cycle, Labor’s hardheads worry that the old boundaries between states, and even between levels of government are blurring.

Continue reading "Will Bligh be the next domino to fall?" »

The Liberal-National Party in Queensland is planning something so ballsy that it leaves Tony Abbott’s Speedos - and his perceived political mileage of wearing them - looking a little empty.

Queensland’s Conservatives are in meltdown today as Campbell ``Messiah’’ Newman announced he would resign from his post as Brisbane Lord Mayor and run for a state seat in the next election.

Newman will run a US Presidential-like campaign by standing as the Leader of the LNP after he is pre-selected (already a done deal), despite not being elected to Parliament.

Continue reading "Newman’s huge Hail Mary play for Queensland’s top job" »

Anyone who works in corporate communications or PR will be familiar with the famous Tylenol case in the 1980s, when Johnson and Johnson immediately withdrew all its products and reinvented its packaging after a deranged extortionist killed seven people by lacing the painkiller with cyanide.

In years to come, Anna Bligh’s management of the Queensland flood and cyclone crisis will stand as a comparable case study in how political leaders should best handle a natural disaster.

In the past two weeks, and particularly this week, Bligh has created a new template for political communication. It’s been based around honesty, decisiveness and plain speech. It’s been based around saying what government can do, and what it cannot do.

Continue reading "No-bullshit Bligh sets a new standard for politicians" »

4PM UPDATE: SEE BELOW FOR DAVID’S PICS FROM MAGNETIC ISLAND TODAY

Regular Punch reader and commenter David Pierce spent the night in his weatherboard home on Magnetic Island, 8km off Townsville, bunkered down against the fury of Cyclone Yasi with his wife and two children.

“My darkest moment came when the wind shifted and stuff was breaking up and hitting the house,” he told The Punch this morning. “The worst part was not knowing what was hitting the house.”

Fortunately, Pierce and his family got though the night. (Check the wind gusts at a nearby weather station on this link). And as he spends today cleaning up the debris in his yard, he has no doubt why Yasi’s human toll has been so low.

Continue reading "Survivor’s tale: over-warned is better than under-prepared" »

For reasons which are difficult to fathom, Julia Gillard has found herself on the receiving end of some particularly torrid criticism over her response to the Queensland flood crisis.

Much of it is undoubtedly coming from those who already dislike the Prime Minister and will seize on any event or issue to run her down. But some of it appears to be coming from people who have no real interest in politics, no ideological axe to grind, but who have found themselves left cold by the PM’s performance this week.

Julia Gillard has been criticised for smiling too much, not looking sad enough; at the same time, she’s been accused of affecting a hang-dog expression aimed at contriving a sense of concern, talking in a matronly monotone which makes her sound rehearsed and insincere.

Continue reading "Gillard still struggling to shake the fake tag" »

The worst thing which can be said about a politician in a time of crisis is that they are trying to cash in on a tragedy for electoral gain.

Only the most miserable cynic could make such an assertion against the Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, whose performance this week has been dutiful, sober and workmanlike as she has kept her state and the rest of the nation up to date with the latest on the flood situation.

After Kristina Keneally in NSW, who also faces an election this year, Anna Bligh is the least popular state leader in Australia and is just as likely as her NSW counterpart to be removed by the voters when her government goes to the polls. Perhaps it’s for this reason that Bligh has adopted such a bullshit-free approach in her handling of these appalling floods, acting like a person who knows she probably won’t be around much longer, and would like to be remembered for at least doing the right thing during such an extraordinary crisis.

Continue reading "How Anna Bligh, politician, acted just like a human" »

There’s nothing like the smell of desperation in the air and it’s never more obvious than when it’s wafting over the actions of our politicians.

The last three months of the year are traditionally known for their hectic pace, high levels of stress and a general push to “tie up” any niggling issues of national interest in time for the New Year.

But if the activities of our world leaders over the past six weeks are anything to go by, you’d be forgiven for thinking they’ve been willing to do practically anything (even other people’s jobs) just to avoid the pressures of doing their own.

Continue reading "The overpowering whiff of political desperation" »

THE evaporation of Queensland Premier Anna Bligh’s hopes of building the Traveston Dam could end up being her Waterloo.

But last week’s intervention by Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett to scuttle the controversial $1.6 billion dam planned for the Mary Valley, north of Brisbane, citing ecological concerns, also has wider political and planning implications across Australia.

Unlike the protests against Tasmania’s Franklin River dam project in the 1980s where generating hydro-electricity was the primary motive, the Traveston is a portent of battles likely to be waged around the country involving choices between protecting the environment and supplying drinking water to keep pace with urban growth.

Continue reading "Will Traveston Dam be Anna Bligh’s Waterloo?" »

Tegan Leach has become the unwitting “it” girl for abortion reform in Queensland. Unwitting, because who would have knowingly decided to sign up for the sort of exposure that has been thrust on this Cairns teenager, all because she made a choice thousands of women have made before her to abort a baby she knew she was not ready to care for.

However, the charge she faces is that she allegedly did not do it through the proper channels.

Tegan is expected to sell her story exclusively to a women’s magazine when the dust has finally settled on this case and she is legally able to speak freely outside of court, for hers is a case that has opened a hornet’s nest of debate about the rights or wrongs of do-it-yourself drug-induced abortions in Australia and women’s ability to access them.

Continue reading "The story that has put abortion back in the dock" »

In Cairns, a young Queensland woman faces the prospect of up to seven years prison for something that over 14 000 women do every year in this state alone - for having an abortion. Her partner faces three years prison for assisting her.

Once-was-feminist-campaigner and now Premier of Queensland, Anna Bligh is at pains to try and convince us that the charges are not related to abortion, but rather to do with the way in which the abortion took place.

Premier Bligh has feigned concern about the case – “tragic” she calls it. The Premier is a hypocrite. Her government could act immediately to bring an end to the trauma that this young couple is facing. But not only have they refused to act – they have done everything they can to further add to the isolation of the young couple.

Continue reading "Bligh is a hypocrite on Queensland abortion law" »

Alright I’m calling it now: Penny Wong will be a contestant on the next series of Dancing with the Stars.

Well actually that’s not true, but the scary thing is I bet you didn’t know whether that was a joke or not.

With news this morning that Queensland Premier Anna Bligh is going to be a contestant on Celebrity MasterChef this country has entered a bizarre dimension that has further blurred the line between politicians, network celebrities and reality tv stars.

Continue reading "Politics is not a gameshow" »

WOULD Queenslanders ever agree to their state being abolished? No way, you might say, particularly in the season that the state is in the box seat to seal its fourth consecutive series win in state of origin football.

Well, think again. A Galaxy poll in The Courier-Mail today shows two-thirds of Queenslanders think they’re being over governed. And more than half of those think the state should be first to go, followed by local councils and, finally, Canberra.

Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen would be spinning in his grave.

Continue reading "Abolish Queensland ... the government, that is" »