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: The 41%ers

On Friday October 7, 2011, Anna Bligh, Premier of Queensland, issued a media release to announce that Queensland MPs would receive a 2.5% pay rise, in line with the Queensland Government Wages policy. The base salary of a parliamentarian rose to $137,149 per annum. A few other random increases were also made, but these were small (less than 5%, and in some cases, the result of increased responsibility.) The Bligh Government, just months out from the election which ultimately devastated the Labor Party in Queensland, was unpopular. The 2011 pay rise prompted the usual questions about whether our politicians deserved this pay rise.

The magnitude of the raise in 2011 was around the same as a lot of people receive each year; it’s a “cost of living” increase, although these regular adjustments disappeared for all but the lucky few during the worst of the Global Financial Crisis.

Queensland is, as usual, a law unto itself. Just ask any one of our LNP state members and they’ll be only too happy to tell you that Queensland is broke, and can’t afford any of the “luxuries” we used to take for granted, like services for our disabled, older workers, LGBTI community, tenants, abused women and writers. Our besieged MPs are being forced to break election promises to reduce the cost of living because they can’t afford to fund them. There is to be no discretionary spending; the surplus is the only thing that matters.

Do not despair, Queenslanders. Not everything is out of reach.

In what Acting Premier Jeff Seeney is describing as “revenue neutral”, Queensland politicians will see their base salaries leap by 41.8%, from $137,149 to $194,481, making them the highest paid state politicians in Australia, a country which already pays its politicians more than almost any other country, excluding Japan and Italy. Premier Newman is on annual leave, conveniently avoiding the fallout from this appalling decision.

In fact, this salary increase puts Queensland politicians over the top in terms of their base salary. They now earn more than the median salary of professors, and business executives, twice as much as the median salary of corporate lawyers, project managers and family doctors, and almost five times more than the median wage for aged care workers, hairdressers and customer service representatives.

I’m pleased for the people of Queensland that the Acting Premier has declared this monster of a pay rise to be revenue neutral, and that he can cut electorate allowances and the like to fund this pay rise, but I’m not satisfied. If electoral allowances and party funding can be cut now to fund a pay rise of mammoth proportions, why can't they be cut to fund other, more justifiable programmes?

Last year, I was awarded a pay rise. My role had expanded, I’d gained experience and seniority, produced results and I’d studied to learn more and have my skills recognised. Before my pay rise could become a reality, my line manager and I had to assess my work and develop a new position description, which was then graded by our senior Human Resources Manager (using the Hay Grade Job Evaluation methodology). The HR Manager made a recommendation to my senior manager, based on the Hay Grade results, and the pay rise had to be signed off by a member of the executive group. In other words, my claim for a pay rise was investigated, evaluated and approved.

Where are the investigations and the evaluations that would justify this 41.8% pay increase for Queensland MPs?

Queensland MPs are of the opinion that they don’t need to justify this gift, because legally, their salaries are tied to the salaries of Federal MPs, and that the Queensland Government would be in breach of the law if it did not apply the proscribed increases.

In reality, this pay increase needs more justification than anything else the Newman Government has done. The voters are unhappy – today’s Newpoll results show that Labor is improving in the 2 Party Preferred calculations and King Campbell’s popularity is falling. Luckily for the LNP, Queensland Labor has neither the numbers nor the leader take advantage of the trend.

Nine News will report tonight that the first year alone of this pay increase is worth $6 million dollars. At an average salary of $82,000, (plus 40% built up costs) that’s over 50 full time jobs that could be funded. It’s money that could be directed to support the minority groups whose assistance has been cut. It’s hospital beds that could be reopened or a slightly less humiliating pay rise for our emergency workers.

Labor’s newest Queensland MP, Jackie Trad, has refused to accept the pay rise, requesting the Clerk of the Parliament not to process the increase.

"If this request cannot be met than I will ensure any wage increase beyond reinstatement of the electorate allowance be quarantined in a fund to support community projects in South Brisbane, particularly those that have lost funding under the Newman LNP Government."

How does your local MP feel about a 41% pay rise after slashing over 14,000 jobs and numerous services, while simultaneously fighting our critical state employees over interim 2-3% increases?

Contact your local MP via email and ask for justification: the address will be @parliament.qld.gov.au, or click here for the list of contact details for every Queensland Member of Parliament. Don’t forget to copy in the Premier.

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: 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: Hostile Territory

The Courier Mail, Brisbane’s only newspaper and for so many years the defender of the conservative political cause in Queensland must be feeling a change in mood. This morning, the Courier Mail ran with one of the many recent media offerings designed by PR hacks and image-makers. The objective is to soften King Campbell’s image as an axe-wielding job-murderer.

Twelve months ago, even six months ago, the Comments page on a story about King Campbell's insomnia would have been full of confident, boastful, and poorly punctuated statements, crowing about how King Campbell would clean up the mess created Anna Bligh (complete with accusatory spelling like “Blie” and “Blier” that even predated Alan Jones “Juliar” attack).

King Campbell was the Can-Do Man. The LNP was going to win the election because the time had come for change. It was King Campbell’s CanDo-ness that secured the LNP a record-breaking majority.

Now, just seven months into a three year term, even the Courier Mail readers have turned on King Campbell, with a barrage of eye-scorching negativity and poor spelling. The reason, of course, is the horror-movie brutality of his cuts to the Public Service, and his uncaring, tactless attitude. Of the first 65 comments, only 12% were supportive of King Campbell. The other 88% included former public servants who had been sacked, and current public servants who have been living under the Sword of Damocles for the past six months. Their pain shows.

 

With the exception of a handful of LNP supporters, the mood of the Comments pages ranged from disillusioned to furious to defeated. Obviously comments on a news website have little credibility as a measure of the public mood. In this case though, regular readers will have seen a complete change in alignment, from anti-ALP to anti-LNP, although there's no trace of pro-ALP sentiment either. I can’t believe the readership has changed that much, so it’s the allegiance of the readers that has moved.

In a delicious twist, it was just this weekend when the Courier Mail’s own state political correspondent Steve Wardill suggested that King Campbell needed to back away from the carnage and show his humanity. It’s a good point, Steve, and most first-year communications undergraduates would offer the same advice.

But, as the cuts crusade draws to a close, Newman needs to show another side beyond his other persona, spruiking three-worded election rhetoric such as "back on track" and "four-pillar economy".

Showing compassion for the wider community is a big part of being a premier. It's what sets the job apart from the rates-and-rubbish politics of local government and the big-picture federal arena.

Mr Wardill is wrong. Playing the compassionate leader and crying woe-is-me in this atmosphere is so incongruous in light of his actions as Premier that it’s not credible. The public has become more cynical, but also more knowledgeable about the world of politics. Spin is spin.
We have political wonks – a relatively new word to describe the growing number of people who immerse themselves in the world of politics and politicians as others might follow Morris dancing or cockroach racing. It’s intense and potentially antisocial in many circles, and just a little...weird? (Did you know that “wonk” is the word “know”, but backwards?)

We also have social media, where groups informally coalesce like bubbles in a lava lamp, tweeted opinions spread exponentially, emotions are a dime a dozen, and political wonks congregate and hatch plans for "Wonk Drinks" (yes, it's a thing), boycotts, petitions, protests, campaigns to Destroy the Joint, and events like SlutWalk.

My advice to King Campbell would be to forget about the photo ops with babies and cute furry animals, and stop talking to the media about anything that isn’t policy-related. His personal popularity right now is such that few would if he never sleeps again. He should continue to be this cold, emotionally detached sub-human wrecking ball with a mandate…but do it quietly, and do it until the job is done. Then, rebuild, and let his actions speak as eloquently as they have since Election Day in March.

The problem now for King Campbell is that he doesn't have that kind of time. The hatred is strong. King Campbell has much more to do, and if he continues to act with such little regard for people, he will lose.

Is it possible that just seven months since his election, he's set himself and the LNP on a road back into Opposition? Is this a one-term government?

Honestly, I doubt it, if for no other reason than because the election left the ALP shattered and as such, there is no opposition. Literally. The sporting commentator's favourite cliche, the "rebuilding phase", was custom-made for the ALP in Newmania in 2012.

King Campbell would have learned in the army that it’s wise to make yourself a smaller target, as small as possible, invisible...especially when people are shooting at you. Right now, he’s making himself a bigger mark, and millions of Newmanians are shooting in his direction.

Newmania: Flatly Wrong

This morning, we heard about a new review into Peter Costello's Interim Commission of Audit Report. The review was conducted by Professor Bob Walker  who was commissioned by the Queensland Council of Unions. The findings in the report are exactly what the unions would want to see: that the report is fatally flawed in a number of ways. Professor Walker's credentials seem to be perfect for conducting this sort of review, but please listen here to Steve Austin's interview with Professor Walker on 612ABC Brisbane this morning, or read my transcript below, and make up your own mind.


SA: A Sydney academic has blasted Peter Costello’s Interim Commission of Audit Report into this state’s finances, labelling it as shoddy, and intellectually dishonest. It’s the document the Government of Campbell Newman has used to justify its aggressive cost cutting programme. Professor Bob Walker, together with his wife who’s an economist from the University of Sydney was commissioned by Queensland Council of Unions to audit the Interim Commission of Audit, or review it. His report was released today. I spoke with Professor Walker this morning before coming on air and asked him to give me his own overview of the document first of all.


BW: I think it’s a rather shoddy piece of work, and it’s intellectually dishonest. It fudges the figures in two main respects. First, it refers to what it calls ‘debt of total government’, and I think 100% of readers would think that includes absolutely every government agency, the whole of government. In fact, there’s a definition on an un-numbered page just after the cover which explains that total government for the Costello report excludes what they call the ‘financial corporations sector’ which includes the agencies which hold $28b worth of investments. So when the Costello report talks about debt – or, has a funny definition of debt. It doesn’t set off those investments and the standard way of talking about government finances is to talk about net debt.

Turning now to the second way in which the report fudges the figures, it defines debt as ‘gross debt less investments’, particularly those held for investment purposes for superannuation. Now that leaves reason to think that $28b would’ve been deducted, but instead it’s not.

SA: So they’ve included things like the debt being carried by government owned corporations which have a means or ability to pay things back, and you think it’s unfair to include that.

BW: I think it’s fair to include that, as long as you have the whole picture, the whole of government, and not define ‘total government’ as something less than all government agencies.

SA: Right

BW: And secondly, or thirdly, I suppose, it makes a lot of projections about future levels of debt and capital expenditure and so forth, and doesn’t justify any of this with tables of data. It looks as though they’ve, eh, made little historical projections as past borrowings, including borrowings for agencies like QR National, which have since been sold, and all in all, I mean they’ve admitted that they didn’t undertake any modelling; it looks as though their projections are prepared by a graphic designer drawing a line on a graph.

SA: Given who prepared this, and how it’s being used, that’s a damning statement. You are saying that they are being deliberately or negligently misleading in the Interim Commission of Audit.

BW: I’d say that, and I’d further emphasise that’s surprising; we have standards for something called performance audits in Australia. They’re prepared by a Commonwealth Government agency, which used to report to Mr Costello. And they’ve issued standards for performance auditing; it’s just uncomplied with in this document.

SA: So this document doesn’t meet accepted Commonwealth auditing standards?

BW: Well those standards apply; they’re mandatory for corporations but the document says they provided guidance for other exercises of this type, and it’s strange that standards issued by an agency that used to report to Mr Costello are just totally ignored.

SA: So how can the ordinary Queenslander see this or approach this Interim Audit. It’s being used as the platform or the reason d’etre for significant job losses in Queensland in the Public Service. How should we regard it?

BW: I think you should be outraged, frankly, because it’s a totally political document, prepared without regard, I think, to the facts.



Prof Bob Walker
BCom UNSW MEc PhD FCA



SA: My guest is Professor Bob Walker. He’s from the University of Sydney. He was commissioned by the Queensland Council of Unions to audit the Interim Commission of Audit prepared by Peter Costello, former conservative Liberal Treasurer, professor Sandra Harding, from the James Cook University, and Doug McTaggart, formerly head of the Queensland Treasury Corporation. My name’s Steve Austin.
Let me go through some key points then if I can, please Professor Walker? First of all, Tim Nicholls, the Treasurer, will be releasing his budget on Tuesday of next week, said the QTC, the Queensland Treasury Corporation advised him that the state’s level of debt was unsustainable and must be urgently addressed. Do you disagree?

BW: I think the debt is totally manageable. In fact, if you look at the net debt figures, Queensland’s got a net debt…it’s the standard measure used, of around $17b. New South Wales has got almost double that. So I think there’s a lot of scaremongering going on with this report.

SA: Well, I’ll keep going…the Treasurer also said to Queenslanders that because of what he described as “Labor’s Debt Binge”, that the debt was expected to blow out to $85b by 2014-2015, and this is putting pressure on the state’s credit rating. Do you disagree with that?

BW: Well, the credit ratings agencies sometimes don’t get it right, and the ways in which Queensland prepares its accounts is sometimes a bit confusing. But the projections of debt in the Costello report aren’t justified with details of capital commitments. As I said, they’re just figures seemed drawn out of the air.

SA: Now, I’ll go on. The statement issued by the Treasurer in June of this year said that Queensland’s current net financial liabilities compared to operating revenue was forecast to reach 123% by June next year. Do you think this is a misleading approach?

BW: I think it would be better to look at the statistics published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics which standardises all figures from around Australia. Also, look at the figures in the audited financial statements which the Costello Report does not refer to except in passing. It’s quite astonishing that claims have been made, for example, that Queensland had to borrow to support the budget when the audited statements of cash flows shows that Queensland Government has reported surpluses from its operating activities. Cash surpluses.

SA: That to me is quite shocking because we’ve had this debate here in Brisbane some time ago, that the Government says they are borrowing to pay wages, and they have been very definite on that. You’re telling me that that’s not the case.

BW: That is flatly wrong, and all you need to do is look at the audited statements of cash flows, which have been reviewed by the Queensland Auditor General to see that the operating activities of Queensland have produced cash surpluses. Money has been borrowed, but it’s been used to invest in infrastructure.

SA: So we were borrowing money, but it was used to invest in infrastructure, not being used – and you can tell this from the audit you’ve done, you can tell this absolutely, put your professional reputation on the line - that it was not being borrowed to pay public servants’ wages in Queensland.

BW: I rely on the audited financial statements which have been reviewed by the auditor general which showed that Queensland produced surpluses from operations. It also invested heavily in infrastructure. These statements show the results of operating, borrowing, er, financing and investing activities and they clearly show that the bulk of borrowings went into infrastructure. In fact, looking over a ten year period, about half of the investment in infrastructure was funded by cash surpluses from operations.

SA: Half? By cash surpluses?

BW: Roughly. I don’t have the figures with me, but roughly, yeah.

SA: You’ve made the point and referred repeatedly to Peter Costello. He’s not the only person on the commission of audit. Doug McTaggart, respected financial mind, generally regarded on the conservative side of the ledger, former head of the Queensland Treasury Corporation: He has signed the Interim Commission of Audit, as has Professor Sandra Harding of James Cook University in North Queensland, generally regarded as being sort-of centre-left if you like, ideologically. She has also signed off on these figures. Now they are not obviously political figures, but why would they be a party to something which you’re telling me is so obviously misleading?

BW: I don’t think…whatever their skills in other areas, I don’t think they have skills in financial analysis. In relation to their past academic roles, I would say that if I received this report in my role, as I often do, refereeing articles submitted to international research journals, I would treat it as not worthy of publication. Revise and resubmit.

SA: Can I get you to repeat that? Not worthy of publication?

BW: If I received it in that context, because so much money has been invested in it, you’re reluctant to trash it totally, but I’d invite the authors to revise and resubmit.

SA: My guest is Professor Bob Walker from the University of Sydney, commissioned by the Queensland Council of Unions to audit the Interim Commission of Audit that was prepared for the Queensland State Government.

BW: Can I add that this report is solely my own work. It’s prepared with my wife, Dr Betty Con Walker, who’s an economist, and formerly worked in New South Wales Treasury and is very familiar with budget papers.

SA: All right, thank you for that. So then, leading into the state budget which is an extraordinarily late state budget next Tuesday, how should Queensland taxpayers approach what they hear from the mouth of the Treasurer Tim Nicholls?

BW: I think with a great deal of…a grain of salt. We’ve already seen extravagant statements coming from Government Ministers, extrapolating from the Costello report that Queenslanders faced $100b debt now. That is flatly wrong, and I notice that a couple of parliamentarians have had to clarify their statements in parliament. There’s been gross exaggeration on the basis of this report. That’s a risk. We have a section in our report talking about the dangers of Commission of Audit reports. In the hands of inexperienced or not financially numerate politicians, some of the extravagant language in the report can be exaggerated and wrongly interpreted.

SA: The Treasurer did say in June of this year that feedback from financial markets indicated that the market considers the Queensland state fiscal position to be “unsustainable” and looking for the state government to deliver a credible strategy to address our state level of debt. Can I ask you to respond to that, that the financial markets from whom we, the state government, borrows money, say that the debt here in unsustainable, and they need to develop a strategy to pay down the debt.

BW: Well, I’m not sure. They’re probably relying on some of these credit rating agencies, whose performance leading up for the Global Financial Crisis is quite a lot, but in my own experience, the staff at credit ratings agencies aren’t quite on top of the figures. Some years ago I pointed out that when the state government in New South Wales was claiming to have a budget surplus; it was in fact only reporting about the results for the consolidated fund, not for what we now call the General Government Sector, and when that report was published, they put New South Wales on Credit Watch. (Laughs) So I’m fairly sceptical about some of the interpretations by ratings agencies.

SA: I really appreciate your time. Professor Bob Walker, thank you.

E&OE

Newmania: The Fall



ReachTEL - Newman's Performance

Congratulations. If you’ve been watching politics in the Sunshine State during the past couple of months, it’s probably time to take a bow and say I told you so…because you probably did. Gleeful King Campbell and his team of conservatives are no longer enjoying the popularity he did when he claimed victory only five months ago. No-one seems happy, and with good reason. Every Newmanian is feeling some kind of government-induced pain.

But don’t crack the champagne open just yet.

King Campbell has acted swiftly, authoritatively, brutally, to take what he considers to be necessary action for enact his talking points. He always said that he was going to get the state back on track by: 

                 Growing a Four Pillar Economy

Easing the Cost of Living

Eliminating Waste

                 Restoring the Economy

This is the basis on which the CanDo team campaigned to be elected, and won with an overpowering majority. They had their mandate to do exactly what they had campaigned on, and they got on with it, literally, from King Campbell’s Day One.
Five months later, the reality bombs are exploding all over Newmania. The People are not happy, although to be fair, King Campbell’s CanDo Team would easily win another election right now. It just wouldn’t be the near-complete destruction that befell the ALP on March 24. Two polls have been conducted within the last week, and each one shows that King Campbell is has gone from Saviour of the LNP and Queensland, to Gleeful, Insensitive Assassin.

It would be too easy to say that the massive public service job cuts are to blame for the King’s slide in popularity, but that’s the tip of an iceberg in a sea of ice. Over seven thousand jobs have already gone from the Public Service, but the genuine threat of more job cuts has imbued the entire public service – over 200,000 employees – with anxiety. Staff engagement rates would be way down, costing millions in productivity. The entire public service sector is toxic.

That’s just the “Jobs” iceberg, the most visible of his cuts.

Emotional issues are less visible, but every bit as confronting. Members of the LGBTI community and their supporters have been hit hard, with a roll-back of Civil Unions legislation, the defunding of their support centre (QAHC), the continued existence of ‘gay panic’ laws and threatened changes to surrogacy access. Environmentalists are disheartened after a series of green programmes, including ClimateSmart and the Environment Defenders Office were cut.

In fact, there have been cuts to virtually every single aspect of the State Government responsibility, from health to justice to the arts to prisons to schools to tenancy advice to heritage to housing. There’s even been changes to the ways that we can access parliament: the Speaker, Fiona Simpson, has already removed cameras from parliament; next on her list is removing anyone she decides is “protesting” in the gallery.

Morgan Polls - Newman Approval

Throughout these five tortured months, King Campbell has been grinning while assuring us that it was all necessary. So incredibly unaffected is The Axe King that he described his first 100 days in office as "a lot of fun".  

But now, a couple of months further down the track, the pollsters are taking note of Queensland again. Things are not always as they may seem. All the media chatter has been about King Campbell’s declining popularity, yet when you look at the trends in Morgan polls this year, the numbers have barely moved from where they were in March, prior to the election. In fact, the largest movement occurred prior to Black Friday, when the first major round of job cuts was announced. The LNP was up, the ALP was further down, and all the talk was of ALP statewide extermination.

Since then, since the tough decisions have been announced, the LNP lead has retreated to a level close to numbers that saw the LNP win Queensland with the biggest majority in history. In fact, the difference between the March figures and this week’s figures would all be very close to being inside the Margin of Error. Context suggests the numbers are real though.

Reachtel Primary Voting Intention

And then there’s the ReachTEL numbers, which suggest a more dramatic change, particularly as regards King Campbell’s personal approval.

As always, it’s a case of making up your own mind, yet with threats of a painful State Budget hanging over us, and a solid electoral buffer, you can bet that King Campbell won’t be chasing votes by softening his approach for some time to come.