LNP can see poll backlash
THOSE who know these things tell me a few far-sighted LNP identities are anxiously eyeing some growing storm clouds on the Sunshine State’s political horizon.
Object of their discomfort is, apparently, the almost indecent haste and zeal with which mercurial new premier Campbell Newman is pursuing his purge of the public service.
They a r e n’ t disputing the necessity of performing a bit of weight-loss surgery on a bloated and often inept taxpayer-funded edifice, nor are they opposed to the concept of reeling the state back from the abyss of bankruptcy.
What’s worrying them is the somewhat random nature of the cost cutting epidemic coupled with the unappealing realisation that destitute workers and their gowithout families have long memories which are likely to be jogged at the ballot box.
That’s to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of ordinary Queenslanders who will, undoubtedly, feel the fallout when trying to deal with an undermanned and demoralised public sector.
It’s a bit of a Catch-22 – damned if you do and damned you don’t scenario.
For my part, I agree that some departments within the public service have for too long enjoyed an almost untouchable status and it’s fair and just that they should now be paying a price for their previous indemnity from critical scrutiny.
But if basic and essential services are adversely affected by a sweeping and impersonal staff cull, rank and file Queenslanders also have every reason to be concerned. a if
As I said, it’s a hard call and it would be presumptuous of me to tell Premier Newman how to do his job. But I would suggest he treads a little more lightly.
The comparisons between his dictatorial style and the worst excesses of the Bjelke-Petersen circus are becoming a tad too close for comfort. NOTICED this week National Party federal leader Warren Truss is taking off on a four-day road trip from Melbourne to Adelaide to assess the condition of the highway connecting the two cities.
Suggest when he’s finished he tries the same thing on the Bruce Highway between Bowen and Cairns. Sensible betting is that he wouldn’t make it in the allotted time . . . particularly if there’s a bit of rain about.
It’s bloody typical, isn’t it? A couple of potholes between Victoria and South Australia brings out the big guns yet the need for a submarine to get around north Queensland in the wet doesn’t even register on the radar of our southern cousins.
Fair go. We may be a bit far away from the action but we’re still (I think) an important part of Australia. THE Olympic action is nearly over but the breast beating is set to drag on for a lot longer.
Australia’s failure to meet expectations has set the cat among the pigeons with inquiries and post mortems for the future.
Among the suggestions are spending more money, spending less money, making sport compulsory at schools and if all or any of those fail, you can always adopt the philosophy of Federal sports minister Kate Lundy, who reckons silver, not gold, is the new currency of choice at the Games.
I don’t know what the answer is but I reckon we could do a lot worse than teaching our athletes how to be mongrels before they head to Rio in four years’ time.
Seems to me that was the one ingredient absent in London.