Costigan spray not surprising

NORTH Queensland Liberal National MP Jason Costigan lambasting his own party for its poor performance took us by surprise, but his comments aren’t really surprising at all.

It’s nearly a year since the State Government election.

During that campaign, it was widely tipped that at least a few, if not all, of the local seats, would have gone to the LNP.

Instead what we saw was popularity swell for the minor parties, in particular Katter’s Australian Party, which picked up the seat of Hinchinbrook.

In Townsville, Thuringowa and Mundingburra, the Labor Party better knew the pressure points and hammered home the threat of potential LNP job cuts.

When political stalwarts Peter Lindsay and John Wharton publicly criticised the loss, they were suspended from the party, which was not only a thin- skinned, spineless move, it also meant the party lost oodles of experience in campaigning.

Whether the LNP got its election strategy wrong or whether its former leader Tim Nicholls just didn’t resonate with Northern voters, the point made by Mr Costigan is a valid one – at a state level the party is struggling.

On Monday the Bulletin reported that polling showed federal Liberal candidate Phillip Thompson was more popular than current Labor Herbert MP Cathy O’Toole.

But history has taught us that in reality there is only every one poll that counts – and that’s the one on election day.

There is no denying the Katters are gaining popularity in a North Queensland sick of southerners failing to understand our unique issues and the hunger for secession grows in momentum as parties lose touch.

Take for example the Labor Party’s failure to field a Senate candidate north of the Sunshine Coast, a trap the Coalition avoided when North Queensland Senator Ian Macdonald’s likely replacement, Susan McDonald, agreed to move North.

Let Mr Costigan’s comments serve as a warning to both levels of government that the North matters.