The intersting point to come out of this is in the implications for fixing the health system. For if 55% of the general public don't trust Beattie to fix the health system then what proportion of the actual health system employees would trust him? It would certainly be a lot higher than the general public so let us assume that 70% of people within the system don't trust him. That is bad enough in itself but the key to bringing the system back up to speed is to either attract new entrants or to induce those who have given up on the system to return to their old jobs. And it is actually this latter group, most of whom are either originally from Qld and have moved or are still in the state but in the private system that will make or leave broken, the system.

And what proportion of this group would trust Beattie to fix the problems he created himself? In a word, zippo. And that is the grim reality we face in Queensland. Essentially none of this huge cohort of experienced people with strong existing or past links to our state will ever come back while the current administration is in power. Their well founded and deep mistrust of this administration is the single biggest hurdle that any recovery effort must resolve.

And the only thing that will resolve that issue within the time frame that the community has a right to expect is an early election. It is the most contributive step, the critical step, in any restoration of health services. As the quote goes, "you have sat to long there for any good that you have done, enough now, and be done with you, for the love of god, man, go".

I hope that the predictions of this article do come about, and would like to point out one side-effect.

The Queensland National Party, having unburdened itself of much of the memory of Joh's antics, is seeking to displace the New South Wales Nationals as the most powerful in the federal system. If they are unable to do that, they will settle for being a vocal and visible minority, earning them a share of power. The Queensland National's conversations with its senators in the federal parliament is a sign of an attempt to use federal politics to win power in state politics and then hope that gains in state politics will translate to federal ones too. Queensland - less affected by the "sea-change" and "tree-change" phenomenon than Victoria and NSW where it is enough to switch National seats to Labor, then onto the Libs in a three-way contest at the next election - offers the possibility of greatest National gains, both in the Federal and State elections, and it is hoped by some that it will become the focal point for a revival of the party.

The consequences of Beattie's loss would be not only to break the Labor stranglehold on the states, but also to test the unity of the coalition on a state and federal level - increasing the Queensland National's demands for recognition and power, and many Liberal's demands for either greater competition with their National cousins, or a cessation of the perceived preferential treatment of the Nats federally.

Anyhow, Perseus is right regarding the health system. A certain catharsis is needed before people will be willing to work together, and that will only hinder Labor futher, as they are perceived to be burdened by the miasma of the Doctor Death scandal.

As a former ALP supporter, I despaired of Beattie almost from election night 1998 ("Jobs, jobs, jobs, that's what I'm about, jobs jobs, jobs." Soon shown to be nonsense). The problems with Queensland Health are replicated throughout the system, most of the most senior public servants are complicit with the government and it will take more than a change of government to render departments functional. The first thing that a post-Beattie government should do is scrap the no-redundancy policy for their lackeys, sorry, for "Queensland public servants"; the second thing is to disband the so-called Department of State Development; the third thing is a cull of senior ranks in most departments. But this will be of benefit only if the the QPS is henceforth headed by competent and well-intentioned professionsals - genuine servants of the public - rather than "mates" of the governing party or parties. The new departmental heads need to be given clear hire-and-fire powers to replace deadbeats, apparatchiks and party stooges with people of the right quality and attitude.

The Story of the Roman Empire.

Beattie has done a remarkable job on taking queensland to the world.

Our industry is in top condition, our Businesses are humming along with government support nicely, yet our own backyard has rotted to this dire state.

It comes down to trusting your people. If the Health Ministers did the job in the past 10 years, flagged the problems, saw the future and lobbied to get it fixed, we would not be in such poor shape.

Beattie, whilst it being his ship and ultimately him responsible, is a good strong leader. He is good for queensland, gels with those in power and has done plenty for QLD and QLD business, mine being one of them.

He has let his inhouse matters slip by trusting those underneath him to do the Job. It happens to the best of us, especially when he has those calibre of people he is forced to work with.

Springborg, can you imagine him as a leader? His negativity will impeed on this performance, and he has not got the people skills to keep Queensland moving.

I dont vote labour, i am not party affiliated, i am personality affiliated, as is the future of politics.

Beattie has plenty to do now and he will probably get the chop for this, but look at the lack of alternates. We need strength, we need to keep queensland as an engine room feeding industry around the world, but in order to even contemplate or achieve this your own backyard needs to be in top shape.

Placing defective overseas doctors and putting those students through who may not make the grade to get the numbers up, all it serves to do is detriment the system further.

Dont lower the standards to achieve results quickly, just provide total financial and infrastructure support to those in the system, who drop out for a myriad of reasons.

There is a saying in the army. "You are only as strong as your weakest person". The same goes for skilled professionals, including Politicians and Doctors.

A change of government might also have some fun shutting down some of the informal ALP branches normally known as the Boards of GOC's.

I suspect that they will find it difficult to avoid doing the "they stacked the boards with people loyal to their party so we van do the same" thing rather than appointing people based on merit.

It is worth pointing out (the article seems to ignore it) that health is just one of a string of similar govt run areas in Qld which the running can be read as "run into the ground". The spotlight might be off some others at the moment but the spending goes on to try and patch up the infrastruture damage of recent years.

R0bert

faustino

Actually Beattie was not lying, he said Jobs Jobs Jobs for my boys, for my union hecks.

Jobs Jobs Jobs more jobs for public servants, more members for the public sector union, more donation to the ALP.

All these more jobs makes a mess of the state budget, meaning that we cannot have health care, but at least Beattie was not lying

Realist, I think it's even too much to claim that Beattie can be thanked for economic progress and booming buisness. Federal government policy and the legacy of the development sparked off by Nationals such as Joh are what Queenslanders have to thank.

To top it off for Queensland, the Reds can't win a match... not even at home!

DFXK,
The Reds, yes you mean the private schoolboy rugby union [union, such an ugly name] that has very little following, compared to rugby league.

Yes Beattie has made mistakes can anyone name a Premier or Prime Minister who has not. Even the Murdock press admitts the fault has been with us on Health for generations. I do agree Beattie will have to fix the mess left to him by Joe, trouble is so much mess so little time, and Federal funding with which to fix it. Interestingly enough Townsville has just recieved Federal funding of $600 million for some new big guns for the ADF from the $17 billion surplus, however I have not seen any allocation to the States for Health.

The last Federal/State Health Agreement in 2004, cut Federal funding to State Health by nearly $1 billion so we know how much the Howard Government values hospital care to it's citizens.

With the crises in health and policing (Numbers)in Qld people will dump Beattie.

People are most affected by waiting times in health. In Policing people are sick and tired of the 'revenue raising' police activities and the lack of real policing in things like break and enter, common assault, car theft.

Beattie's grins have turned sleazy and his apologises have worn too thin.

I think he'll retire before the next state election...he hasn't much option. Swings of 40% won't be unusual in that election. The Labor party will roll out another Joan Kirner (But not one of the same substance).

What a change in rugby... a Queenslander coaching Australia and (gulp) Auckland and a New South Welshman to coach Queensland. You obviously arn't watching super 14 rugby Shonga. Nor have you been to Lang park with the other 35,000 odd spectators for the last two weekends

Shonga, I can't believe that after 19 years you are still trying to blame Joh for Qld health problems. It is all Labors doing. It was the government that scrapped the regional health boards, mainly because they needed local community reps and, being in the regions, most of the community didn't vote ALP. So they were replaced by the classic ALP fetish for centralised power.

Not only Joh, but 'Red Ted' Theodore must also be rolling in his grave in disgust at what Beattie has done to Queenslanders.

And good point, Keith, about police numbers. Once again, spiv central is trying to blame the drop in numbers on poaching by NSW since the Cronulla riots. But, particularly in the country districts where numbers have always been short, the poaching is by the beattie government itself.

The Department of Natural Resources has been poaching senior rural based police officers to work in their vegetation management compliance jobs. The existing departmental staff won't touch these jobs with a barge pole because they know how much injustice and persecution is involved. They all helped design draconian policy but are too gutless to implement it. So the department has brought in a number of experienced police who know all about busting people but nothing about the context of the vegetation laws. So they believe everything they are told by their new masters and slip on the jack boots without thinking.

The small community of Rosedale, north of Bundaberg, lost their local cop just recently. And for what? Out of 1200 odd properties that were identified as "potential illegal clearing" in the last satellite scan, only 5 or 6 actually went to court. The rest were doing routine management like fence lines etc. So these transplanted cops go from investigating actual crimes to spending all their time investigating 1 in 200 chancers. Something to be reassured about when someone beats your teenage son to a pulp on a main street.

I can't understand what Peter Beattie has done wrong. Why is everyone one on his case?

I mean so what if the

The health system is in total disarray
Education is failing our children with schools massively underresourced
Infrastructure is falling apart
The Police are undermanned and underfunded even with speed cameras
The State is in one hell of a shamozzle

Peter and his ex Deputy/Treasurer declared a budget surplus in previous years - you can't achieve that whilst treating the sick and injured and educating our kids can you? It is being proven all over Australia - that is what every State and Federal Govt has achieved over the past years. WE should be proud of them all!

How can anyone blame Peter for stuffing things up? Isn't he just following a well worn pattern of Govts? Isn't mediocrity the goal of all Govts? Why expect one to aim higher than their goals?

Poor Pete has been lambasted from pillar to post and what for ... doing what we expect of our Govts!

I for one want to thank Pete for not breaking the mould and for at least having the guts to let us see the he is not that good a media tart either.

All these ex-pollies get key jobs after they retire - does this mean that mediocrity is now everybodies aim - even business?

Realist, I wondered after reading your post if your were being tongue in cheek but it looks like you meant it.

Surely you don't think that Beattie knew nothing about the running down of the electricity network as it happened. Surely the unions were complaining to him for years as large numbers of long term staff lost jobs in exchange for big dividends paid to George St.

If Beattie knew nothing about what the ministers he appointed weredoing to their charges then he deserves to go for the gross incompetence of appointing such a useless mob. They have run Queensland into the ground and we will be paying for years to fix the damage.

I'll agree to having some concern about the Queensland coalition being ready to take on government and especially their readyness to do so without doing a business as usual approach.

Beattie has stuffed up big time and hurt a lot of people along the way.

R0bert

Sounds like Queensland is getting the the NSW Labor disease.I think our system has cultivated cowards who take all the easy options.Go back to WW2 and the post war period as opposed to now,we've lost both the courage and insight into what elevates the spirit and only pander to political expediency and short term gratification.

Perseus,
If you go back and read my post you will read "even the Murdock press acknowledges the past mismanagment of Qld Health over generations" so it is not only me. It is the opinion of News Ltd.

Keith,
35,000 people who watch Rugby UNION 3-4 times a year compared with the support of Rugby League is laughable, Brisbane probably has 35,000 stuck up private school boys.

Interestingly I haven't yet heard of a Premier or Prime Minister who hasn't made a few mistakes.

“As a former ALP supporter, I despaired of Beattie almost from election night 1998 ("Jobs, jobs, jobs, that's what I'm about, jobs jobs, jobs." Soon shown to be nonsense)”

Faustino, my thoughts exactly. I was once a Labor supporter, back in 1989 when Goss won power and for a while after that, then I switched allegiance to the Democrats, then the Greens and then to on one, because no party comes within a thillion miles of addressing sustainability issues.

Perseus is right; the health debacle is of an extraordinary magnitude, which should be big enough to see Beatty beaten out of office. The health system is only the tip of the iceberg though. There are many other sections of society that have been allowed to decline or not keep up with population growth. Police numbers are one. The rising road toll is one consequence of that.

This is happening while Queensland has the greatest rate of economic growth in the country.

Beatty has delivered on his promise of greatly increased jobs and has kept taxes relatively low while bragging of a continuously increasing tax base. The trouble is, this hasn’t led to a significantly lower unemployment rate or significantly better quality of life. It has simply meant more jobs and economic growth for an ever-greater population without any average per-capita gain. Not only that, but it is this population growth that has created the jobs and economic growth, by and large, not Beatty. His only real claim to fame in this regard is his manic facilitation of population growth. And yet he has at times expressed concern about the negative aspects of this growth. How duplicitous!

The only significant thing that Beatty has done in the right direction, ie towards sustainability, has been the tree-clearing legislation.

People can see through the claptrap. Hopefully, with the blatant discrepancy between continued rapid economic growth and the awful decline in our health system and other major public utilities, enough people will see the absurdity in the promotion of rapid growth and will demand a government that caps growth and works towards genuine sustainability

The key point is that we need a proper functioning health system NOW but the people who will deliver the improvement will not come back to the system with this government in place.

So the voters of Queensland have a clear choice. They can either have a Labor Government or they can have a decent health system. They can't have both.

The only thing Beattie can do for the people of Queensland is to call an early election.

So the saying goes; "the only difference between Beattie and Judas is that Judas had the decency to hang himself afterwards..."

They say Beattie has 200 spin doctors to make himself seem like an honest man. Most people I know can manage that all by themselves.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAA HAAAAA HAA Ha hahahaha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Perseus writes about spin doctors and honest men.

Ohh that is soooo funny!!

Did I suggest that Beatty was duplicitous?

(deep breath) uhhhhhhhhhhhhh haaaaaaa

Now, if I can just refrain from cracking up……

“So the voters of Queensland have a clear choice. They can either have a Labor Government or they can have a decent health system. They can't have both“

Unfortunately it is nowhere near this simple. There are many things other than health that voters have on their minds when casting their vote. Secondly, from this point forth, Labor will probably do as well as the Coalition would on this issue. In fact they would probably do better, because they have been stung so hard by this issue and desperately need redemption.

So I don’t think an early election or a change of government will do anything to improve the situation.

In the bigger picture, what we need is a government that stops misleading us by telling us that everything is just fine by way of rapid economic growth and an ever-increasing tax base, which by implication means better services and a better quality of life for us all in Qld. It is time for our leaders to tell us the truth – that all this rapid economic growth, which is for the most part provided by rapid population growth, is simply providing approximately the same standard of living for ever-more people without improving anything for the average person.

That’s the key….and the coalition sure as hell ain’t going to provide it…. by all indications