G'day Hasbeen

Tanya Plibersek maybe - but I would neither pronounce nor willingly root for Annastacia Romanov-Palaszczuk-Itszybitszy-Rimsky-Tchaikovsky.

Pete de Wheelbarrow

Poirot, I am sure the ALP has a list of every LNP donor and will be trying to smear all of them when it can by association. They'll ignore instances where donations are given and the donor gets an adverse decision (Clive Palmer) and focus on situations where the donor got something they wanted. If I were the LNP I would have knocked those donations back. But both sides are in an electoral arms race that requires a lot of money so they take everything they get.

If you want to know why Labor wants to go easy on the bikies, then on the same basis perhaps you should look at the CFMEU who has given over a million dollars to the ALP and hires the bikies as enforcers of its corrupt industrial tactics.

Roses, Labor planned those coalmines originally and also the ports. The ports have been scaled back. The "risk" to the GBR is a Greenie hallucination. Ships sail on the water and don't effect coral at all.

Graham, ships are fine until one runs aground or spills bunker oil. I counted 22 huge ore carriers waiting off Hay point several years ago, and there are plans to expand it.

So you think the risk of ships running aground is a 'Greenie' hallucination? Ships don't run aground these days? Ever heard of the Sanko Harvest off Esperance, 1991 or the Rena off Tauronga NZ, 2011? These are just two shipwreck pollution incidents that spring to mind near cargo ports where I have lived, and of course I could go on.... They were less than a fifth the size of the coal bulk carriers and those ports are small in terms of traffic volume in comparison to Hay Point.

OK so I say the Qld LNP Govt and corporations expanding the polluting coal industry despite the high risks of having stranded assets due to climate imperatives and also damage to the Reef are 'Brownie radicals'!

Yes both Lib and Lab Governments have supported coal expansion; maybe that's one reason the Greens have been increasing their vote.

On the LNP's performance, I don't dispute your other measures but please post some links to substantiate your claims. I also agree with you that successive governments'(particularly Bligh's) lies about privatization are absolutely appalling.

However, the Newman Govt's performance in relation to incomes trails the rest of Australia, contrary to their spun claims.
https://theconversation.com/the-true-state-of-queenslands-economy-without-the-spin-35959?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+13+January+2015+-+2295&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+13+January+2015+-+2295+CID_2b6704f9fe76056a4b129b1713bc7b14&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=The%20true%20state%20of%20Queenslands%20economy%20without%20the%20spin

Hi Roses, how many ships have been wrecked on the GBR, and what damage was done? Just citing a couple of ships being wrecked somewhere in the world doesn't represent any sort of a coherent argument. Next you'll be arguing that car accidents are a risk to our land based natural heritage because they happen.

The Greens are trying to shut down modernity, so they use sentimental pitches about highly unlikely catastrophic consequences of modernity to picturesque assets to scare the unthinking into coming on side.

I read the article by the professor and it is devoid of analysis. He also cherry picks the measures that he uses, choosing GDI, because it supports his case, and downplaying GDP because it doesn't. And he makes no effort to look at the underlying issues to see why the stats say what they do. If he did he would see Labor borrowing to give the economy a sugar hit, and he would see Campbell Newman wrestling with the consequences.

You don't turn the Queen Mary on a sixpence, which is why you are worried about the reef. Neither do you turn an economy on a sixpence. What you are seeing now is the legacy of Labor. Newman needs another term to prove his solutions up.

Graham, this is a clear case of your conservative idealistic lense versus my progressive one.

I say Australia's problem is a legacy of handouts to the rich - mainly by Costello for example superannuation tax breaks worth many billions.

As for QLD, Bligh's borrowings and privatizations were done against the wishes of the electorate. But is Newman a saint in this regard? He intends to massively increase taxpayer debt by borrowing huge amounts to bankroll the infrastructure needed to get the doomed Gallillee Coal extraction up and running.

That's one reason I don't vote for either Libs or Labs.

Re the Greens 'trying to shut down modernity', I'll give you another perspective from the progressive lense. The Greens (world wide) are promoting a third industrial age - replacing most fossil fueled infrastructure with renewable energy. It's the conservatives who don't believe this is possible who are the Luddites. In WA and Qld we see clean economical renewable energy has stalled thanks to Luddite Liberal-National party governments. In South Australia we see the opposite - 30% renewable energy - well on the way to a secure energy future - thanks to >15 years of progressive state governments.

I'm sorry Roses, but you aren't progressive in any meaningful sense of the word, and I am definitely not conservative. When renewable energies are cost competitive with existing energies I will happily use them. I have no problem with renewable energy. I've even invested in them a couple of times. However I do have a problem with taxing the poor and the needy to subsidise the Greens illusions about renewables. Let the renewables stand on their own feet, as you apparently think the rest of the country should. The Greens want to tell the rest of us what we should support - that is not progress, that is regress.

Your criticism of Costello is unsupported. If you look at the benefits handed out by Howard and Costello they went mostly to families (think family benefits) and the retired and elderly (think concessional tax rates to self-funded retirees).

Your criticism of Newman is also unsupported. He is actually cutting debt by $25B or so, not increasing borrowings at all. While I have issues with the rail line in the Galilee Basin, I'm sure they will turn a profit out of it. I'm not sure that it will make a reasonable hurdle rate though. To make that calculation you would have to model it, and include royalties and taxes gained from the coal mining that couldn't be gained from other investment in infrastructure.

Governments do have a duty to provide infrastructure to industry as well as people. Extending a highway to an industrial area is no different in principle from the railway into the Galilee Basin.