Pollies just clueless

IN a newspaper article with reference to the Queensland Budget, one of the most competent and logical regular commentators was quoted as saying, “One thing is crystal clear, Jackie doesn’t have a clue”.

Politicians of all kinds are now elected mostly on their affiliation to a particular party and embrace the philosophies of the party.

There is, astonishingly, no requirement for assessment of the capability of candidates for election in respect of their potential to oversee the complex decision- making processes that determine how we all get to live our lives.

No doubt there has always been an element of the situation where a minister must accept the advice of public servants without having the knowledge and background to question their advice about technical matters requiring appropriate expertise.

Sadly the public service, in many areas, is not the public service of old where it was structured and endowed with sufficient depth of knowledge and experience to honestly perform its duties with competence.

Acknowledgments go to the Goss/ Coaldrake and ( yes!) Rudd Public Sector Management Commission which was the destructive beginning of the root rot and partisanship that dumbed down the relationship of the executive and public service and left all of us with a cloudy, vanilla future.

When you combine an executive populated by people selected for allegiance rather than for capacity and expertise with a public service populated by too few who have sufficiently deep knowledge and skill you do not have a government that is structured to perform optimally.

It is not acceptable to have elected representatives claiming kudos for windfalls, let alone for questionable decisions about how windfalls should be spent.

Worse is the hypocrisy of a government that has treated Adani so shabbily in chasing Green votes by reversing its rhetoric and speaking negatively about the Adani coal project and seemingly not wanting or condoning coal mining.

That government now gloats how much money it has in royalties from coal being produced and lauds the opening of new mines like the $ 1 billion Olive Downs Coal Mine.

The gloating Jackie takes ownership of the rivers of gold and of the shiny corporate coal plays. Where is the consistency? Where is the praise and encouragement and leadership being offered to Adani? Would one be forgiven for thinking that this is real hypocrisy?

Would one be forgiven for thinking that there is a hint of racism in this, or could it be that a proposal from what could be said to be a foreign family business, rather than a steely corporate one — however foreign it may be — is considered a soft target?

The radical end of the Green movement appears to have determined that this soft target is where they should aim their artillery.

Good business is about stewardship, leadership and balance and us voters out here do not see much good business sense happening here in the Sunshine State. BERNICE SELLARS,

Bowen.