Sounds like arrogant, born to rule, sour grapes to me.

It was no "accident" and to phrase it as such shows the rightwings contempt for voters and for democracy.
The same as rabbott calling it "absentmindedness" when people vote Labor.
They cant conceive of the idea that they are wrong and the voters dont like what they are doing.
It is all a big mistake and people didnt really mean to vote them out.

It is just a childish, petulant tantrum the like of which we see every time the born to rule mob cant have the reigns of power.

It was of course no accident. The ordinary every-person is quite rightly upset when they urged to "tighten their belts" and/or "make sacrifices", especially when there are no obvious signs that the fat cats are in any sense willing to tighten their belts too.

Nobody on either side of the culture wars divide has the remotest clue as to what needs to be done to solve the obvious crisis within which all of humankind is now trapped.
Furthermore the human world is now essentially ungovernable.

An essay titled Something New Must Emerge - Final Address To Humankind sums up the situation. It was written/finished on the morning of the day that that the author dropped the body.
The essay, plus much more is available via this reference - scroll down for the particular essay:
http://www.daisyorganicessentials.com/dhp23/category/not-two-is-peace

"Then there is the management mayhem, solutions in search of a problem, broken promises and the unpopular leader acting like a lightning rod for discontent, together with an unscrupulous opposition allowed to reinvent reality on the run."

eh for a minute there Graham I thought you were talking about the last federal election.

Nothing will be learnt from this election, all the lessons were already available, there was nothing new in the mistakes that Newman has made. They will be repeated again.

I agree with Mikk and Daffy Duck. This article was a classic illustration of seeing what you want to see and ignoring the evidence. Quite apart from which it is astonishing arrogance and rebuttal of democracy to suggest that every time somebody votes for someone other than your own party they are deluded, or mistaken, or take your pick from any of Abbott's comments post election.

Despite their firm belief to the contrary the LNP or any of its state or federal clones do not have a right to rule. The more quickly they disabuse themselves of that notion the quicker they will formulate policies that reflect their promises, do not treat the electorate like a bunch of mugs, and accept that in a democracy what the voters decide is by definition correct at that time. Abbott's speech yesterday clearly shows that he has not absorbed any of the lessons. The Northern Territory overnight showed that a quick execution of an electoral liability need not be fatal.

"They wanted to scare the government, not sack it..."

I am astonished that such a statement could be made as a fact. Without asking the voters what their intention was it is mere speculation.

"The fingerprint of a protest vote is that the smallest swings occur in the most marginal seats because voters in marginal seats know they can change the government, and are more careful."

But this does not seem to have happened in Queensland. The seats that the LNP retained only 2 had less than a 10% margin from the previous election (one at 9% and 1 and 9.6%). Every marginal LNP seat was swept away. This looks very much like the whole electorate wanting to change the government, not scare them.

Graham,

I think you are grossly underestimating the intelligence of specifically the Queensland, and generally Australian, voter. It is also presumptuous to believe the Liberal Party knows what is best for Australians, and is a key reason why they are in the predicament they now find themselves in.

The Queensland State election result was extraordinary. The swing against the former Newman Government of in excess of 10% demonstrates political parties cannot rely on the traditional loyal allegiance base of voters as in past years.

No longer can political parties take a constituent's vote for granted from one election to the next. They must continually listen, engage and understand their constituents' needs, maintain their trust, and clearly communicate the purpose and benefits of policy positions at an individual, family and society level.

The Federal Coalition Government also risks the same fate of political annihilation at the next election, if they continually fail to heed the needs of the voting public.

The Queensland State election result is no accident, and reveals that if you do not respect the voter, you will not last long in Government. This is one of the beauties of our democracy at work.