I will bet that the Qld. opposition has learned absolutely nothing from the recent election debacle. Just watch when State Parliament begins they again, led by today's Russ Hinze- Seeny,will act like hoons and will constantly be ejected and going out of the Chamber with a sneer on their faces - like look at me aren't I clever, when actually they are total twits.
Though I hope it doesn't occur as Qld still needs a grown-up decent sensible hard working intelligent opposition. Regards, numbat

Graham

'Rats and mice'?

Nahhhh just a bunch of mostly scaredy-cat conservatives.

regards

You forgot the fifth reason. The media.
I have never seen a media focus so much on trivia during an election. It just didn't matter that the Coalition had some excellent policies and the answers to most of the state's problems that Labour created.

I don't know how many times you would turn on the tv and all the media was concentrating on was Dr Flegg's gaffes. The Leader of the Opposition would get half the media time of Beattie. The Coalition called upon - Robertson to actually debate Flegg. He wouldn't. McCardle to debate Anna Bligh. She wouldn't.

It was so sad that we have so many serious problems here in Queensland and the Coaltion had so many good ideas, but we just couldn't get the message out. The media didn't want to know about policies or good debate.

So Queenslanders will just have to hurt even more before they ignore the media spin and turn to the Coalition's policies, not the Liberal policies as the media kept implying. Trying checking out the Queensland Coalition website!

Cowfarmer

The coalition lost because the evolution towards presidential style elections has exposed the squalid anti-rural bias of a very large swathe of urban voters who simply will not support a National MP as alternate Premier.

It is evidenced by Flegg's response to the question of who will be Premier if the Liberals win the majority of seats. The proper response from a true professional, who's first duty to his clients is to recognise the limits on one's own capacity to serve, would have been to say, "as I have no experience as a Minister, it would be best, for the first term, that the post of Premier be filled by someone who has (ie, Springborg)".

A follow up statement about how his sole focus was on fixing health would have boosted his credibility ten fold. But instead, the Field Marshall's baton was out of his kit, obscuring his vision, and exposing the Lance Corporal within.

The Liberals seriously believed that they could win a presidential style election by insisting that the Coalition leader not campaign in the South East. They demonstrated that they not only recognise the anti-rural bias in the metropolitan electorate, they manifest it themselves, in buckets.

The Nationals have to ask why they persist with this belief that the best way to serve their own community is by way of the contortions required to become "mayor of greater Brisbane". Those days are gone.

The Nationals must recognise that there is no future, for either themselves or the community they serve, as minor shareholders in a single state with a majority that is seriously prejudiced against them. To persist with this delusion is to expose their community, not just to the risk of serious institutional harm but, more likely, the certainty of serious harm.

Springborg has recognised the nature of the problem he faces and concluded that a merger of parties would ease his urban marketing woes. But that will surrender any semblance of representing the unique needs of a distinct community of interest.

The sooner the bush has it's own state, or states, the better.

Cowfarmer, you forgot the media obsession with Flegss hairdo. What does it matter how someone wears their hair? The media was out to get the Coalition and the Liberals made it as easy as possible for them as usual.

Five years ago I resigned membership of the National Party because of their self made mistakes which is seeing them disappear from existence. Not that the Liberals make it easy for them.

During my past membership, Liberals would refuse to meet with the Nationals unless it was on their turf on their demands which as a party that doesn't even have official party status in parliament, shows how bloody minded these fools are.

It was tiring coming across all these Liberals with a superiority complex with a wanting to be the top yet won't even do the job to win back their own city seats because they expect the Nationals to do their work for them.

As for the Nationals, they continue to walk away from their constituents and bow to Liberal Party policy. Lawrence Springborg while a good bloke, was just a Liberal in overalls when it came to policy.

Extensive National Party policy revealed that rural and regional voters could only nominate National policy back in Joh's days. They could not identify with Nationals but Liberals. When I came across people in the South East corner having trouble with Liberal politicians, they refused to call a National as they saw both as one and the same.

As is the curse when you allow yourselves to be over run by people from another party that has no knowledge of anyway outside the Big Smoke.

A major problem for the Queensland Conservative parties is that the Qld Liberals have never won a state election here and the last time the Nationals did was under Sir Joh.

Interesting points, Spider. I happen to think that Laurence Springborg, and Jeff Seeney, would make excellent Premiers but we will never see their best as long as the bush is lumbered with it's SEQ lead in it's saddlebags. For even if a National leader were to gain the government benches, their administration would be so weighed down by compromise, and urban priorities, that the interests of their own community would always be subordinated.

And those who think a merged party will improve the chances of winning government have simply not thought it all through. We already have 5 independents on the cross benches and merged conservative parties will produce quite a few more. They will most likely be conservative, reflecting their communities, but they will also make it that much harder for the merged party to present a realistic prospect of a stable majority.

So we are left with a significant, geographically distinct community that is denied any prospect of seeing it's own representatives in government. And we have a larger, potential majority, in the SE Corner who are also denied the same prospect by the existing state structures. The only solution, for both SEQ Liberals and Regional Nationals, is to form new states so each can get on with the job.

Both North Qld and Non-SEQ South Qld will have 900,000 population each by 2025. It is time we matched the states to the states of mind.