The money grubbing crew that seem to have inhabited the ALP benches in recent years are a disgrace to their party and its tradition. However, I'm not sure that Ken Mackay's solution is sufficient to end it. The range of issues from the Cabinet's deceitful FoI practices to the selling of contacts with parliamentarians to business are unlikely to change much by a different means of selecting the executive.

I don't think that Mr. Fitzgerald aims "to attack" Mr. Beattie. What would be a benefit of this for him? No, Mr. Fitzgerald is fighting again for the present and future of Queensland, where certain politicians and police officers tend to forget the lessons of Fitzgerald inquiry. Hopefully, the people of Queensland do not want to live once again in a corrupted "police state".
We have to remember what Mr Fitzgerald has said: coalition conservative Queensland government of R. Borbidge was brought to power with the help of Queensland police union. This is more than alarming! Mr. Fitzgerald warns us that police is capable of acting as underground political force. Therefore, it is particularly important that attention to corruption and misconduct in Queensland police should not be less than attention to corruption among politicians.

Twenty years have passed since Fitzgerald Inquiry. It is time to examine by a new inquiry of this kind how its lessons have been learned. The latest CMC report, public unrest surrounded sergeant Hurley's case, Haneef's affair etc. suggest the necessity of a new inquiry. Corruption and misconduct in police can be much deeper than it seems. For example, there are solid reasons to allege that detectives Steven Bignell and Sean Wade, and some other police officers involved in Vincent Berg’s case could be guilty of torture, perjury, fabricating evidence, conspiring to defeat justice and attempting to pervert justice.

My personal view is the root of all this evil lies in the absence of an upper house. Politicians will always try to arrange things to they stay in power. That is the nature of the beast. In particular this means they will always tightly control the flow of information, so we only get the hear what they want us to hear. I wish I had a hot breakfast for each time I have read "the Queensland government used its numbers to guillotine the debate" on some contentious issue.

An upper house is the one place of review the government can't control. Ultimately any government created body - the CMC or anyone else operates at the governments whim. They can have their charter changed, the personal shuffled, or be outright abandoned. This is exactly what has happened over the years to all the checks and balances put in place after the Fitzgerald inquiry. An upper house is is immune to such bullying because it must answer to the people to elected it - not the government. And it is manned by the opposition, who just happen to have as much to gain by lighting up the governments closeted skeletons as the government has in hiding them.

Oh how I would love the information that is dragged out of the federal government at Senate Estimates time be extracted from the Queensland Government in the same way. We would finally get some real insight into why our tax dollars are spent in the way they are. Heaven knows, Bligh might even have been forced into admitting the states finances were in a mess *before* the election. How sweet it would have been.

I promise to come back and do some justice to this article and the comments written.

However, for now, I would like to make this important notice to anyone who wants to help make Queensland a proper democracy, which is governed by politicians with the best interests of their consituents at heart, rather than the interests of corporations, international corporations, property developers and land speculators.

(The following notice has also been posted to the forum "How to restore democracy in Queensland" at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2842#68018 where I believe it to be also relevant.)

I realise, this is very late notice, but there will be a protest against privatisation outside Transport Minister Rachel Nolan's office in Ipswich at 2.00PM today.

The protest will be at:

Booval Professional Centre, 125 Brisbane St, Ipswich

For further information, see:

http://saveourpublicassets.org

... the web site of "Save Our Public Assets" a group formed to fight the Bligh Government's planned asset stripping of Queensland.

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Another protest will be held at Anna Bligh's electoral office on Saturday 15 August:

Meet @ Lizard Statue, Boundary St, West End
Time/Date: 11am Saturday, 15 August
March to Bligh's Office (90 Vulture

Yes there needs to be an upper house if the committee system is not emplyed properly, which it has not been. Also to those saying that the Police Service is corrupt. I suggest you read the exact findings before making such comment. The CMC have said themselves that the information they have would not stand up in a court of law. If it were an individual making such a statement that would be sued for defamtion. In terms of the Police Service QLD has not returned to the pre-Fitzgerald issue. It is the Political circle that needs to be looked at. I hope QLD'ers are happy with the Government they put back in place. The fact the Government was so keen to go to the polls so early should have been warning enough. Then of course we have all the new Ministers. New blood or useless puppets that simply do as they are told .....