Today the Liberal National Party of Queensland was formed by a merger of the Queensland divisions of the Liberal and National parties. It was approved by the Liberal State Council today on Saturday the 26th July 2008. The newly merged Party will be a Division of the Liberal Party of Australia, affiliated with the National Party of Australia and have a new constitution.

For further information:
http://www.liberalnationalparty.com

Dear Samuel,

Does that mean that the Liberals will be losing
supporter votes in the next Federal election?

And, will the National Party disappear as in the
case of other mergers where one name disappeared
and the dominant name remained?

Example, Bank mergers...

Whoopie doo!!

You might be wrong on this one, Ludwig. Queensland has been sadly lacking a viable Opposition to the ALP government for too long.

It's not very healthy when a government can pretty well just do as it likes. Not only has the ALP government in Queensland not had an effective Opposition in a decade or so, but the Parliament has no Upper House - so they've pretty much had open slather.

While I want Anna Bligh to be re-elected in her own right, it'd be good to see the 'Pineapple Party' give Labor a run for their money.

“It's not very healthy when a government can pretty well just do as it likes”

Right CJ. And it is not very healthy when the opposition basically agrees with the government, which allows the government to do what it likes.

I mean, what opposition is the LNP likely to provide?

Will they oppose the absurdly rapid rate of population growth into Queensland, in the face of chronic water problems, traffic congestions, overloaded hospitals and a hundred other shortfalls of infrastructure and services?

Will they oppose never-ending economic growth and human expansionism?

What about the planned massive expansion of coal mining, which flies totally in the face of planned reductions in greenhouse gas emissions?

What about the implementation of initiatives to urgently direct Queensland onto a sustainable basis?

Or a much greater translation of the immense wealth being generated from the export of primary resources into improvements in quality of life for all Queenslanders?

Come-on, the LNP ain’t gunna do any of this stuff significantly better than the incumbents. In fact, they’ll show opposition on small piffly side issues while effectively supporting the government on the big issues. And if they do happen to win power, they’ll just continue with the same old dinosaur ideology.

So um, I repeat; whoopie doooo!

Ditto on what Ludwig said. Spot on