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!

Newmania: Six Months Out

If a day is a long time in politics, the six or so months between now and the next Queensland election is an eternity. Weekend polling has the renascent ALP candidate Kate Jones sitting comfortably ahead of Premier Campbell Newman, while the latest Newspoll is positive for the LNP. Translated to an election result, Queensland would retain its LNP Government, but without figurehead Campbell Newman. 

Currently, the LNP hold Ashgrove with a 5.7% margin. In Queensland, in 2015, that’s probably small enough to class it as marginal, particularly in light of recent by-election swings of near 20% away from the LNP. 

Senior LNP QLD boss Bruce McIver must be feeling some stress, despite the stubborn insistence from a column of current ministers that their leader will win Ashgrove. Local Government Minister David Crisafulli, Racing Minister Steve Dickson, Tourism Minister Jann Stuckey, Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek and others all sang from the party hymn-sheet yesterday: voters can judge Mr Newman on his strong performance as premier blah blah blah. Even the Australian has Newman losing to the ALP’s Kate Jones, although that little prediction is buried in paragraph 4. 

But what happens to Campbell Newman if Ashgrove voters don’t like his track record of savage cuts to services, the arts, and environmental programmes, his antagonistic approach to problems with unions, bikies and security, and his perceived arrogance?

The reality that Campbell Newman might lose his seat is one that must be faced, regardless of what the LNP want to believe. If the LNP state bosses Bruce McIver and Gary Spence aren’t chained to a whiteboard right now, devising Plan B, they’re completely crackers.

The first item for the whiteboard should be determining just how important Campbell Newman is to the Queensland LNP. He was brought into state parliament to provide leadership into the 2012 election. After years in Opposition, and with a series of failed leaders behind them, the LNP needed a new leader with name recognition and a track record who could get them into Government. He’s done that.

Is he still useful to the party? His personal popularity has been sinking for most of his term as premier, and his lead over Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszcuk as preferred Premier owes as much to Ms Palaszczuk’s blandness as it does to anything positive Newman may have done. Does the LNP still need Newman to lead them to victory?

The answer is probably yes, because without Newman, the LNP in Queensland is basically the same LNP that failed time and time again in opposition, albeit with a single term of governmental experience.

McIver and Co are certainly not afraid to parachute a candidate into a safe-ish seat, so should they move Newman out of Ashgrove now into a safer seat? . In fairness, Premier Newman himself has ruled out playing electoral hopscotch. He says he is committed to Ashgrove. 

On paper, a move is an option, but an option with consequences in the form of undecided voters who would see the move through cynical eyes. No electorate would not look fondly on a premier bumping an established local member to remain in power, and particularly not in a seat which was any distance from the Newman family home in inner-city Brisbane. There aren’t that many safe LNP seats close to centre of Brisbane from which to choose.

Just playing the hypothetical card for a moment, the most likely casualty in the event of a seat switch would still be Moggill, held by hapless former state Liberal leader Dr Bruce Flegg. Since the LNP came to power just two and a half years ago, Dr Flegg has attempted to fight off rumours that he continued practising as a GP while he was also Minister of Housing and Public Works. He’s also been engaged in very public spats with various members of his staff. It’s possible that the LNP might be glad to see the back of the negative headlines he generates.

Other candidates to step aside should Newman take up musical chairs may include Tracy Davis, currently Member for Aspley and Minister for Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services. Ms Davis’s single term in government hasn’t been smooth sailing either, with controversies around her daughter’s drug problems while working for yet another LNP Minister, Ros Bates.

The other possible shuffle would be Newman moving to Tim Nicholls’ seat of Clayfield, but it’s unlikely that the LNP would consider punting the Treasurer.

The red herring could be a move to Townsville where Campbell Newman’s experience as an Army man might work in the garrison town. The problem there is that the current member is John Hathaway, another former Army Officer, so any benefit would be negligible.

If Newman chooses to fight to Ashgrove, as he says he will, and he loses, the LNP must consider who is next in line to lead the state. The ReachTEL poll conducted over the past weekend asked the question about potential LNP leaders, but left Newman in the mix. The next most popular, after Campbell Newman, was Lawrence Springborg, who has lead the National Party to two electoral defeats in Queensland. A career politician from the National Party side of the LNP merger, he is unpopular in Brisbane, and the probability of Mr Springborg as potential Premier could cost the LNP several marginal seats in Brisbane. 

Other names to emerge from the ReachTEL poll were current Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney, Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek, Treasurer Tim Nicholls and Attorney General Jarrod Bleijie. Of the four also-rans, Langbroek fared best with 13.3%.

For now at least, the LNP seem to be backing Newman. It paid off last time, but the election is at least six months away. Six months out from the 2012 election, when ReachTEL conducted a similar poll in Ashgrove, Mr Newman’s primary vote was close to 20% ahead of Ms Jones. This time around, he doesn’t have that advantage. 

A Plan for the Future

It seems that the Queensland Government has a plan for the future. Right now, their plan for the future is to add the words “and a plan for the future” to their branding. The obvious question is “why” – and the only answer is to tie the Newman-led government’s branding to that of the LNP prior to the election campaign. The message is this government has the plan, so don’t change the government. 

The real advantage, though, is not only in the wording. The new branding will appear on official state government stationery, websites and even offices in the six month lead-up to the election. Regardless of how clever an opposition campaign might be, or how much money is spent to distribute it, it can’t compete with the government’s taxpayer-funded initiative.

It’s a smart, subtle tool to bolster the LNP vote, before the campaign proper has commenced.

Traditionally, state slogans have been vaguely descriptive, without any political governmental reference points. State slogans – as opposed to political slogans – are just a few words that appear on state letterheads, websites and licence plate to evoke images, memories and emotions. Victoria was The Garden State and The Place to Be, New South Wales used The First State, The Premier State and Towards 2000, South Australia was The Festival State and Tasmania’s most famous slogan was The Apple Isle. Note the absence of verbs.

In contrast, political slogans may be slightly longer and usually contain a statement of values or intent, an aspiration or an urge to action: Turn on the Lights (Federal Liberal campaign, 1975, after Whitlam dismissal), Keep the Bastards Honest (Democrats), Real Change for NSW (NSW 2011) and Go for Growth (Liberal/Howard).

The last Queensland election, in 2011, was a lopsided tussle between the LNP’s all-conquering “Can-Do” campaign, which completely overshadowed the party’s official “Time for Change” campaign, versus the Queensland Labor’s slogan, which despite being less than three years old, has been comprehensively forgotten.

The Queensland LNP is hoping their branding for 2015 won't be forgotten as quickly. According to the ABC, a spokesman for the Premier's Department confirmed that the addition to the government’s tagline is a deliberate attempt by the Newman government to move attention away from the past. 

"The additional line reflects this Government's strong plan for a bright future and reflects the state's 30 year vision for the state, the Queensland Plan," the spokesman said.

The unthinking spokesman also admitted that the new slogan is about the LNP Government, and not about the state of Queensland.

A spokesman for Premier Campbell Newman said the new catchphrase drew attention to the LNP's "strong plan" for Queensland.

After a cursory look at some Queensland government websites this morning, the enhanced tag line was nowhere to be seen. The Queensland Government’s extensive online guide to branding does not mention the new tagline, and was last updated 18 months ago.

Changing branding is always an expensive exercise – consider the hours involved in updating every page of every government website, the cost of reprinting every piece of printed material – from business cards to brochures to forms to letterhead and envelopes to posters – plus signage on buildings and building sites, departmental cars, asset labels, road signs…strictly speaking, everything which carries the logo would need to be changed. Because this change is officially a government change, taxpayers will pay, despite the benefit going to LNP’s re-election campaign.

This is the second change to state branding since the LNP government won power less than three years ago. The existing tag line “Great State. Great Opportunity.” was introduced shortly after the Newman government came to office, when they replaced the famous Beattie Burger logo with the traditional Queensland crest.

Early indications are that the 2015 Queensland election slogans will follow tradition. The LNP website homepage is perilously close to the new tagline being added to the state logo; the state branding omits the word “strong”, which must test well with LNP members – consider the recent “Strong Choices” market research exercise.

The ALP appears to favour the blandly generic “for Queenslanders”…which may have been the slogan used in 2012’s catastrophic loss to the Can-Do team. Who can remember? Palmer United Party’s “Bringing People Together” and “Reunite the Nation” vie for warm and fuzzy attention, and the Greens favour the predictable “Make a Difference for Tomorrow”. These slogans may all change during the next few months.

The one thing we know, six months out, is that the Newman LNP government has a plan for the future, and that plan is to win re-election in 2015.