Newmania: the Six Million Dollar Choice

Just hours into the campaign, the Queensland Government’s Strong Choices is being revealed as the shallow PR stunt it is. Public Relations lecturers across the country must be rubbing their hands together with glee; errors like this are such rich learning opportunities.

Strong Choices is a six million dollar campaign intended to fool Queensland voters into believing that they are being consulted about the next Queensland Budget. Underpinning that cynical, warm-and-fuzzy intent, the government hopes that voters will understand the tough choices involved in governing and view the LNP government more sympathetically in the lead up to next year’s state election. The inclusion of Asset Sales, while a valid solution, is also a deliberate attempt to soften voters’ attitudes to the same issue which brought down the Bligh government two years ago.

Strong Choices consists of an online survey, with feedback stations in two major Brisbane shopping centres, and a tour through Queensland to “listen to” locals. The premise is that voters will complete the survey or visit the feedback stations, and build their ideal budget, complete with tax increases, savings, and asset sales. The whole thing is backed up with an advertising campaign and social media presence, at a cost of about $6 million dollars. 

Having said that, the website itself denies that it is a survey of any kind:

The People’s Budget is not a survey or a poll. Your responses here will be a fundamental part of an unprecedented consultation process that is already going on across Queensland. It will also include roundtable meetings with community leaders, open community forums and virtual town hall gatherings open to the public, hosted by the Treasurer, Tim Nicholls.

Make of that what you will.

Under the guise of ‘promoting economic literacy’ the online survey asks respondents to select from lists of tax increases, service cutbacks and asset sales to reach a level of debt reduction which has been predetermined by the government. Then, if you reach the approved level where you start to save on interest payments, you can select which areas you want to spend the savings on.

Side by side with the non-survey is a section called “Online Written Submission”, where respondents can write a few sentences about various potential tax increases, programme cuts and asset sales, rather than selecting a yes/no response. There is also a downloadable submission form with the same format as the online survey. All response methods are aligned with the same sub-headings and choices.

It sounds impressive, and as a piece of website design, it is. As a campaign, it’s Swiss Cheese.

Here’s where it fails.

Firstly, the name is a problem. Anything that ends with the word Choices just reminds people of WorkChoices, and that concept is still on the nose. Whoever would’ve thought that a government – any government in Australia – would have been stupid enough to mount a political campaign with a name that includes the word “choices”? It's code for "we don't care about you". With that stench of the Howard Government’s WorkChoices in 2007 still fresh, it was a courageous choice.

Then there’s the online survey itself - and I will call it a survey because that's what it is. The website worked for me, which is about all it has to recommend it. Survey respondents are encouraged to believe that the options listed within the survey are not necessarily under consideration by the government, but that's a tough sell in a hostile political environment. When commentators are talking daily about the federal Budget, it's unlikely that people will assume that the People's Budget - part of Strong Choices - is not even on the maybe pile until 2015.

Speaking of budgets, the Queensland Budget for 2014-2015 is due to be brought down on June 3. That’s less than two months from now. Major decisions about the Budget will be well and truly made by now. It’s unlikely that major changes will be made less than two months out, and virtually impossible to make changes between the end of the campaign on May 19, and the date on which the budget is due, just a couple of weeks later.

I challenged Queensland Treasurer Tim Nicholls about the timing issue via Twitter. He responded

“Choices will form part of a draft plan to be released with the Budget. They are not intended to feed into 2014-15 Budget.”

Okay, so Strong Choices is not about the 2014-15 Budget. All we'll get this year is a draft plan. I’ll accept that on face value, although I imagine a lot of people looking at the survey will assume that it is far more important than it really is. It also raises questions about the wording of a Facebook post to launch the campaign:

“Today, we are announcing the Strong Choices Campaign, an Australian first encouraging Queenslanders to participate in a People’s Budget. Between now and May 19^th we will be travelling around our great State and talking about the debt issues we are facing, listening to your thoughts and opinions on the #StrongChoices we need to make to get our $80 billion dollar debt under control.”

The post doesn’t state that the results of the campaign will feed into this year’s budget, but the suggestion is there…and if it doesn’t feed into this year’s budget it must be for the next major event on the Queensland political calendar, and that’s the 2015 election. Is Strong Choices is poorly disguised research effort from the LNP?

We’re not supposed to notice that the list of preferences for taxes to increase, services to cut and assets to be sold is a list predetermined by the government, either. Other than a small comment box at the end of the online survey, there is no opportunity to make your own suggestions. That's true of all three formats. Facebook comments already indicate that many respondents are writing in their own budget cut: axe politicians’ pay rises.

And if you happen to be a number cruncher who disagrees with the government's calculation of how far to cut, Strong Choices doesn't give you any option at all.

There are reports on Facebook that there are some technical issues: some people have been unable to submit their surveys while others have been able to submit their responses more than once, skewing the results in the process. In the lexicon of campaign sins, releasing a 'buggy' campaign website is pretty close to the top.

Also from Facebook, there are reports that comments critical of the government which were posted on the Strong Choices Facebook page have been deleted. That should not be surprising when the same occurs on King Campbell’s official Facebook Page.

The absolute clanger of Strong Choices is the fact that in order to enact any of the recommendations which could’ve come out of this campaign, Campbell Newman and his band of merry LNP MPs will need to win the next state election…and it appears that Strong Choices is one of the tools they’re using to do that. Isn’t that what Excel would call a Circular Reference?

Congratulations to the LNP Spin Team for such a valiant effort. Few organisations manage to include quite so many misleading cues as this single mis-named effort. It’s just a damned shame that Queensland taxpayers are parting with six million dollars for a campaign that should be funded by the LNP, and which will produce results that are unreliable at best.

Next time I decide to do the Strong Choices survey, I must remember to include the Strong Choices Campaign as a way to cut costs.

Newmania: Show Them the Money

Nobody outside the world of politics has ever been told that they have to accept a colossal pay rise. It doesn’t happen. There are always too many competing priorities and too little cash. People tend to land at the end of the queue, regardless of the employee friendly “value statements” that adorn corporate office walls.

I know a bit about substantial pay rises. Last year, I received one, but let me explain what happened before the pay rise was awarded.

• ·         Over a period of years I took on more and more responsibility.
• ·         I moved well outside my comfort zone.
• ·         I volunteered to take on more challenging projects.
• ·         I taught myself to use three new software programmes and coached others.
• ·         Every year for three years, I requested a formal salary review.
• ·         Every year for three years I provided updated information on average salaries for people doing similar jobs to mine.
• ·         I requested the opportunity to study for a diploma in my chosen field.
• ·         I undertook that study and gained significant expertise, new tools and professional confidence.
• ·         Finally, I withdrew my labour for a few days.

When my managers were able to convince their managers (oh, the madness of a vertical organisational structure!) that my salary might not be in line with the work I was undertaking, things moved surprisingly fast.

The HR Department had to review and regrade my job, using a tool called the Hay Grade, a methodology used to evaluate job roles. As methodologies go, it’s not perfect, but it’s the one that was used. It turns out that I was right. I was awarded a whopping pay rise, backdated nine months. 

Now my pay rise was not of the same magnitude as those awarded to Queensland state politicians last week. King Campbell will enjoy a 21.8% increase to his annual salary, taking it to $379,562, and it will be backdated to July 2013. His back pay alone will amount to almost $50,000 (before tax).

In fairness, King Campbell did not award this to himself. The Queensland Independent Remuneration Tribunal reached this number, deciding that his salary should be within range of Chief Executive Officers of other NGOs. The Tribunal was formed when Acting Premier Jeff Seeney unblinkingly accepted a 41% increase, which would have taken the Premier’s salary to within shouting distance of President Obama’s salary – and far beyond that in any other Australian state Premier.  That 41% was subsequently howled down by Queenslanders, still reeling from a year of brutal Public Service job cuts. 

After the furore last year over the initial pay rise, care has been taken circulate the talking points to all and sundry, with government ministers all banging on about the “independence” of the independent tribunal, as if “independent” is synonymous with “fair”, “justified” or “deserved”. I don't think the LNP MPs will be willing to negotiate over this one.

I can’t help thinking back to my own experience, and the parameters on which I was assessed. While my role had developed significantly over the years, Campbell Newman’s role as premier has not changed. Therefore the only basis for increasing his salary is to bring it into line with other Australian states.

Having said that, surely every salary adjustment must take job performance into account. This week’s ReachTel Poll saw only 34.8% of respondents rating Mr Newman’s performance as Very Good or Good. His plan to allow Queensland doctors to resign and be replaced if they don’t sign new contracts has just 14.9% support. It looks as though his job performance rating doesn't support a pay rise.

The most telling question of all, the one that deals with the public’s perception of Mr Newman’s performance, was this: 

If an election were held today, regardless of who you would vote for, do you believe the Newman government has demonstrated that it would deserve to be re-elected on the basis of its actions over the last 2 years?

57.3% of respondents said no.

Just a year out from the next state election, the LNP should enjoy their oversize pay rises, as it appears that many of them might be looking for new jobs from about this time next year.

PostScript: Queensland’s tiny contingent of Labor MPs are against the pay rise, even though Labor Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk would have received an even larger salary increase than the Premier received.

Newmania: Must Try Harder

I’m not a constitutional lawyer, and yet I sit here, reading Section 96 of the Constitution of Australia, and pondering at the level of sheer arseholery enacted in its name.

This morning I had the pleasure of coffee and a chat with the Member for Chatsworth, Mr Steve Minnikin. Like most of Newmania’s state parliamentarians, he was launched to power in the electoral tsunami of 2012. It was always going to happen. Before the 2012 election, the seat of Chatsworth in Brisbane’s suburban south-east was the most marginal seat in the state. Mr Minnikin needed a swing the size of a gnat’s dick to be elected. He won the seat with a swing of 10.8%.

My meeting with Mr Minnikin was not so much a discussion around current state politics as it was a relaxed chat about life and politics and people. We were making peace from opposite sides of the political divide after a spiteful twitter exchange a month or so ago. We proved, if nothing else, that political opponents can be civil. 

Take note, Caaanbra; you can and must do better.

Mr Minnikin and I touched on one piece of policy though: I wanted to know how in the name of everything holy could King Campbell’s Government knock back $3.8 billion dollars in education funding – Gonski funding – from the federal government. It’s inconceivable to me that a state government which says it’s under critical financial pressure, and which is not delivering the results in education that we’d like, is refusing this colossal gift.

Let’s be honest: the only state doing consistently worse than Newmania in terms of education is the Northern Territory. It’s a record we in Newmania are rightly ashamed to hold.

The media (social and traditional) have dropped some hefty hints that King Campbell was refusing to accept Gonski on instruction from his mate Tony Abbott, in an attempt to undermine the Prime Minister’s record as the education reformer of the generation. That sounds plausible, right?

It seems that I was wrong.

Mr Minnikin referred me to Section 96 of the Australian Constitution, and made some fairly neutral sounding noises about a tug of war for power between the states and the Commonwealth. Section 96 looks like this:

During a period of ten years after the establishment of the Commonwealth and thereafter until the Parliament otherwise provides, the Parliament may grant financial assistance to any State on such terms and conditions as the Parliament thinks fit.

Strictly speaking, the Commonwealth has no designated constitutional power when it comes to school education. The states hold responsibility for education. Having said that, successive Commonwealth governments have dipped their oars into this area of state responsibility to the extent that now, the Gillard Government has high profile Peter Garrett as Minister for School Education. 

Sadly, the Newmanian Powers the Be have banned Mr Garrett from setting foot on public school grounds in Newmania, lest he use them as a stage from which to preach the merits of Gonski. (It could be worse - Mr Garrett could dance at the students.) In any case, that's a staggering political pissing competition when you consider that King Campbell is doing exactly what he's banned Mr Garrett from doing. Furthermore, Newmania's Education Minister, Prince Langbroek has admitted that Gonski would benefit around a thousand schools in his state.

One of the key points of the Gonski Review was the determination that management of schools was to remain with the states. Therefore, federal grants and monies offered would be administered by the state education authorities…but there are some strings. Those strings include changes in administration practices to address the issues of poor transparency and accountability which were identified in the Gonski Review.

Strangely, it is the existence of those strings provide the state’s exit plan. They are “Tied Grants”. If the state government doesn’t like any aspect of the Gonski package, including the amount of funding, the funding contribution expected of the states, the changes in administration practice, or even the fact that the Gonski reforms are being made by the Labor Government, they can refuse to accept the funding packing, and that's what they're doing. 

Let’s review this through the lens of the average voter who knows nothing about the Constitution of the Australia, and less about the detail of the Gonski reforms. More importantly, they don’t care. They want to know what’s in it for them, for their kids, grandkids and local schools. They have checked the Courier Mail and they know how much money is being allocated per school and they want their share of that.

There is $3.8 billion dollars sitting on the Gonski-shaped table and our state leader thinks that accepting that funding, making that commitment to improving the standard of education in Newmania is less important than maintaining a structural status quo.

And that is sheer bollocks.

Nothing is more important than improving the quality of education on offer in Queensland. Nothing.

Academic Bronwyn Hinz summarised the outcomes in her paper Schooling federalism: Gonski, Williams and reform prospects like this:

“…any change to schooling federalism will depend not only the federal structure and institutions, but also interacting political forces and opportunities, and entrenched patterns with cultural, political and economic aspects. Foremost among these, it seems, is pure politics.”

I believe that most politicians are, at their core, good people who want to make a positive difference in their community, their country or their state. Mr Minnikin and the rest of King Campbell’s Court can discuss Section 96 until their lips bleed and their ears fall off, but the choice is still their choice. Make that positive difference. Improve education outcomes for the children in this state, or don’t.

Everything else is just politics bullshit.

Newmania: Gonski

We have to talk about Gonski. We have to talk about what is happening to prepare the next generation for life. We have to talk about priorities.


We have to talk about King Campbell.

For reasons that I can’t begin to understand, King Campbell and his band of confused, overwhelmed ministers are planning to refuse $3.8 billion dollars from the federal government because Queensland can’t afford the $1.3 billion dollar state contribution that would be required under the Gonski reform plan.

Newmania’s Chancellor of the Money Bags, Tim Nicholls says that he’s already committed $835 million dollars of extra funding to education. By my calculations, that leaves just $465 million dollars to find. I was educated in New South Wales, so I did that calculation in my head.

In any case, Chancellor Money Bags will tell you that $465 million dollars is a whole lotta money, that would buy 465 hospital beds, almost 6,000 teachers or 9+ primary schools. It’s a trade-off. He says. I did those calculations in my head, too.


Here’s the reality: the Newmanian Government has decided that in a battle between a $5.1billion dollar investment in school education, including $3.8 billion of new federal government money, and $465 million of existing funds, the sane choice is to take the money we already have, rather than the gift we so badly need.

We need to improve education in this state. Last year, Newmanian students lagged behind the national average, and in some areas, behind minimum standards in NAPLAN testing. 

Education-wallah John-Paul thinks that it’s a minor detail and was able to find a lot of excuses for why our kids aren’t performing as well as they should. I’m sure Western Australia would like to know about our decentralised jusirdiction, and both Sydney and Melbourne will be fascinated by our diverse cultural mix.

In fairness, the NAPLAN results for Newmania had improved in many categories; we beat the Northern Territory…possibly because Newmanians don’t subject their children to the NT News each day...but that's for another day.

Again, as always, we must go back to the policy documents the LNP released and campaigned on prior to the last election. Unfortunately, the LNP has removed that document from their website, and basically reworked their entire website for the federal election five months from now. Fair enough too: Newmania has already made its mistake. If nothing else, may it serve as an example to others.

Back to the LNP website, though, and you’ll see, under Policies, a whole bunch of airy-fairy feel-good words that almost everyone of any political persuasion would have trouble ignoring:

In our view, government should achieve:

•A just and humane society, where those who cannot provide for themselves can live in dignity

•The family as the primary institution for fostering the values on which a cohesive society is built

•Equal opportunity for all Queenslanders in a tolerant and diverse society without exploitation

•The encouragement and facilitation of wealth so that all may enjoy the highest possible standards of living, health, education and social justice

•Preserving Australia’s natural beauty and the environment for future generations

•A spirit of patriotism in which all Australians are united in the common service of their country and accept the necessity of defending their nation in times of crisis or adversity

•A secure environment in which Australia is safe from aggression and plays its part in world security in defence of peace

Actually, the second dot point is a problem for me, but the rest of them are appropriately vague, warm and hairy. I’ve highlighted the fourth dot point, as it’s the only one that deals with education.

“The encouragement and facilitation of wealth…” the document says. I’d expect to see King Campbell running up the hill towards Caaanbra’s Parliament House, arms outstretched in fanatical encouragement of the fortune Prime Minister Gillard is offering. Okay, so the sticking point might mean that Chancellor Money Bags needs to do some fancy facilitation with $465 million to capture the prize. It’s worth it, isn’t it? Newmania’s kids are worth it, aren’t they?

Well, no, apparently they’re not.

The entire Education Spend in the last state budget was $10.7 billion. The Federal Government is offering to increase that by $3.8 billion, and we’re quibbling over $465 million. Excluding Gonski funding from the Federal Government, that’s 4.35% of the education budget. (I needed the calculator for that one.)

Put it another way: King Campbell is knocking back the opportunity to increase the state’s funding for education by 35.5% because it might cost him 4.35% of the original education budget.

Logic like this is why Newmania needs Gonski.

(And if you’re still not convinced, listen to him not answer Steve Austin’s questions on 612ABC Brisbane this morning!)

Newmania: Secret Squirrel Business

Thinking back 12 months, there was one LNP policy that I agreed with: the one about ensuring that the business of government was conducted openly, with transparency and accountability. Yes, it’s all of the big governance buzzwords crammed in together, but it means something, particularly in a state like Queensland which has no upper house to provide balance or oversight.


With the CMC in turmoil, it seems like time to revisit that pre-election promise and see just how King Campbell and his band of not-so merry ministers is doing in terms of being accountable to the people who elected them.

The page is gone...whooosh...although I did find the policy points below. It's unclear what they relate to, although it could be the detailed dot-points of the Accountability policy. I don't recall the detail.

In fact, the entire LNP website has been transformed from the website that included all of the Can Do policies for Queensland to a site featuring Tony Abbott and placing the Queensland LNP in a federal context. That makes sense – there’s a federal election in less than six months. Unfortunately that doesn’t help those of us who wanted to keep an eye on those pesky election promises. They’re not there.

Perhaps you remember the LNP’s five point Can Do Action Plan, and if not, the headlines are conveniently preserved on the new-look website. The five points were

o Grow a Four Pillar Economy

o Lower the cost of living for families by cutting waste

o Deliver Better Infrastructure and better planning

o Revitalise Front Line Services

o Restore Accountability in Government

  So what does this ‘accountability in Government’ policy mean? According to the website, it includes such flimsy concepts as

o CanDo LNP’s First 100 Days Plan

o A Public Service to Serve Queensland

o Empowering Queensland Communities

o Giving communities a choice on de-amalgamation

o Planning and reinstating the role of the Coordinator-General

I’m hard-pressed to see what any of those items have to do with the literal meaning of accountability as it applies to a democratically elected government. They could have called that policy grouping “F*cking Around with Queensland’s Government Structure” and it would have been as accurate and as enlightening.

Mercifully, the current website includes links that take you to the detail that was included in the original policy document…or so I had hoped. Instead, when I clicked the link, I was confronted absolutely nothing. The page has I was looking for, with details of the Accountability policy has not been loaded into the new-look LNP website. 

In fact, of the five major policy areas that the LNP themselves promoted in 2012, only one now links to anything more substantial than a slogan. Don’t be surprised that it’s the Queensland Economy page that has been preserved.



In the absence – deliberate or otherwise – of the LNP’s definition of an accountable government, I’ll try to define it: An accountable government is one which is transparent, responsive and ultimately answerable to the electorate.

That’s the kind of definition I envisaged when I first heard that "restoring accountability" was not just part of the LNP vocabulary, it was a key LNP policy. But where are we now, fifty-three weeks down a pretty unpleasant path? Do we have that accountable government I hoped for?

Queensland’s Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC), seems like a place to start and after today's shenanigans, I’d say not. The results of an in-depth enquiry into the CMC were released today, and part of the recommendations included these secret-squirrel suggestions:

 Abolish ethical standards units in Queensland government departments, replacing them with ‘responsible management’

 Give the state government the legal right to refuse access to documents, without having to supply a reason

 Prohibit the CMC from investigating any matters without the permission of the attorney- general

 Make it illegal for anyone, including people who have made a complaint, to talk about their complaint

That looks to me like a whole lot less transparency around the government, and if the electorate can't see what the government is doing, can't request enquiries without being silenced, can't access documents with certainty, and have no independent oversight within their government departments, how can they hold the government accountable for anything?
Perhaps they'll do better with accountability should they win the federal election in September. At least they'll have an upper house to keep the egos in check.

Newmania: Ticked Off

Last week, after the last of the turkey had been curried and the News Years hangovers had subsided, King Campbell’s Deputy the Honourable Jeff Squeemey and the media team released a statement trumpeting a successful six months during which the Newman Government had ticked off every item in their Six Month Action Plan. In the statement, the Honourable Mr Sqeemey said

“We promised Queenslanders that we would be a Government that acted on its commitments,” Mr Seeney said.

“We said we’d grow a four pillar economy, lower the cost of living for families, deliver better infrastructure and revitalise front-line services.

“Now the proof is there for Queenslanders to see that this is a government that actually does what it says it will do."

The media statement claims that there were 149 actions included in the original Six Month Action Plan, yet lists less than twenty of them, plus special mentions for the Bruce Highway upgrade – which has its own Action Plan – and the construction of 1 William Street, a gleaming new CBD high rise office tower also known as King Campbell’s Folly Mk III. (For interstate readers, his first two follies were the shunned Clem7 Tunnel and the mock-worthy City Cycle scheme, two of the visible scars of King Campbell’s years as Lord Mayor of Brisbane.)


Now King Campbell and his majority might be satisfied with a list of items ticked off a list. I’m not, so let’s take a look at a few of the items on the list in more detail.

Delivering a once-in-a-generation budget to set Queensland’s finances back on track

The Newmania Budget 2012 appeared to satisfy the Government’s need to get the state “back on track” but will ultimately fail due to a shortfall in revenue and a lot of crazy talk about a $100 billion dollar debt which doesn’t exist. Furthermore, the budget will be forever associated with the termination of 14,000 jobs from the Queensland Public Service, leaving many people and many departments bleeding. We can only hope that this was a once-in-a-generation budget; a repeat in 2013-14 would not be tolerated.

Attracting new aviation business and routes into Queensland from overseas

Supporting the Tourism industry is part of the infamous Four Pillar Economy, and in this area, the Government has been successful. Hawaiian Airlines are flying direct into Brisbane from Honolulu*, China Southern are flying into Brisbane ex-Guangzhou, and Etihad has increased the frequency of its flights from Brisbane to Abu Dhabi.

It’s not all good news in Brisbane’s aviation news though: Virgin Australia is considering relocating its headquarters away from Brisbane. Why? Because Virgin Australia has been locked out of tendering for Queensland regional air routes by the Newman Government who has supported renewing existing QantasLink contracts. This single decision may force a business employing thousands of Queenslanders to move interstate; at worse, it’s stopped the business from being able to grow here in its home state.

Amending the Racing Act to restructure Queensland’s racing industry

By mid-June 2012, two directors of Racing Queensland Limited had announced their resignation as a result of changes being proposed by the new Government. As with all restructures, some senior positions are being replaced with other positions with more buzzwords in their names. In the end, the work still needs to be done.

Planning has started on a $35.4 million dollar upgrade of the Gold Coast Turf Club, accounting for around one third of the Government’s $110 million dollar budget to upgrade racing across the state. This is not new money for the racing industry: former Premier Anna Bligh made the commitment on January 11 last year.

Expanding the Patient Travel Subsidy Scheme from 1 January 2013

King Campbell and Lawrence of Springborgia doubled of the Patient Travel Subsidy Scheme (PTSS) for to assist Queensland patients who are living in rural and remote areas and need to travel for medical treatment. As well as an accommodation subsidy, the mileage subsidy has also been increased from 15 cents per kilometre to 30 cents per kilometre.

By the way, the standard mileage allowance for government employees last year was between 66 and 71 cents per kilometre.

Encouraging construction growth by amending the Sustainable Planning Act

What used to be the IPA (Integrated Planning Act) became the SPA (Sustainable Planning Act) in 2007 to bring consistent sustainable planning practices throughout Queensland. King Campbell’s amendment, passed in November 2012, is to remove the minimum dollar value from the process, making it easier and more attractive for the construction industry to operate in Queensland. Construction is another one of King Campbell’s four pillars


Construction is doing well in Queensland, but despite the Marine Industrial Estate in Maryborough, the Sarina Barracks, Masters Everton Park and Costco at Northlakes, it is the tower at 1 William Street that keeps drawing focus. It’s big, it’s seen as frivolous, and it’s costing over $650 million dollars – an amount of money which seems impossible to justify when so many necessary programmes are being cut.

Delivering a 10 year strategy to upgrade the Bruce Highway

A strategy is important. Without one of those you don’t know where you’re going. In all fairness, it’s just a strategy and the Bligh Government released a comprehensive 20 Year Masterplan for the Bruce Highway in July 2011.

King Campbell did however commit almost $400 million to fast-track works on some of the worst areas of the Bruce Highway. The Federal Government met that funding commitment with another $400 million to enable work to commence.


Transferring responsibility for South Bank and Roma St Parklands to Brisbane City Council


I can’t help but wonder if, as Brisbane Lord Mayor, King Campbell was always a bit peeved that the South Bank precinct and the Roma Street Parklands weren’t his playgrounds to control. In any case, he’s transferring responsibility to his then 2IC Lord Mayor Quirk, along with millions of dollars to cover the additional costs to Brisbane City Council. King Campbell and his team believe that “local councils are best placed to determine what is right for their local communities.” King Campbell has promised to have the same close working relationship with each of the other 72 local councils in Queensland. He'll be busy.

A note to those other councils: be careful. Never forget the Clem7. Always remember those City Cycles.


Reforming the Local Government Act to empower local councils

In 2008, when the previous Beattie Labor Government forced through its plans to amalgamate close to 70% of local councils, you’d think the world was ending. Playing on lingering bitterness over the amalgamations, King Campbell and Jeff Squeemey promised to de-amalgamate communities that wanted their old councils and old identities back. It’s a long, complex process of recommendations and hearings and consultations and polls, but ultimately, local residents will make the decision.

Of the 73 existing councils, only four will vote on whether to de-amalgamate. Congratulations to King Campbell for re-opening the door on this issue; Congratulations also to former Premiers Beattie and Bligh and their teams for forming such a stable local government structure.

But King Campbell’s Local Government Legislative Reforms are far wider reaching than the single question of de-amalgamation, and covers a range of subjects from Rates, Charges and Fees to Council Transparency and Accountability to major new powers granted to the Local Government Minister and to the State Government. How is it possible that I didn’t know about any of these changes before now?

Introducing a trial for self-directed funding for people with a disability

“Your Life Your Choice” is a great slogan. It’s King Campbell’s choice for his trial of “self-directed funding for people with a disability. Basically it means that people who have a disability will be able to choose the disability services they prefer and pay for them. Just keep in mind that this is a trial only, participation is voluntary, and it’s only one component of the Federal Government’s National Disability Support Scheme.

Queensland spends less per head of population on providing support to people with disabilities than any other state in Australia, and King Campbell's reluctance to commit to the NDIS is both wrong and embarrassing.


Completing the Skills and Training Taskforce and delivering the Government response

The Skills and Training Taskforce was established by King Campbell as a way of using vocational education and skills training to support the Four Pillar Economy. The Government has responded to the Taskforce’s Report, accepting 35 of 40 recommendations, many of which referred to fixing the TAFE system and bring their buildings and equipment up to date. That sounds sensible. It’s important to note that this is just a response to findings – it’s not an action plan, a commitment of funds or a strategy. Important things like details, costings and timing will be released some time during the first half of this year.

The same day as the Government Response was released, it was announced that 13 TAFE campuses will be closed, and another 12 campuses will become part of the merged Central Queensland University/Central Queensland Institute of TAFE.

Furthermore, months before the Taskforce presented its recommendations, King Campbell de-funded the Skilling Queenslanders for Work Initiative, which was an programme of grants-based projects for local community groups, councils and others to deliver training tailored to the needs of job-seekers in their area. Much of this work was with long-term unemployed, and people from groups that traditionally find it hard to gain work: older workers, people from non-English speaking backgrounds and ATSI jobseekers.

Amending the Weapons Act to introduce tougher sentencing for illegal firearms offences

This move is overdue, and possibly still too soft. In response to a wave of shootings in the South East corner of Queensland, King Campbell proposed tougher penalties and sentencing without any impact on the rights of firearm owners who abide by the law.

Finalising the recruitment of 300 new police officers

“Finalising” something tends to suggest that it’s not finished. It’s not done yet. As part of King Campbell’s commitment to bolster frontline services, 300 shiny new inexperienced police officers sounds like a good call – until you remember last week’s revelations from the new Police Commissioner Ian Stewart. An internal review has recommended axing 143 senior police officers (ranked Inspector or better) while balancing that with 300 new recruits. In addition, the current regional structure of eight policing areas will be redrawn and reduced to five areas. It will cut administrative staff requirements, but will it get more police into the community? Time will tell.

Amending the Proceeds of Crime Act to crack down on unexplained wealth

The Criminal Proceeds Confiscation (Unexplained Wealth and Serious Drug Offender Confiscation Order) Amendment Bill 2012 is a no-brainer is respect to criminal activity and an imposition when applied to lawful behaviours, but if it means that drug dealing scum doesn’t get to spend their lives floating up and down the Queensland coast on the squillion dollar yacht that they bought with the money they made from ruining lives, I can live with that.



Engaging service providers for boot camps to commence in 2013


Boot camp? Is Newmania raising an army to repel the cashed-up pale-skinned southerners from Schoolies’ Week? No? Then it must be King Campbell’s scheme to run early intervention programmes to work with young people and hopefully, reduce the incidence of youth crime in Queensland. It’s an idea that has been stolen from America, and it’s worth trialling, to see if it can be effective in Queensland. It’s a shame about all the other programmes for kids that this government has axed, from defunding the Queensland Youth Orchestra to axing the Volunteer Cadets programme that fed young volunteers into the SES, QFRS and QAS.



Commencing operation of hospital and health boards across the State

Restructuring Queensland Health and handing responsibility for health services to regional health boards comes under King Campbell’s drive to restore accountability in state government. It’s not so much restoring accountability as it is moving accountability. It’s as much as obfuscation as it is about transparency. There are seventeen Hospital and Health Service areas (HHSs) reporting into one central office which will co-ordinate the ‘shared services’ aspects of the department.

I’m not convinced that this structure is the right structure in terms of health service delivery, or managing costs. In fact, it looks needlessly complex. Having said that, after the parade of disasters befalling the Queensland Health Department over the last decade, from Jayant Patel to the Payroll fiasco, perhaps the best solution is to be seen to be making radical changes.

Beginning to address the health payroll disaster left by the previous Government

Ahhh yes, the Health Payroll Fiasco. In the land of Project Management, there are certain things that must be done, and done to death, particularly when working with new technology solutions. At the top of that list is something known as UAT: User Acceptance Testing. When the IT wizards have built and installed the new gizmo – a new version of Windows, a new control panel in the on-air control room, a new point-of-sale system, a new payroll system, an upgrade to a website – you call in a group of people who are subject matter experts, and you get them to test the system. In the case of Queensland Health and their new SAP Payroll system, the people who actually process payroll should have tested every single scenario they could think of and compared the results to what they expected to see. When any errors appear, these are sent back to the IT wizards to fix and that process continues until there are no more scenarios and no more errors. Then, and only then, does the business accept the finished product.


From what I understand, Queensland Health did not test the payroll system, or did not test it well enough, and the results are costing the state billions.

If after 9 months in Government this fiasco is just starting to be addressed now, I ask what took them so long. My approach would be to find an LNP member – and there’s no shortage of them – and make her Special Minister for Queensland Health Payroll Solutions. She’ll need four teams, including the UAT group.

1. A team to document what is really required by Q-Health on a day to day basis

2. A team of forensic payroll experts to calculate and document who’s been paid what, and the variances

3. A team of forensic IT gurus to unravel the SAP mess that currently exists

4. An IT development team to build the new system

Whoever is to blame for the decision to deploy the system without adequate testing and sign-off is already irrelevant. The priority should be in getting it fixed, and the fact that it’s taken nine months to even start on that is as unacceptable as the fiasco itself.

King Campbell must be aware that not all of these items deserve the tick he’s given them – and that’s just the sixteen items listed in his press release. Don’t you wonder why the communications team picked these sixteen achievements to highlight? Why are they more media-friendly than the other 130-plus points of the Six Month Action Plan?

Like Tony Abbott, King Campbell needs a new message for his people, because while he’s busy ticking off his six month miracle, the rest of us are just ticked off.

Newmania: Living the Dream

King Campbell is living the dream: he has a lovely wife and daughters, good friends, an important and well paid job with all the perks. Now, less than nine months after being elected to lead Queensland out of the financial quagmire, the dream has faded like Queen Lisa's curtains during Daylight Saving.

If only...

King Campbell may have led the LNP back to government, but nothing is the way it should’ve been, and very few people on the Conservative side of politics are happy. There was a plan. The LNP won in a landslide. So what went wrong?

King Campbell's dramatic ascent to the top is virtually being mirrored on the slide back down. So dramatic has been King Campbell’s political descent that LNP members are walking away from their leader. Those who have stayed are finding the journey less satisfying than they had expected. Bruce Flegg has retreated to the back benches, Ros Bates is mired in controversy with her son, and everyone else is taking a beating over the violent cuts to jobs and services that their government has forced through.

The Newman Effect is undoubtedly having an impact on the electability of the federal Coalition, so Canberra isn't’t happy either.

And now, Ray Hopper is telling tales. Mr Hopper is a former LNP Member who defected to Bob Katter’s Australia Party last week, and he tells not of living the LNP dream, but of surviving a nightmare in the party room. Mr Hopper has revealed that Campbell Newman’s own leadership team of Treasurer Tim Nicholls and Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney chose Newman to lead the LNP to victory in the election, a role Newman performed admirably.


The thing is, the Nicholls-Seeney plan did not factor in any possibility that King Campbell would win the seat of Ashgrove. Had Kate Jones held Ashgrove for the Labor Party, Newman would’ve been out of a job because while you can lead the party in Opposition from outside the Parliament, you cannot be Premier without a seat. Had Newman lost Ashgrove, Tim Nicholls and Jeff Seeney – and possibly Bruce Flegg, Lawrence Springborg, Fiona Simpson and/or John Paul Langbroek – would have fought for leadership of the party, and Premiership of Queensland.

What would that have looked like? We’ll never know. Mr Hopper says there was no opportunity for dissent, no opportunity to vote for a leader. Newman was installed, and that was it...but he was installed to win, not to lead.

Of course, King Campbell’s People are ducking and weaving like the administrative mavens they are. Their response is that we should not believe the bitter rant of a man who left the party. Frankly, I’m more inclined to believe Mr Hopper than I am to believe the LNP spin team trying to protect the reputation of a leader who is rapidly losing all support. Ray Hopper has nothing to lose.

So far, the other two MPs who parted company with the LNP last week haven’t spoken out…but both of them - Dr Alex Douglas and Carl Judge - have shown interest in teaming up with Clive Palmer, should Mr Palmer form a new political party.

And then there’s Bob Katter, who has been in contact with Clive during the past few weeks, around the time that Clive removed himself from the LNP. Perhaps Mr Katter is after financial support from Clive, although they do have some areas of policy in common. Ray Hopper is now running the three man parliamentary arm of Katter’s Australia Party. If Clive’s latest plan goes ahead, and he picks up Douglas and Judge plus only two more, the two minor parties would have between them as many MPs as Labor. I wouldn’t rule anything out.

And while all of this to manoeuvring is going on, King Campbell continues to his slide to oblivion, which is exactly where Jeff Seeney and Tim Nicholls expected him to be. Unfortunately, he’s still Premier, although there is some doubt as to whether he is calling the shots.

Ray Hopper has suggested that our worst fears are being realised; that the thousands of jobs the Newman Government cut didn’t need to be cut; that the same result could have been achieved with a gentler approach. Gentleness was rejected. It would take too long, and the point was to get the nasty stuff out of the way quickly so that we could all forget about before the next election.

I guess they've forgotten that Anna Bligh pretty much sunk herself by announcing the infamous assets sale just weeks after being elected. Newmanians have long memories and carry grudges.

Nightmares can be nasty, particularly the recurring kind. Newmania is living the LNP nightmare right now, and we’re stuck in it for another two years, at least. The question of who is pulling the strings is largely irrelevant. Everyone is suffering and it appears that within the LNP senior ranks, there is no alternative.

At least Ray Hopper, Alex Douglas and Carl Judge can sleep easier.

Newmania: Existential Politics

Sshhh. Don’t ask – it’s Secret Squirrel Government Business!


The thing about keeping just about anything in the dark is that eventually, it’ll develop an old, cold, mildewy smell, like damp ugg boots left in the cupboard during a humid summer.

If it smells rotten, it probably is. It’s a whole series of things that are rotten, and this time it’s not policy, jobs being cut, programmes slashed and facilities closed, although that continues to provide a unique stench. This time the brutality of bringing the state “back on track” is drowned out by a series of internal events effecting the Government, the Public Service and the LNP itself.

This morning, Graeme Hallett spoke to the media, starting with some flattering words for his former boss. Those words were ineptitude and arrogance. Mr Hallett should be good with words; he was Minister Flegg’s media advisor, and long time Liberal Party staffer who had also worked with the Howard Government, and with Dr Flegg when he was campaigning in 2006. Mr Hallett has some credibility, and contacts in the media. He’s promised documentary evidence to prove that his former boss is unfit for high public office.

The allegation is that Mr Flegg’s son Johnathon, who is a lobbyist, has made over 50 calls to the Minister’s office. These activities need to be logged in a register, which according to Mr Hallett, shows only a couple of instances. To further confuse matters, Minister Flegg stated during the budget estimates process that there had been a handful of occasions of contact.

So is it a couple of times? Half a dozen times? Fifty times? And seriously, who cares?

We all should care. Lobbyists, by definition have an agenda, and when one lobbyist makes multiple visits to a Minister’s office, the agenda will make its way into the conversation.

Does it matter that the Minister and lobbyist in question are father and son? I believe it does. Do you pop in to see your father and his cronies at his workplace four or five times a week? Does your Mum call in regularly to discuss her work with you and your staff? In the case of Minister and lobbyist, you’d think both parties would be making a singular effort to ensure that everything is correct, and is seen to be correct, particularly in a new government from the party who brought us the most corrupt government Australia has ever…er…caught.

Consider the surface of Doctor Flegg’s little Ministry well and truly scratched. It may be Mr Hallett who is speaking out this morning; Flegg also sacked his Chief of Staff last Thursday, and just yesterday, Education Minister John Paul Langbroek sacked his assistant, who had previously worked for Flegg. Three staffers from the one Minister’s office sacked in under a week is not coincidence, and one of them is pissed off enough to gather documents on his way out the door and distribute them to media. What do the other two know?

Then there are the rumours about Right To Information documentation. King Campbell has issued a royal decree that ministerial staff are not to be issuing documents requested under Right To Information laws. In fact, King Campbell stated that such requests were to be referred to the relevant Department for assessment and action. Daniel Hurst reported in the Brisbane Times that Minister’s Flegg’s media staff had made some RTI decisions in contradiction to King Campbell’s orders.
Even more intriguing is the suggestion that the RTI requests in question were made by Opposition Leader Annastasia Palasczcuk, and that the information she had requested related to the register lobby – and that the register was factually incorrect.

It doesn’t stop there. Mr Hallett has stated that Dr Flegg continued to practice as a medical doctor while being paid to work as a full-time Minister, a choice which Mr Hallett says he begged Minister Flegg to reconsider. I doubt that’s illegal; it’s just bad form.


Minister Flegg has addressed Mr Hallett's accusations in Parliament today. According to Minister Flegg, it’s just a disgruntled former employee who’s taking his bitterness out on his former boss, and his documentary evidence is inconclusive. It’s a predictable response, but at least it’s not violent. These days, disgruntled ex-employees are usually associated with mass shootings in the USA.

It’s unlikely we’ll get to see any footage of Minister Flegg’s speech though; Speaker Fiona Simpson has banned television cameras from the Chamber.

…and now Henry Palasczcuk, former Labor Minister and father of the Leader of the Opposition, is paraphrasing songs from Evita and tweeting whole verses. Can this day get any stranger?

You bet it can, ‘cause today, Minister Ros Bates is in Da House. Minister Bates has been off work, recovering from shoulder surgery and providing emotional support to her hapless son, 25 year old Ben Gommers. Ben lucked into a parliamentary liaison role on a six figure salary, but has recently been off work, suffering from depression. Mr Gommers works for the Department of Transport and Main Roads. Their Director-General, Michael Caltabiano, is still suspended on full pay while the Crime and Misconduct Commission investigate his involvement in lobbying firm Entrez Vous where Minister Bates and Mr Gommers were co-directors.

Aaah yes, Newmania’s infamous Crime and Misconduct Commission is investigating the conduct of two Ministers, a Director General, and a minister’s son, and the relationships between them. I suppose they will be well practised when Minister Flegg, his lobbyist son and his unhappy staff come before the CMC, as they most probably will. If there’s a CMC left.

What’s that you say? King Campbell is slowly, quietly, dismantling the CMC?

Welcome to Newmania, where there is no Upper House to temper the excesses of the Newmanian government (or any other government). In this parliament, there’s almost no Opposition either (and they’ve been evicted from their offices in Parliament House and relocated down the road). Mercifully, the media is still welcome, but not with their cameras pointed at the chamber, and not in their former tea room. There are cutbacks everywhere.

The people of Newmania need the CMC more than ever. Since July, there has been a headcount reduction of at least 44 through voluntary redundancy, plus 13 forced redundancies last week. That’s about 15% of their workforce gone, at a time when they already had cases queuing for investigation, and when the CMC itself is being investigated by a panel appointed by King Campbell. So now we have the CMC, an “impartial” government agency, being investigated by the Government, while simultaneously investigating
the government. I can't see that ending well.

And Mr Hallett couldn’t take his concerns to the CMC, because the CMC is under instruction to dismiss complaints which are politically driven.

Thank god there’s a Committee of the Legislative Assembly Ethics Committee to oversee the ethical conduct of members. LNP members outnumber Labor members 5-2 on the Ethics Committee, but that’s less unbalanced than the ratio of LNP to Labor in the actual parliament, so we shouldn’t complain, right? It’s not like the LNP is running Queensland entirely without opposition or oversight.


BREAKING: Minister Bates has confirmed that her son’s flatmate is working as an advisor in her office. I’m tempted to add “der”.