Finacially and politically bankrupt---what a wonderful way to accurately describe the bride and groom in this unfortunately stalled marriage.
The Reception would have been a hoot.
I love the Qulnd. Nat's. A gift that just keeps on giving.

When all the sneering and jeering is finished there will be one inescapable fact remaining.

When a large and distinct minority community of interest within an existing political entity cannot, even in the face of culpable governance, reasonably or realistically aspire to see a party of their own choice elected to govern that entity then that minority owes it to their own children to exit that political entity and form a new state of their own within the Commonwealth.

The biggest test at the next state election is faced by the urban community, especially in the South East corner. For if their bigotry and bias against the party elected by the overwhelming majority of rural Queenslanders is so great that they can re-elect a party that covered up the manslaughter of hospital patients then they will send the clearest message possible that the bush has no future under their majority.

It is as simple as that.

Perseus, what will we call this new State or Territory ?
How about Whingerville?
Keep on giving you Qulnd. Nats.

Paul, an insightful and substantial article. Many thanks.

I think what the other posters here ignore are some fundamental realities.

1. Queensland needs a viable, competitive, electable conservative Opposition. As I remember from your lectures at UQ, Paul - much of the genius of Beattie in his early political years manifested itself in the hard work he did with the late Denis Murphy to rebuild the Queensland ALP during the 1970s, to also create a viable, competitive Labor Opposition. This made the polity healthier.

2. To make this happens, the Coalition overwhelmingly needs to gain seats in SE Queensland. There won't be another conservative government while Labor holds Broadwater or Indooroopilly.

3. For good or bad, I don't think the urbanised voters of SE Queensland will wear another National Party premier (willingly). Population growth and interstate migration in the SE corner has given the state a critical mass of 2.5 million people with more cosmopolitan values, which means the next conservative premier will need to have a sympathetic, urban-orientated outlook.

4. Consequently, the Coalition will find it hard to lure voters in the SE Corner while its leader is a rural-orientated National Party member. Why would a swinging voter in a metro seat, in the white heat of a general election campaign (as opposed to a byelection) be sufficiently tolerant of the rural-and-regional bias of the National Party, and confident they will understand concerns beyond this sectional base, even if the local candidate is a Liberal?

The problem therefore, is curious - I don't think there will be a conservative win unless the Liberals predominate. But Liberals won't be able to gather the seats up to predominate while a National leads the Opposition. However, unless the Liberals and Nationals are intertwined at all levels in a very tight arrangement, voters won't buy them as a credible alternative.

Once "New Liberals" were bedded down as a brand, SE Queensland could then vote confidently for a urban-friendly conservatives brand again. I suspect that was the theory anyway...

But it wasn't going to work (at least not this time) because of a few things.

1. The Queensland Liberals have a lot of people in it with scar tissues from the bruising Lib-Nat fights of the 70s and 80s (you know who you are). Admittedly, if I were older, and still lived in Queensland, I'd quite possibly be one of them. They can't ever forgive the Nationals, or forget. But thankfully, I'm NOT one of them, it's 2006, I'd like to see a conservative government again, and I'm more interested in doing what is necessary to secure this change of government than arcane arguments about who did what to whom in 1983, or whatever.

2. The Queensland Nationals have two competing agendas: Building up Springborg as urban-friendly (essential for the whole Coalition) and trying to keep Barnaby on board, and, so it is rumoured, bringing former Nationals back to the fold. You can do one or the other. But not both at the same time.

3. The PM has understandably decided he'd rather keep the Howard brand doing well at a federal level in Queensland, than risk the inevitable change and flux which the "New Liberals" would have brought, even if it increased the chances of the QLD ALP losing.

4. I think there is a rather cosy consenus in southern-orientated, Australian conservative politics which would be threatened by a large, new, more assertive conservative voice in a growing state like Queensland. Already there are more federal Coalition MPs and Senators from Queensland than Victoria - but the idea of this bloc exercising the clout these numbers mean, is a threat to the NSW/VIC/SA status quo. Maybe there is some logic to it - a full-throttle Queensland conservative (urban or rural) might go down like a bucket of cold sick with the more supposedly delicate threads of Liberalism in Neutral Bay, Kew or Burnside. But who really knows?

In the end though, I think whatever impedes a change of government in Queensland is a bad thing. The question is: was the Scott-Parer idea a help or hindrance?

So do I take it, Alexander, that you agree with my assessment that the only way that regional voters can ever get a government of their choosing is to form new states?

Are we simply seeing the replacement of one gerrymander with another? Each one creating a disaffected, disenfranchised constituency that will poison the polity for another generation?

If conservative federal voters in SEQld cannot bring themselves to vote for any alternate State Government led by a National then what right do they have in insisting on denying National voters their right to a separate government of their own?