Australian politicians have simply forgotten they are supposed to be 'representative'.
Since Fraser's push for parity in salaries between politicians and the public service, our pollies have come to regard themselves as executives, rather than policy makers.
This has put Labor pollies in particular in an obviously contradictory position; that of an employer trying to represent the employees.
The manager can't also be the shop steward.
Why did no one notice -or care- that the bulk of Krudd's money came from his wife's Labor hire firm?
No one in Australia has anything like the lurks, perks, glamour, glory and ongoing renumeration of the Australian politician, apart from other politicians.
Today, they 'represent' no one but themselves.

Queensland has a long-running problem with politics. Aside from a single CPNP term in 1929 - 1932, Queensland had a Labor government from 1915 - 1957, then we had a Country/National Party government from 1957 - 1989 and from 1989 - 2012, aside from a 2 year loose National/Liberal coalition forming a minority government from 1995 - 1998, we've had a Labor government. So, aside from 2 * single-term governments, Queensland has had a 42 year stretch of Labor followed by a 32 year stretch of Country/National followed by a 23 year stretch of Labor.

That's not good for anyone. Balance is the key, and 20+ year stints in power is not good for any government and certainly not for the State.

Borbidge's greatest political achievement was getting the LNP off the ground here in Qld - before that the coalition was a loose collection of public backstabbers. The LNP's greatest move was finding someone who shows some form of leadership to lead the LNP to victory in the 2012 election.

The Qld Labor had not been flavour of the month for many years, however there was no credible opposition - Beattie's last 2 elections and Bligh's first one should have been won by the L/NP coalition if they had a viable leadership team.

The change has been a long time coming - I don't think the ACL had *anything* to do with the change, however I don't see any good coming from the LNP/ACL coalition they are trying to form.

Only a secular government will guarantee any religious freedom and stability of government and sanity in education. The Labor government didn't want to correct the alteration made to the Education policy, which was a shame.

I can't see any viable Labor opposition being formed for the next election, but I never want to see another long *any* government reign like we've had in the past.

Here is one prominent Australian's take on why Labor lost the election - an opinion also held by Kelvin Thomson, the federal Labor member for Wills in Victoria. (From an email I received):

" Congratulations to Kelvin Thomson for making the valid point that much of the media have been trying to ignore:

There is no mystery about why Labor lost the Queensland election.
Anna Bligh's encouragement of rampant population growth in Queensland saddled the state with crippling infrastructure bills, and forced her to sell off most of Queensland's remaining assets.

The electorate did not forgive her for this breach of faith, or for their increasing cost of living, skyrocketing house costs, and sense of powerlessness as developers were allowed to trample over community objections.

Anna pretence that she was somehow going to turn things around with superb planning for Queensland's future infrastructure was always a lie. As Jane O'Sullivan showed in her Online Opinion article the huge infrastructure costs of an ever-expanding population -- over $200,000 per person -- were always going to break the bank.

Kelvin rightly suggests that Federal Labor needs to abandon its high immigration and high population growth policies.

His own 14 point plan would be an excellent start. See

http://www.kelvinthomson.com.au/page/population-debate/default.asp

For his on-air remarks today see Sky News's AM Agenda on 26 March 2012
at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_18xEcPAPk&list=UUHJgaKR3Glj9bQW4VHYr35A&index=1&feature=plcp "

(You will need to reconstruct that link)

Dear Chrys,

According to the exit polls at the QLD election, the top reasons for voting trends were;

1. Cost of Living. 2. Service Delivery 3. Carbon Dioxide Tax.

Since the CO2 Tax will be the biggest contributor to across the board price increases these public concerns appear to be one and the same.

We keep being “told” by all ALP politicians and the majority of the commentariat that our stated rationale in QLD for voting the way we did is wrong, we actually voted for issues that are State based and nothing to do with a massage to federal government?

This week’s national Newspoll indicates “message sent” and “message ignored”. If these polls are to be believed, 72% of Australians will not vote for the ALP.

What is it about reality that the ALP and the commentariat don’t get?

The same old “what the ALP needs to do?” came out of the losses in WA, NSW, VIC and now QLD.

There seems to be not one single issue in your article that is remotely of any concern to Queenslanders specifically or Australian voters in general.

The “what ifs” you present for the ALP at the next election seem to be so far from reality and so irrelevant to the current situation that there is something fundamentally disturbing about such an obvious disconnect.

Is it academic isolation? Could it be ideological isolation? Could it be the Group Think afflicting the media? I wish I knew.

Not that it bothers me because the more the ALP listen to mitigation, justification and further “suggestions” from the progressives, the greater their annihilation at the next election.

There seems to have been an element of surprise from the media in this election result, possibly because the commentariat “wished” the result to be otherwise. If they were indeed surprised that serves to confirm just how disconnected they are.

I have never seen such overwhelming support from those who are part of the problem, the commentariat.

The Labor Party lost because they are untrustworthy, mindless ideologues playing to a society which exists only in their imagination.
Australia has moved past the idea that we are engaged in some form of neoMarxist class struggle, apparently, everyone that is, except University Lecturers and Left wing politicians.

As for the relevance of a new Progressive Left... The GREENS got 0 seats in the QLD election. That's your answer. There's nothing 'progressive' about a burned out social notion from last century.

There is only one way to vote: that is to vote for the opposition, The Shooters & Fishers, or Christian Democrats at every election until the Australian Royal Family (Labor, Greens & Liberal) stop acting as if they are Royalty.

No group hates Royalty more than the Labor party and yet many of their idolised past front bencher's can be traced via their pink-blood lines to former Labor leaders. The only problem Labor Politicians have with Royalty is that they are not technically Royalty. Being voted in apparently gives them the Royal entitlement to enact adolescent, ineffective, anti-growth, anti-human, draconian, expensive, illogical & deluded legislation. Not to mention their slobbering love affair with the United Nations aka the Despots Union.

The Labor strategy is to tax workers into oblivion, then pretend to be the champion of said financially stressed working families that Labor themselves have impoverished by profligate spending and a genetic incapability to identify core issues instead of focusing on CO2 (opps, you know the black stuff,carbon), pink batts, revolutionising education by building school canteens that have no volunteers, sexuality and subsidised, opportunistic boat trips to paradise.