What a marriage this will be. Those in the church will be sharply divided. On one side will be clever types in Zegna suits with an array of BMWs waiting to whisk them to the reception. On the other side of the church will be a bunch of hayseeds dressed in RM Williams’ clobber with horses and buggies tied up to a hitching rail. And here comes the bride, a heavily pregnant lass if somewhat rebarbative (which explains the lack of suitors) with ingrained asteism typical of people unaware of life outside the cities. Enter the groom; a yokel who sees marriage as the only way to get the keys to the castle. It’s a somewhat risky maneuver because the castle is protected by a mad redhead monk. The bride’s father is against this union. It would have been a ‘shotgun wedding’ but due to the lack of weapons all the bride’s father can do is stamp his feet. Will the pastor vomit at the thought of joining the ‘happy’ couple?

Where will the couple go for the honeymoon? Hey, we know the answer to that question. It will be Rome, Paris, Vienna, London, New York and Brussels, all at taxpayers’ expense of course. What will the baby look like? Please…I’m trying to eat lunch.

I have heard it said that watching BB is bad. I am sure that watching Australian politics is even worse.

This is the last but one step on an evolutionary sequence that started with the end of the Joh era when greater Queensland formed the dominant cultural and political influence over the urban south east.

It is an implicit recognition by the National's core opinion makers that the rural based product cannot be sold to the million extra voters who haved moved to the state since 1988. But it also represents the last acceptable instance of the self delusion that they can somehow "please" the urban voter and continue to represent their core constituency.

If the merger succeeds then they will achieve government but on terms that squander the interests of rural queenslanders. If it fails then there will be no other place for the nationals to go but back to their community.

Either way, it will become increasingly apparent to their regional voters, that there is no future for them within the existing state entity.

A "country" Party within an urban dominated state entity was always going to be a ticket to nowhere and it is surprising that it has lasted so long. The Americans and Canadians recognised this long ago and used their state boundaries to ensure that specific communities of interest had representation of their own choosing.

Interestingly, their conservative party has just one name but it enables a wide range of policy options between states, to the extent that a Democrat from one state can be more conservative than a Republican from another, and vice versa.

Looks like Father Howard has annulled the marriage before it could even be consumated. No same sex marriage under him!

The marriage would only spawn a new lot of independant members from regional areas.

Sorry Lawrence your up the creek looking for a paddle.

I was reading your post, Perseus, and was suprised it took you so long to propose more states.

Well, the merger is not going ahead... the coalition should focus on winning power, then either abolishing the optional preferential vote, or allowing a party to distribute preferences as they wish of people from whom they receive the first vote. Until that happens, three-party contests will harm the conservatives.

Yes, DFXK, it seems everyone recognises that optional preference voting is a serious watering down of the principle of compulsory voting and all agree that this variation was designed and implemented to favour the current government.

In that sense it is no better than the original gerrymander that so enlivened the left. For while the gerrymander created a system where some votes were of less value than others, this system allows the voter to cast a vote of less value. And, surprise, surprise, both systems were implemented by Labor governments in a state with only one chamber.

Before the inevitable formation of new states based on distinct communities of interest, the Libs and Nats could do a lot more to help themselves. They could start by allocating contested seats on the basis of the total branch membership of each party in each electorate. In this way they would operate in the same way as the factions do in the ALP. It may produce the odd outbreak of branch stacking but, ultimately, it is the numbers that make the decision and the party with the least members will know exactly what it must do if it wants to get it's favoured candidate up.

Obviously, the membership rules would need to be aligned so the Libs could not rort the numbers with members residing in HongKong and elsewhere in the way a certain rather ordinary MP gained his preselection.