Shambolic LNP get the wobbles in run to poll
OMNISHAMBLES. A term coined in a TV farce about politics which has now entered the lexicon. It was first used in Armando Iannucci’s glorious BBC series The Thick Of It by the famously foul-mouthed spin doctor Malcolm Tucker.
“See you,” he says to newly appointed minister Niocola Murray. “You’re a f***ing omnishambles, you are. You’re like that coffee machine, you know, from bean to cup, you f*** up.”
The travails of the Queensland LNP are beginning to look a little like the plot of the show’s fourth series, which depicts the characters in opposition.
The controversy around the selection of their candidate for the Currumbin by-election was like an omnishambles straight from the script of a The Thick Of It episode.
No blame can be attached to the candidate, Laura Gerber. She is, after all, new to politics.
Party leader Deb Frecklington, however, is no longer on her political Lplates.
Yet avoidable accidents keep happening.
There was the disastrous Sunday Mail interview in which she spoke about Annastacia Palaszcuk’s clothing choices, calling her a “Princess” – comments which elicited an all-too-predictable backlash.
Only weeks earlier, Ms Frecklington appeared desperately out of touch when repeating the same answer multiple times to questions about a video which had emerged depicting Young LNP members on the Gold Coast laughing at a racist slur.
“It is inappropriate, and the party are taking action,” Ms Frecklington said, six times in a row.
And now the debacle of Currumbin.
The risk for the LNP is that the manner of Ms Gerber’s selection will not only have put local party members off side, but voters too.
Picking a relative unknown weeks out from a poll looks like arrogance, as if the party leadership thinks there are voters on the Gold Coast they can take for granted.
Again, Ms Gerber is not at fault here. She has been given very little to work with.
At the very least, the LNP leadership should be laying out a strong alternative vision for voters which would give her a decent platform to campaign on, an ability to make a strong and immediate impact.
There are many issues on which the current Labor government is vulnerable.
The resourcing of police in the face of growing crime. The failure to better support our tourism industry. The revenue-raising antics. The soaring state debt.
The LNP could declare they would extend heavy rail to the airport, support a hinterland cableway, offer to lower public transport fares so the cost of commuting to Brisbane becomes reasonable.
But during a press conference to introduce Ms Gerber, there was little such talk. Ms Frecklington spoke loosely of M1 upgrades and the Coomera Connector – projects to which the Labor Party can also lay claim.
For her part Ms Gerber said she wanted to “improve our schools” and ensure everyone can get home “without being stuck in traffic”.
All well and good, but voters will need a lot more detail on how this might be achieved between now and March 28.
There is a wider concern for the LNP behind the chaos of Currumbin. The by-election is a mere warm-up for the main event, the state election scheduled for October.
After two terms of the Palaszczuk government they should expect to win. But the omens for the party are not good.
Other than a remarkably efficient pre-selection process, the operation looks weak.
If matters continue as they are, LNP members will fear the state election campaign.
Fear that it will become another great omnishambles.