REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Friday, March 3, 2006

A BATTLE-worn but not yet defeated Premier Peter Beattie vowed to face the angry voters of Gaven at the upcoming byelection before leading his Labor Party into the next state election.

Just five weeks after threatening to quit by the end of 2006 if he had not fixed the health system, Mr Beattie declared he has turned the corner on the crisis and would stay on as leader.

Determined to seize back the agenda after the damaging

Robert Poole saga, Mr Beattie addressed his backbenchers in a surprise meeting of the Labor caucus where he made a number of major ‘good news’ announcements.

One beneficiary of the Poole crisis was nurses who received a $1 billion pay offer without the damaging public protests that they’d had to resort to in the past.

It was one of the last targets Mr Beattie had secretly set himself to demonstrate the health system was on the way to recovery.

Mr Beattie was reportedly cheered by backbenchers when he said he would stand up and fight despite new party polling that showed Labor would be slammed at the byelection.

“I told caucus I would be going to the next election and I would be leading the party into the next election,” he said.

“I needed to show some leadership.

“Leaders don’t walk away in difficult times. I needed to send a clear message that we would fight back from the Gaven byelection disaster, which is what it will be.

“Now is the time to stay and fight, not walk.”