Sorry, disagree. He was one of the best leaders produced by the Nats. And had integrity and decency rarely equalled in the conservative side of politics. And that is why he had to go! No question, I believe, about it!
Alan B.

Scott Prasser says: "Ahern showed no authority, no political nous and no imagination in responding to the report. He had accepted all its recommendations, "lock, stock and barrel" before the report had even been released."

According to Matthew Condon " Mike Ahern....told a local newspaper that he was pleased that there appeared to be no corruption in his neck of the woods."

Further: "after that quote was published, Ahern says he got an urgent phone call from a senior Sunshine Coast police officer who he knew well. The officer asked Ahern not to repeat that there was no corruption in the region. “He said there was a [local] sergeant here, whose … duty on a Friday afternoon was to go around the brothels and the other places that were being tolerated and collect the money.”

“At three o’clock in the afternoon he’d poke it in an envelope through the wall up at [12 Garfield Drive], the home of Commissioner Lewis. He said that was his duty, that he took a police car, he drove around the whole Sunshine Coast and did the collections, and then at three o’clock it was his duty to drop the envelope through the wall up there.”

If a politician does not know what is going on in his own back yard then Premier of the state is a bit of a leap.

The author is correct in saying that Ahern was a lightweight throughout most of his time in Parliament.

He wanted the top job and finally got it, but not as he imagined it would be,

As for the poor pathetic liberals of that era, well what can one say?

Pathetic comes to mind.

I was involved with the liberals until 1983 as a branch president and local delegate. I had no time for the so-called "ginger group" The party, to them, was not as important as themselves,Our local member was one of that group.

This explains why most of them were tossed at the next election.

They should have stayed in the coalition and used pressure on Joh, and, if needed, have Joh throw them out of the arrangement

( The coalition was always a verbal agreement, never put into writing in that period).

I decided that the liberals were losers after that and left formal party politics. I have never joined another party.

Ahern & Co should have let Joh finish. As it turned out they facilitated an incompetent Labor Govt to do damage that can not be rectified !

The flooding of & subsequent social upheaval in indigenous communities could have been avoided if not for Ahern being in such a rush to be Premier as it would have prevented Goss from taking the post !

Oops, something went awry. should read the deliberate flooding of indigenous communities with Labor supporting bureadroids....