Hey Paul, what about population growth in SEQ? You haven’t mentioned it.

Traffic congestion, water supplies, environment, cost-of-living, health, education and all manner of other services and infrastructure, and how our tax dollar is spent and the lack of tangible returns from this expenditure…. these are all directly related to this factor.

Bligh recognised the problem and organised a population growth summit. But then came up completely blank on ways to deal with it, other than to suggest that people go live in north Queensland or Longreach instead!

Despite Newman’s complete lack of indication that he’ll do anything to tackle it, it has surely got to be one of the biggest factors in Bligh’s demise.

No mention of the appalling administration and huge debt either. Newman will likely be a far more capable manager, so it will be interesting to see whether his administration can cope with the growth: I suspect it will still be a problem. However, the economic harm from mass immigration and the most restricted and obscure land development processes in the developed world are making it harder to attract skilled migrants, so the rate of population growth will probably fall in the short term.

Sorry Paul, you've got a lot of that wrong, at least for most of the people in my area, one where the local booth previously always favoured Labor a little.

Around here it was the carbon tax, followed more or less in order by the payroll debacle, Anna herself, many women dislike her, Peter Beattie, everyone dislikes him & wanted a belated whack, hospitals, the water grid/desalination plant, public service waste, rising charges for everything, the slime campaign & Traveston dam.

If she had changed those few things, she could have been a winner,--almost. Still you underestimate how much of it was Julia, carbon tax, & Beattie. Sure without these crosses she bore, she would still have lost, but nothing like in the manner she did.

I do feel a little sorry for her, [but only a little after the slime job], as she will always be remembered as the big looser, despite a large part of the fault being Julia & Beattie.

This Article has me puzzled. Even more so when I notice that the Author works in Queensland.

As it appears to bear little reality as to why we voted Labor out on such a scale.

I can only assume that he is either re-writing History or he didn't step outside the University in the past 3 years.

I know of a significant number of rusted on Labor supporters who changed their vote this time, many for the first time.

Anna lost this Election 3 Years ago.. its as simple as that....through the Asset Sales combined with the Petrol Subsidy withdrawl. Almost everything She and the useless mob that passed as her Cabinet did, after that, simply re-enforced their Fate.

There was NO " it's time " factor, I didn't hear that anywhere.

Secondly the scale WAS predicted. If the Author had read the Brisbane Times Online during the 9 week campaign ( remember the phoney 4 week start, I do ) the Times had several Polls on how many sets would Labor win.

The winner was 5-10 followed closely by 0-5, followed by 10-15 , 15-20 and finally over 20 last. only One in Ten people thought that Labor would get over 20 Seats this time.

Incidentally, Gillard should worry, those same Ex-Labor Voters don't like her either.

One down and One to go, is frequently heard in the big world outside Universities

I hope some serious study is put into this election loss. As yet, all the commentaries seem to lack research - they theorise instead.

And by 'serious study', I mean asking the people. I've been told countless times why I and my fellow Queenslanders voted Labor out, but I've never been asked. My city, Townsville, was exclusively represented by Labor MPs a month ago. Now we have traded them in for LNP representatives. The same can be said for much of Queensland. Surely those who are serious about 'getting to the bottom' of the electoral result could start by asking the voters why they voted the way they did?

I confess that I can't offer much insight. I've never voted Labor, but hold myself open to the possibility of doing so if I see something I like in that party. But the result of this state election shows that there are plenty of swinging voters out there. I suggest the political scholars look for them. I'm pretty sure many of them would be more than happy to explain their choices.

I voted labor because while I was recovering from a boozey hangover and after I'd staggered into and shared some ... ahhh... time with a few homeless drug smoking unfortunates, while on the way to the polling booth. They told me they were voting LNP so I thought it best I vote for who opposed their choice. Seemed natural to me.

Why the hell would anyone take the Labor Party in Qld seriously? Why would anyone bother raking over the debris in the hope of reviving anything. Hayden's right ... it's had it's day.

I know there was a factional fight going on between Beattie and Rudd in the days leading up to the catastrophe.

Guess what they were fighting over?

Yep who was going to lead the remanants of Qld Labor.

Beattie won. Contemplate that particular madness.

I even ran into Arch Bevis scruitineering at Bulimba. Sadly Arch you, to me, looked utterly defeated. A look I never ever thought I'd see on the face of one of Labor's hardheads.

Now that the election media frenzy has died down, I think it’s time for a bit of a post-election perspective.

One would assume that there was a massive stampede away from the ALP directly toward the LNP in Queensland but the final figures are worth looking at.

First of all, there was indeed a swing away from the ALP - of around 15.6%.

However - of this, the LNP only picked up 8.09% of the swing but Katter picked up 11.51% (Yes I know this totals to more than 15.6% but there were votes also heading toward the ALP from Independents too).

What’s more interesting is that the final seat figures show that the ALP picked up 26.6% of the votes but only 8% of the seats while
Katter’s 11.5% of the votes won him only 2 seats (as did the 2 Independents).

In typical Joh-era style, the LNP, with 49.69% of the votes managed to get 88% of the seats – and this with 40% of voters not even giving them a preference vote.

While this is bad for the ALP it’s more a “vote of no-confidence” in them than it was a “vote of confidence” for the LNP.

With O'Farrell's NSW government starting to lose it's post-election sheen and the Carbon Tax about to be implemented, one may reasonably expect that the inevitable slash-and-burn yet to come in Queensland before the next Federal Election may start to turn things around for Gillard, especially if Abbott stumbles or fails to live up to critical scrutiny in the coming months.

Forlorn hope Wobbles.

It's only in the media you see what you wish. Out in the real world of the voters, the media view is trash.
Gillard isn't listening to the voters and the voters aren't listening to her. Federal issues underlined the Qld vote. And with the ALP on less than 30% in recent polls, if the move away from the Greens in QLD is reflected Federally, Gillard's loss will be as catastrophic as Qld Labor.

Federally Gillard will have to campaign under the ALP banner. That was something the ALP didn't do in the QLD election ...because of it's toxic nature.

She should go to an election now and campaign on her trust message. Things will only deteriorate the longer she puts it off.

Really how many more stuff ups can they try to 'spin' away?