GrahamY
I'm up in Qld at the moment.

Ok I agree Labor have dropped the ball badly.

But to be fair The LNP has hardly covered themselves in glory either.

“People are telling me they deserve better” (?!) Tell me any voter who doesn’t think they deserve better? Come on team lift the game.

Resident family members are still waiting for policy and policy explanations from both sides. Do you call that responsible or are NLP working on ANY win is a good win?
I know that’s the cynical (to hell with the public attitude) patronizing attitude of the NLP candidate in the Redlands (a Bayside electorate). As a key member of bitterly unpopular "dumped" Council Bloc dubbed the “Secombe 6&½ (nearly 4year 30% approval rating) He survived literally on a handful absentees (less that the incumbency factor). His of tantrums and pointless objections continued untill this campaign when forced to resign. (Clearly he learnt nothing from the drubbing.

So far his campaign consists of:

• Push polling barrage (6 in the last 7 days to one family members home.) either that or there’s heaps of incompetent polling organizations asking badly worded ‘loaded’ questions.
• Yet another pointless enquiry into green bans on parts of the bay for recreational fishing.(Pork Barrelling)
• Busses with picky and slogan
• And claiming a library branch (him and the two Cr’s before him)and the development (gee thanks..I wonder if the developer knows?)

To be fair the sitting Member (Labor) has seemingly gone (fishing?).

Add to that the single issue organ grinders.
One representing the selfish interests of the islands minority.
And an hysterical woman more worried about explaining an aging paedophile (under 24 hr control) 15 k’s from home to her pre- schooler! Than the issues facing Qld.

My point isn’t to bag any candidate per se but to show the politic for what they are in one electorate. Terms like minimalist, local neighbourhood watch presidential style, Fact free, Claytons campaign come to mind (you know the one the campaign you’re having when you’re not having a campaign).

Education is by far the biggest budget item in Queensland. There is no doubt that educational standards in the State are woeful. Notably the standard of Mathematics has declined to being pathetic, especially for the more gifted third of the students. Both sides of this election campaign know that there is a terrible problem but neither shows the slightest sign that it recognoses the main cause of that problem which is the disgracefully feeble subject syllabi allied to the corrupted assessment structures, both of which are products of the Queensland Studies Authority. The ALP talk money - more of this and more of that. The NLP talk money and pin their hopes on the proposed National Curriculum. All the evidence is that the outcome of the National Curriculum will be a collection of minimal standards which will do nothing to solve the problems for the more gifted people.

Sooner or later one party or another will have to come to terms with the fact that the ultimate responsibility for the shocking condition of education in the State MUST lie with the Parliament because they set up the QSA and they, Parliament, are the only ones that can take control of the situation to the benfit of our children.

Governments naturally and rightly are looking for ways to save tax payers money whilst ensuring that there is no decline in service. The ideal would be if they could save money and improve services!

Well, here is their chance! The QSA costs a vast amount of cash each year. Their productivity in terms of the educational standards of the children is not nil, it is negative!

Now, can the pollies work out what should happen to the QSA?

Pity it is too late for either mob to say that they will actually do anything now, but, ah well, maybe in another three years.

If Labor loses the election it will have precious little to do with the election campaign or with Springborg supposedly getting his act together. The Bligh government has a record of being accident prone and arrogant. How many times do Anna and her mates need to trip up before they learn?

In particular, its preference for affirmative action in selection for senior positions has rebounded on the government time after time. The law alone provides a number of notorious examples which keep cropping up as one did very recently, much to the embarrassment of the government.

How could it improve its position? Easy, disbanding the white elephant of a Water Commission and saying outright that the government will henceforth take the advice of its own engineers would be worth several percent of votes.

Promising to sack some of the incompetent Nancy Reagan (lights on but no-one at home) ministers and senior bureaucrats would be worth several more points. It is astounding how so few inattentive and incompetent senior bureaucrats have managed to cause their political masters to continually fall over their feet over simple, but long enduring problems.

Make no mistake, Anna Bligh has had to work very hard in office to lose support. Ordinarily, the wooden man Springborg would be unsaleable and the LNP has no policies, however 'The Borg' (a foolish nick) doesn't have to win anything, just keep his mouth shut as much as possible and Anna will give Qld to him.

The biggest concern is that the Greens stand to benefit from voter disgust with the major parties.

Yes, Springborg might just get lucky this time - sweet heaven forfend!

If he does, it will be down to the undemocratic arrogance of the ALP government. It certainly won't be because of Springborg's positive performance. Anybody who's ever met him knows that he's a decent enough bloke, but as thick as two short planks - and his media/parliamentary persona isn't much better.

Cornflower: << The biggest concern is that the Greens stand to benefit from voter disgust with the major parties >>

For some of us that's actually the silver lining of this election, i.e. that there's a slim possibility that the Greens and Independents will hold the balance of power in the new Qld parliament, thus forcing whoever forms Government (and their Opposition) to engage in unheard of practices such as consultation, conciliation, negotiation, compromise etc.

Mind you, my bet is that the Bligh government will just scrape back in, in its own right.

CJ
I suspect you're correct I here 2-3 majority is expected.
For giggles?
The thing that surprises me is the dis-level independents who think they have a chance? i.e. Heather Steinberg come to mind 5 minutes of fame lowering the respect of both women and the police force proving her lack of competence....Yep she's the one who appeared on TV screaming that she's a police person and she's worried how she was going to explain to her preschooler children how a nigh septuagenarian paedophile while und 24 hr surveillance had been housed in the same shire (15 Ks away!).
The Islands candidate (perhaps 8000 residents) is going to sweep into power why? An expensive uneconomic bridge promised by the dodgy failed developers some 30 years ago. Why? So they can sell their properties and make squillions again as promised by the same developers. The latter arrivals bought knowing WYSIWYG still campaign for Redlands City largess. Then again I suspect he’s trying to wedge enough 1st votes away from ALP too get the LNP in.
My *untested* observation is that there are disproportionably more one song organ grinders and the odd intellectual simian candidates in Queensland generally and more so in this election. This includes one that wears slip-on shoes to facilitate counting beyond 10. And when speaks subtract from the sum total of evolutionary advancement. Of course there are drones in all states.
Queenslanders are like political drunks don’t know what they want but are ready fight for it anyway.
Notwithstanding that occasionally there is a winner a real useful independent candidate like Wellington et al salary was reasonably spent.
All this means that despite the majors best (worst?) this election will be interesting.
I do hope the result will be quick so normal (?) TV viewing on aunty restored in time to watch “the Bill”. To distract me from repeating ‘we’re all gonna die’ too many times. :-)

C J Morgan. .."thus forcing whoever forms Government (and their Opposition) to engage in unheard of practices such as consultation, conciliation, negotiation, compromise etc."

Very well said and I totally agree with you, except that from what I have seen of the Greens they are no better.

What is a real pity is that there are some models of direct community consultation that work superbly and would serve us very well in (say) developing more liveable cities and reducing residential impact on farming land but vested interests continue to block their use.