The writer mentions "Bligh’s privatisation (vote) reflects a more fundamental betrayal."
How so? The Labor "lefts" support and prop up the right wing - they also supply the right wing with the attendant political cover. You might say they polish the boots of the right-wing. Publicly at times, they pull some well rehearsed televised walk-outs with lots of noise and some phoney protest.
The right-wing are the open agents of capitalism, the lefts are the masked agents of capitalism. In reality, the "lefts" have no alternative to capitalism and nationalism and so they adapt to the rightwing. The only alternative is genuine socialist internationalism and that perspective would mean the end of their "precious career" structure.

Thanks, Scott Prasser for a most helpful article.

I stood as an independent candidate against the Treasurer Andrew Fraser precisely because I believed privatisation was an issue at stake in the last state elections.

Even before the elections were announced, I e-mailed both Andrew Frasere and Anna Bligh and asked them that they tell Queenslanders of any plans to sell off any more assets, but was ignored. See "Open letter to Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser asking that any planned privatisations be put to the public at forthcoming elections" if 17 Feb 2009 at http://candobetter.org/node/1073

I repeatedly challenged Anna Bligh, Andrew Fraser and even Lawrence Springborg to debate privatisation, but was ignored by them and by the newsmedia (See "Brisbane ABC suppresses alternative candidates in state elections despite listener dismay with major parties" of 30 Apr 09 at http://candobetter.org/node/1159).

For more articles on the Queensland state elctions, please visit http://candobetter.org/QldElections

By their conduct Anna Bligh have definitely taken the practice of democracy in this country to new depths.

Whilst I have always voted Labor, at least on a two-party preferred basis, I think this Government deserves to be sacked by the Queensland Governor and new and, hopefully, this time, fair elections called.

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I would dispute that Anna Bligh has betrayed herself. Possibly the Anna Bligh of 2009 has betrayed Anna Bligh, the student activist of the (1980's(?)).

For a very long time, Anna Bligh has clearly been as lacking in principle and as self-serving as any politician, so I don't know how it is possible to argue that such a person has betrayed herself.

If you read Naomi Klein's towering "The Shock Doctrine" of 2007, you will see the same pattern of behaviour in many other unprincipled and unconscionable political leaders.

Bligh betrays her principles? - what principles?

She has the same basic and overweening principle as her mentor,Beattie - acquire and maintain power at any cost.

Nothing will change in Queensland or Australia until the current business and political hierarchy is destroyed.

"But, can we accept a leader who has possibly betrayed herself?" yes of course we can, we do it all the time with a minimum of outrage.

We have a chameleon ALP government in Canberra, the press gallery are but an extension of their marketing such is their acceptance of the status quo. In fact it's clear they love it and transmit that to the populace, in glowing terms.

The Australian political mantra, state and federally is "Whatever it Takes", listen to them speak on a daily basis and you realize they don't care about anything more than personal power.

They certainly don't care about Australia, or whatever state you like, it's all about power.

As Australians we get that, and try to pick a party we perceive will do less damage than the other, but we have few illusions about their motives or honesty and hence are not as shocked or surprised as you seem to be.

I'm among the polled 85% of Queenslanders against selling off our State assets. The State government's decision appears to have been budget-driven, and that's unfortunate, because the implications are long-term while the budgetary situation will change from year to year.

I was also very strongly against the Howard government's ideological - not budget-driven - insistence on selling off Telstra. There was no short term perceived imperative to do this, and no technological and service gap like that of the Argentine and Chilean public telcos in the late 1980s.

Indeed the Commonwealth's loss forever of its substantial shareholder dividends from ownership of Telstra is the permanent loss of billions of dollars annually. Brain-dead stuff.

Much worse, selling off Telstra to private ownership changed its mission statement from "provide best service to customers" (the general public) to "maximize profits for shareholders". This threw out any conception of community service obligation - implicit in public ownership - and led management, understandably, to take the view that if the government wants community service obligations to be met, then the community (the government) should pay for it, not the private shareholders. Impeccable logic, but a lousy outcome for the public, which continues to suffer from arrogant disdain by Telstra. For this I still implacably despise the Howard government.

Glorfindel wrote, "The State government's decision appears to have been budget-driven, ..."

I think that that is far too charitable.

As Dorothy Pratt pointed out in her speech on the budget:

"It is expected that $15 billion will be raised from this fire sale, but Queensland will have a $44 billion debt and in four yours time Queensland's debt will be over $80 billion. So I cannot see this relatively paltry $15 billion making much of a difference in the future." (http://candobetter.org/node/1339)

A 12 year old child would be capable of understanding that you can't balance budgets indefinitely by selling off your assets. Any member of the public has more sense than to sell their house and rent it back if cash is short.

Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser have to be more intelligent than that.

I believe the explanation for their actions is that they are no longer serve the Queensland public, rather the corporate sector who have similarly ransacked other national economies as described in "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein referred to above.

As Klein points out these sorts of politicians deliberately seize upon economic disasters or natural disasters as excuses to foist such unpopular policies on the public.

Do you recall that the original pretext was that the floods was the straw that broken the camel's back and they were left with no choice whatsoever but to sell off as many assets as they could possibly could?

They must have since judged that that excuse would not wash, so that has been quietly dropped and they are sticking to the GFC excuse.

The sale Telstra was an outrage. At the time the legislation passed through the Senate, 70% of the public opposed the sale. We are now facing the wholly predictable consequences.

However those who rammed the sale through Parliament would care little. As with the Queensland Government today, their job was simply to help the corporate sector to further loot the public sector and they achieved their goal.

Further information can be found on http://citizensagainstsellingtelstra.com