Descent into Madness

What does one say on waking up to the Australia Day news that we have knighted Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh? The general consensus, at least according to the 'electronic graffiti' that is social media is a hearty Australian Bloody Hell...and pithier versions of the same sentiment. 

A wave of mocking disbelief swept the nation as everyone from the politically disengaged to members of Prime Minister Tony Abbott's own Gummint sunk lower in their seats and cringed. Our Prime Minister had knighted the man whose official title is HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich, KG (Knight of the Garter), KT (Knight of the Thistle), OM (Order of Merit), GBE (Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire), AC (Companion of the Order of Australia), QSO (Companion of The Queen’s Service Order), PC (Privy Counsellor).

Enough already.

Never mind the real Australia Day Awards; Rosie Batty's win became an also-ran as the Prince's new gong hogged headlines, none of which were supportive.
Yackety Sax went to war with the Chicken Dance as the preferred news soundtrack of the day.

How have we come to this? The political adage "You get the government you deserve" - variously attributed to Joseph le Maistre, Thomas Jefferson, H.L. Mencken, and Ayn Rand - could not have meant this, surely. Even Chris Kenny's 'leftie luvvies' never imagined this future when we shouted from the rooftops in 2013 that Tony Abbott would be an embarrassment. There's no victory in our progressive souls as we nod at Liberal supporters and think to ourselves, We told you so. Today, we cringe as one.

It's been a steep and relentless descent into political insanity for the Prime Minister and the journey is not yet half over. When the Abbott Government was elected in September 2013, voters on the left were dismayed, disappointed, and a little bit anxious. Tony Abbott had been an effective Opposition Leader, but his colleagues and staff would moderate his more extreme notions. Wouldn't they?

Ha! Twenty-twenty hindsight could not be more lucid. Only in recent weeks have we heard the rumblings of dissent from the Right side of the chamber, culminating in this week's near total negativity from Coalition MPs. Joe Hockey and Matthias Cormann tried to distance themselves from Prince Philip's knighthood, while Barnaby Joyce was openly critical. Many more MPs have commented on the condition of anonymity.

MPs are split on what the “WTF moment” – as one Coalition member dubbed it – might mean for the PM’s job as he battles claims he’s out of touch and non-consultative.

Insiders say Mr Abbott is not in any immediate trouble but agree he has given his critics more ammunition to lobby for a leadership change.

“Yesterday the clock started ticking,” one Coalition MP said. “I just can’t believe he’s going to piss his prime ministership against the wall for Prince Philip.”

Others cautioned their colleagues to “keep perspective” as backbenchers who were openly critical on Monday became more conciliatory, opting for some damage control. 

Coincidentally, this week was the first week of former ABC political journalist Mark Simkin's tenure as head of communications in the Prime Minister's Office. It might be possible to spin the knighthood catastrophe, but I doubt it. The best approach seems to be allowing Prime Minister Abbott to own his 'captain's pick', thereby absolving the rest of his Cabinet of any responsibility.

But the controversial knighthood is not an isolated instance of Mr Abbott's plunging fortunes. The PM has been on a negative trajectory since his first days in office.

In early 2014, with the reality of an Abbott Government sinking in, we learned of the horrific realities of Stopping the Boats. Operation Sovereign Borders was in full swing. The Gummint was implementing its campaign slogans. Reza Berati was dead; thousands more were suffering in sub-standard offshore detention facilities, and Scott Morrison gave us a handy euphemism for things we don't want to talk about: "on water matters". We were, and we remain angry.

So we marched in March. Hundreds of thousands of Australians delivered a vehement message of No Confidence in the Abbott Government, and we were serious. It wasn't the post-farce irrelevance of 2015. Not yet.

There was shock, and near hysterical disbelief when in April of 2014. Mr Abbott announced his plan to reintroduce Knights and Dames as Australian honours. At least it wouldn't hurt anyone, we thought. This was what we had expected: occasional crazy yet basically harmless impulses.

But the red-hot rage was just starting to build. Joe Hockey's first budget was so uneven, so hateful, that it remains impossible to pass. On Budget Night, Treasurer Joe Hockey announced cut after cut, and broke promise after promise with the same sombre flair and determination as a bingo caller at the local RSL. Australians despaired as ministers sweated with the effort of selling the unsellable. (It was rarely the message or the messenger, as Dee Madigan explained on QandA last year.)

The months that followed were strewn with Tony Abbott's special brand of incompetence. His team congratulated themselves for axing both the Carbon Tax and Mining Tax at the same time as polling revealed that the majority of Australians wanted the same Government to take stronger action on climate change. Joe Hockey bleated about the on-again/off-again budget emergency and bloopered about poor people not driving very far.

As the G20 summit in Brisbane approached, our Prime Minister made international headlines when threatened to 'shirtfront' Russian President Vladimir Putin, and campaigned to keep Climate Change off the G20 Agenda.

US President Barack Obama had something to say about that...and about climate change.

More recently, there was the Coalition's first term defeat in Victoria, the failed Prime Ministerial Reset, his minor reshuffle, and the extraordinary triple somersault with two-and-a-half twist backflip on the Medicare copayment, and his complete absence from the Queensland state election.

It's clear that the Liberal Party should be concerned, but not by the polling numbers alone. The real problem is the unpredictability of Tony Abbott. There's no telling when the next 'captain's pick' might be, or what it might involve. Has he reached Peak Stupid yet, as First Dog on the Moon suggested yesterday, or is there more to come?

Commentator Peter Van Onselen had this to say in yesterday's Australian:

"[But] we might look back on yesterday as the moment when fence-sitters changed their collective minds on whether talk of removing the PM needs to be seriously considered. That’s how bad the judgment call was. If no one in the PMO tried to stop Abbott knighting Philip that is concerning. If they did, and he refused to listen, that’s even worse."

The Coalition must decide now if the risk of a Prime Ministerial spill is greater than the risk of hitting rock bottom and commencing to dig?

Newmania: Leadership Void

Queenslanders are once again faced with the likelihood that the outcome of the election in Ashgrove may determine who the Premier of Queensland will be for the next three years. Ashgrove, held by Premier Campbell Newman with a moderate margin of 5.7%, has the choice of re-electing the unpopular leader, or returning to Labor’s Kate Jones, who held the seat prior to 2012.

While the contest is a rematch between Newman and Jones, the battleground is very different to the one we saw three years ago. Back then, Newman was leading the LNP from outside the parliament, where the LNP were the Opposition. Newman was largely an unknown quantity outside of Brisbane, where he had served as Lord Mayor with a high public profile, although had never served in the state parliament.

The wave of change that blasted Newman into power has receded. Again, he has two opponents, Kate Jones and Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk, plus now, a record as Premier to protect and a government to lead to victory. Recent polling has Newman trailing Jones by enough to see the seat turn red again, which would see the Premier unseated and out of parliament. While you can lead a party without being a sitting MP, you cannot be Premier. So who would lead Queensland?

It’s a question that the LNP seem unable or unwilling to answer. When pressed this morning by 4BC’s Pat Condren, Treasurer Tim Nicholls denied that the scenario where Newman loses Ashgrove but the LNP retains government is possible.

Mathematically, it’s not impossible, and a Treasurer making ridiculous claims mathematical assumptions is becoming too common in Australia. That's another story.

In fact, it’s a statistical probability based on recent polling that the statewide swing away from the LNP will fall somewhere between the 5.7% buffer that Newman holds in Ashgrove, and the 11.5% swing needed to remove the LNP from power. The ABC’s Election Analyst Antony Green will remind us more than a few times between now and the election that swings are never uniform. Still, for the sake of argument, the 5.8% difference between the Ashgrove margin and the required statewide swing is the very scenario where Labor take Ashgrove yet remains in opposition.

When pushed further by Mr Condren this morning on whether he was contemplating a future as the next Premier of Queensland, Treasurer Tim Nicholls assured us that “We (the LNP) have a plan.”

It’s a plan they’re not willing to share with voters, and probably won’t until they need to implement their secret plan.

It’s a simple equation. Either Newman wins Ashgrove, or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, he could conceivably ask a sitting LNP member to resign, forcing a by-election. Assuming he wins the by-election, he could then challenge for the leadership of the LNP and regain the position of Premier of Queensland.

There are plenty of questions remaining though: if Newman does lose in Ashgrove, and decides to tap another LNP member on the shoulder, who would it be? Whose is dispensible, but with a seat that is safely in the LNP’s hands? The worst possible outcome for the LNP would be if Newman did force a by-election, and then lost it.

The LNP must have a plan, and probably more than one, for various possible scenarios should Newman lose Ashgrove. If they are planning to force a by-election, who will act as LNP Leader and official state Premier in the lead-up to the by-election? What would happen if the interim leader (who would need to be officially sworn in and form government) takes a liking to the title, or a dislike to Campbell Newman, and has the numbers to win a spill against Newman?

This is sticky territory for the LNP, particularly given the leadership history of some of the current LNP front bench.

Does the uncertainty around LNP leadership make undecided voters more or less likely to gamble with another term of LNP government? Would knowing what the LNP’s secret plan is make Ashgrove voters more or less likely to vote for Newman?

And if, for whatever reason, Campbell Newman is not the Premier of Queensland after January 31, who are the frontrunners?

Stay tuned – we’ll look at the likely ladies and lads of the LNP next.

Newmania: Knowns

Every election is, essentially, a battle between a known and an unknown. Without strangling Donald Rumsfeld’s quote too far, an election is a contest between a sitting government – the known - and the opposition – the unknown. 

Why is the opposition an unknown? Because their primary function as an opposition is to challenge the decisions of the government. Every government, every opposition is different, and basing a voting decision on the record of an opposition will always be risky, as oppositions don’t govern.

And yet that is what we are required to do at every election.

The question we ask ourselves is always, what do we know?  

Knowns

With the January 31 election falling just six weeks short of a complete three year parliamentary term, we have learned much about how the Newman government operates. We know, for example, that the LNP Government is very good at generating and publicising their plans, which are displayed for all to see on the government’s website. The first was a reworking of their campaign promises, complete with criticism of the previous government and vague promises across a range of departments. 

The LNP’s four pillars-approach will build a more productive and resilient economy to serve the Queensland people, providing social and business infrastructure, and the services to meet the challenges of a globalised economy.

There’s twenty pages of that, by the way.

Unknowns

The same government that releases such positive, hopeful plans each six months is much less willing to update the electorate on the progress of those plans. Short of keeping a list and checking off the items as they are announced – and a regular and careful reading of Hansard to keep up with the legislation – we simply don’t know whether the government is achieving its, or if they’re in progress or whether they’ve been abandoned entirely.

Source: DestinationQ

For example, of the government’s pillars of its much hyped Four Pillar Economy is Tourism. How much do we know about what has been achieved to grow the tourism industry in the almost three years of LNP Government? After a thorough reading of the Queensland Tourism data and statistics, it’s still a mystery, except for some figures around expenditure of visitors versus the government's 20 year plan.

The same can be said for Construction, another pillar of the Four Pillar Economy. The BIS Shrapnel report is interesting reading, but doesn’t answer the question of whether the Queensland’s construction sector has grown in the past three years. Instead, there’s this nugget of information: 

Source: BIS Shrapnel

The outlook for major project work is now much weaker than the previous Report. In the near term, this is due to both weaker levels of funded and unfunded work (with now almost all unfunded work in 2013/14 not expected to proceed). Later on, a much sharper decline is expected as projects previously included (but unfunded) are no longer included in the major projects list.

The remaining two pillars – Agriculture and Resources - of the Four Pillar Economy are just as confusing. The voters have to assume these areas are either not growing as the government had planned, or that they are no longer priorities, despite the $9.5b in state subsidies to the mining industry alone. 

Known – but not really

In 2012, LNP Government promised to lower unemployment from 5.5% to 4% over six years. Halfway through the six year period, unemployment has risen to 6.9% in Queensland. The government is on high spin: they like to quote the 1,100 jobs they’ve created per month, yet fail to mention that those jobs can include part time work offering as little as ten hours per week. Another unmentionable is the 741 full time jobs per month that have disappeared. What is known is that the unemployment rate in Queensland is higher now than it was three years ago. 

The state’s crime rate is another grey area that will swing votes, with the government claiming that crime has decreased. Unfortunately, there’s conflicting information that shows that the government has shared only part of the truth. 

Source: ABC News

Known Failures

There are some truths, however, that are universally acknowledged. Among a raft of other promises, Queenslanders were told that a Newman/LNP Government would deliver cheaper cost of living through such measures as lower electricity prices and a freeze on car registration costs. Despite the federal government repealing the much maligned Carbon Tax, the cost of electricity has risen by an average of $560 per year during the term of the Newman government. The government portion of registration costs were frozen from July 2012 for three years, but other components increased, wiping out any savings.

Unknown Quantities

Yes. Queenslanders were warned that there would be some pain…and then the job cuts started, including over 24,000 public service jobs. Despite the pledge to “Revitalise Front Line Services”, these too were cut, with nurses, paramedics, teachers’ aides, and contact centre personnel losing their jobs.

Meanwhile, the Premier has announced today a $90m programme to create 209,000 new Queensland jobs between now and 2021. 

"With new technology comes new opportunities, and the LNP will ensure young Queenslanders get the quality training that leads to a quality career.

"While we're making progress, we know there's more to do and our Jobs of Tomorrow plan will provide 26,000 new job and training opportunities for young Queenslanders."

Sounds good, although highly youth-focussed in a state with a high proportion of older people. On the other hand, Amy Remeikis in the Brisbane Times explains that many of the jobs will be based on the construction industry, which according to the BIS Shrapnel report, is not looking so great. In any case, the 4% promise from three years ago seems to be firmly in the past. 

Surprise Package

Queenslanders have been treated to almost three years of other surprises, many of them unwelcome and most of them cuts to services, agencies and programmes. Everything from a centre for LGBTI community to Breastscreen (changes which later morphed into a 'restructure') to the Premier’s Literary Prize to trials of solar and thermal energy production to the iconic Sunlander train and even indigenous student support programmes have been downsized or cut altogether. The actual number of funding cuts (as opposed to job cuts) is another statistic which is not readily available, but numbers well into the hundreds and effect every department.

Impossible Unknowns

It’s not possible to catalogue in one blog post all of the things we’ve learned about the Newman Government in the past three years. To summarise, I’d describe it as fuzzy. Some facts are available, if you’re willing to search for them and have the expertise to extract the important and relevant items from the swamp of numbers. If you’re waiting on the Newman government itself to provide a genuine performance analysis based on promises made, don’t forget to breathe.

In the meantime, remember that Campbell Newman has invited Queensland voters to look at his record….what we can see of it. It’s clear that the Newman government is not keen to share the results of any in-house performance reviews, so we’re left with the LNP spin team can release, and other, random factoids that escape from the fortress.

The question is still, as always, what do we know?

The answer is not nearly enough.

Public Nuisance

Half a world away from Brisbane, 12 members of the media were assassinated because some Muslim extremists weren’t happy with cartoons that mocked their religion. Less than twelve hours later, a man wearing an “I’m with Stupid” t-shirt was arrested on the streets of Brisbane for waving at traffic while with a group of campaigning LNP members who were also waving at traffic. The charge: Public Nuisance. 

The man arrested is Brisbane twitter identity @Can_Do_Campbell, who has a long and memorable history of locking horns with LNP supporters online, but he is not known to be violent. Despite this, it took ten Queensland Police officers to arrest the gentleman in question. The arrest followed two complaints to the police, presumably from disconcerted LNP campaigners.

The arrest this morning raises many questions about behaviour on our footpaths, and about the conduct of political campaigns. It is common practice across Australia and the world for politicians to erect temporary signage on public roads, and to wave to traffic as they pass by the signs. Steve Minnikin, LNP Candidate for Chatsworth on Brisbane’s southside, had his team out waving at traffic yesterday. Are they to be arrested for being a Public Nuisance too?

Or is the problem the slogan on the T-shirt that the offender was wearing? “I’m with Stupid” is hardly a new concept. A quick google image search for “I’m with Stupid T-shirts” returned 16 million results. “I’m with Stupid” apparel can be purchased online from all good online retailers…and now, you can own your own “I’m with @Can_Do_Campbell, and he’s with Stupid” T-shirts. 

With CanDo’s arrest, the minor "nuisance" was 

removed from Brunswick Street, but the winner wasn’t the LNP’s campaigners. Nor was it the passers-by on the street, drivers on Brunswick Street, or even the Queensland Police Service. It was @Can_Do_Campbell himself whose mischievous sense of humour managed to make the LNP campaigners look petty, and the QPS look foolish, and get it all over the media. 

Meanwhile, the LNP's official campaign has lost traction, as the messages they want us to see are being drowned out by the fiasco of arresting a man in a novelty t-shirt.

The police over-reaction has even made the evening news, while Twitter went wild with comments about Queensland being a police state under Premier Newman - a return to the bad old days under Joh Bjelke-Petersen.  It’s embarrassing press for the LNP – a far better result than @Can_Do could have dreamed of when he donned his t-shirt this morning.

Of course, the issue at stake here is really about our freedom of expression. One man is arrested for mocking a few LNP campaigners who were waving at traffic, the Courier Mail gets away with running partisan stories and hysterical front pages, while 12 are assassinated in Paris for cartoons that mock their religion.

Can't we all just get along?

Update:

Queensland Chief of Police Ian Stewart has been asked numerous times today on twitter for his response to the arrest. He has also been asked if police witnessed him involved in a dangerous or criminal act, if so what the act was, and whether it is common. His response is at the right of the page.

Newmania: Damage Control

PERFECT ONE DAY -  ELECTION THE NEXT

Rumours are flying tonight that tomorrow, Queensland Premier Campbell Newman will call an election for as early as January 31^st. The rumour has caught everyone by surprise, but is it that surprising? There are compelling reasons why an early election would benefit the LNP government, and make it difficult for the Labor Opposition to steal victory, despite the recent Newspoll, which reported a two party preferred result of 50-50. 

The LNP government has been in pre-election mode for months, spending millions of dollars on government advertising. Transport Minister Scott Emerson further softened the ground over the weekend, commenting publicly on Campbell Newman’s future:

“I think that when we get to election day, they’ll have a very clear choice and that is between our government that is detailed and has a plan, a strong team, compared to Annastacia Palaszczuk, who’s got no plan except to bring back the people who’ve caused the mess, caused the debacles, caused the deficit in the first place,” he said.

When asked who would be leader if Mr Newman did not hold his seat, Mr Emerson said: “We’ve got a premier — he’ll be the Premier before the election, and the Premier after the  election.”

A state election in late January or early February would place the majority of the campaign within the summer holiday period. Right now, media coverage is dangerous for the LNP – the stories are about unpopular asset “leases”, tight polls, the likelihood of the Premier losing his seat of Ashgrove to Labor's Kate Jones, and the ongoing damage being inflicted by the federal Liberals.

Summer holidays is the perfect time in which to run a campaign against a backdrop of negative media coverage. It’s television and radio non-ratings period, and many traditional current affairs programmes are in recess, or their usual hosts are on leave. It’s a chicken-and-egg conundrum, yet for whatever reason, there are simply less people paying attention to news media, preferring to spend their summers in the pool, by the barbecue, engaged with traditional January sports carnival of the Magic Millions, the Australian Open tennis, and the ongoing cricket competitions. Now is the right time for the LNP to minimise coverage of these contextual issues.

It’s also the right time to minimise the number of new voters who enrol. School leavers and their peers tend to prefer Labor and the Greens to the conservative LNP. Minimising new voter registration reduces the number of likely Labor/Greens voters who can vote. It’s a smart, if cynical tactic, and hardly new. School leavers are still unsettled, not yet established in university or new jobs.

As the holiday season rolls on towards Australia Day on January 26, many Queensland families are likely to be away from home, some interstate. If the LNP feels it has lost support of families, it would benefit from a January campaign.

And there’s the Abbott Factor. The recent Victorian state election has proven that a conservative government can be tossed out after a single term, and comparisons are being drawn between Queensland and Victoria. Described as “toxic”, Tony Abbott was warned to steer clear of Victoria during the state campaign. The Prime Minister and his government are phenomenally unpopular, although less so in Queensland. As the federal conservative government continues to slide in the polls, more and more damage to state Liberal/LNP government is to be expected.

And finally, as ABC State Political Reporter Chris O’Brien has reported tonight, the LNP will be hoping to catch the Labor Opposition “on the hop”, unprepared for an election to be called this early. While Labor candidates have been announced, they probably weren’t expecting to face an election day this side of March.

Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk has little to work with: after two successful by-elections, she still only has ten members, and one, Desley Scott, is not standing for re-election. That gives Labor nine incumbents in the 89-seat government.

Having said that, there will be some former ALP ministers hoping to win seats back in this year's election, so logically, she should have a few more experienced parliamentarians than she has now.

The single positive factor working for the Newman government as we move into this summer campaign season is the devastating majority it carries from the 2012 election. In order to surrender government, the Labor team would need to pick up over close to 40 seats, depending on how many seats fall to minor parties and independents.

The swing calculated from current polling is at about 13%, which would see 38 seats change hands, given a steady swing across the state. . While polling is locked at 50-50, swings are rarely uniform. It’s not impossible to win though – Newman’s LNP government picked up 44 seats in the2012 election. 

The big question is whether, even in the face of rising unemployment, asset leases and the Abbott Factor, Annastacia Pazaszczuk is a strong enough leader to successfully challenge the Newman-lead incumbency. I’m not sure that she is.

The other election question Queenslanders are pondering tonight is whether the state’s P&C Clubs can get into gear quickly enough to mount respectable sausage sizzles at polling booths on January 31^st. Sausage Democracy depends on it!