Richie ten, you know I too once was Christian, surely the God I trusted was a different one than yours?
My fable was Christ, wonderful promises and gifts.
He said in his holly book if you looked both yes and no to almost every question.
He did say give Caesar his due , and he threw the money lenders out of the, well you know all that.
Judge not less you be judged, I have doubts, true doubts, your God ever yes ever, told you or me one side of politics was always right the other wrong.
Joe has been truly described in the post above mine.
History is full of Christians who did dreadful things, children done great harm for a start.
You have every right to your belief but if I was you, I would consider why all humanity, every religion, can not be one while some, you no less than ANY OTHER find reasons to divide us in your Gods name.
Judge not Richie or you will be judged.

Hasbeen posts, with respect to the flood mitigation management of the Wivenhoe Dam, that:

"I'm not known for having much time for bureaucrats,
but I do have some sympathy for those running this dam.
... there is no *right* amount to release, so even the
operators can't know if they got it near to right at
any particular time. ..."

Whilst ever attempts are being made to use the Wivenhoe Dam flood control compartment for two jobs, instead of the one job for which it was designed, Hasbeen is quite correct. It is in no way the fault of the dam operators that the other part of the project to provide both adequate Brisbane water supply, as well as flood mitigation capability for the Brisbane River valley, the Wolfdene Dam, was never completed. The Wivenhoe operators have always been at the mercy of their political masters with respect as to the extent that punting with public safety has been by direction undertaken in making the storage capacity of that dam look better than its design ever meant it to be.

There is nevertheless a *right* amount to release, and that is the amount that empties the flood control compartment of the dam completely.

Needless to say, such management is inconsistent with the now-polished Australian(?) political art form of creating artificial shortage in a land of plenty that now pervades the country. The Wivenhoe dam management aren't responsible for that.

Without the cancellation of the Wolfdene Dam, it would have been unlikely that the situation of what, courtesy of J.V.Hodgkinson's analysis of the official historical rainfall records for the catchment, we can now see to be artificial shortage in SEQ, could have been brought about.

Without that artificial shortage being brought about, the privatisation of water supply would have made no commercial sense. The question remaining is as to who benefitted, and how that was electorally achieved. sonofgloin's post of Thursday, 13 January 2011 at 10:42:41 AM, suggests a reason that provides a good lead-in to answering this question: lowered voting age.

The low point of all this, is Gillard prattling on today about Obama offering American expertise, to solve our flood situation/problems etc.

Perhaps if the U.S. would actually do something about the pollution they create, we would not have such dramatic climate change events in the first place. Why don't they offer their so called expertise to Haiti, where it is truly needed.

The Earth is now entering it's own defence phase and history proves that the Earth is capable of looking after it's own best interests successfully.
As for man, we are still less likely to survive a planet wide calamity, than a cockroach. Despite our self professed intellect, science and belief in omnipotent beings etc.

I think catastrophic events will increase in frequency. Hopefully the current flood situation will give our river systems etc a much needed flush and refresh our arable lands and flood plains. The planet is making the decisions at this point in history, as it it always will.

Gratuitous politics is the least required thing at this point, and pretending that Joh was a valuable human being, is equivalent to pretending that the modern day version of Joh, Tony Abbott, is a visionary.

sonofgloin, in his post of Thursday, 13 January 2011 at 10:42:41 AM, in explaining the electoral unpopularity of Joh that saw the demise of the Queensland National Party government at the end of 1989, a demise landmarked by the almost immediate cancellation by the incoming ALP Goss government of the Wolfdene Dam part of the then publicly-owned Brisbane water supply and flood mitigation scheme, says:

"Another factor of the times was the change
in the voting age from 21 to 18. That also
impacted on the Joh government of the time.
Perhaps the old cane cutters and white shoe
brigade were pro Joh but the youth were not."

Well, sonofgloin, if the youth of the time (1989) were not pro-Joh, they sure took their time expressing that in the ballot box!

The voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 in March 1973. The government that Joh had led did not get voted out until late 1989. The 'youth' of 1973 were by then aged from 34 to 36 years old. Between 1973 and 1986 successive elections in Queensland had resulted in increasing majorities in the two-party-preferred Liberal/National vote over the ALP. So how were the majority of the youth that had progressively become entitled to enroll and vote since 1973 and up until 1986 voting? Not against the Bjelke-Petersen governments, it would seem.

What it seems a number of posters have recited in this thread is the conventional wisdom that a significant number of those who had previously supported Joh up until 1986 changed their vote to one against Joh in 1989, linking that claim to the corruption issues arising out of the Fitzgerald inquiry. Joh lost the premiership when all but eight of the National Party parliamentary members allegedly signed a letter indicating their lack of continuing support for him, resigning from both that office and the Parliament on 1 December 1987.

It could, perhaps, justifiably be claimed that in 1989 many of the previous supporters of Joh's governments voted out those who had already voted out Joh.

TBC

Forrest Gump

I was 'on the booths' when Goss won, working for the ALP.

This is but a 'one booth' ancedotal experience, but it was a familiar tale, as I recall when meeting other booth workers, from all sides.

By the time of the election, Ahern was running Qld, not Joh. Gunn had already started the process by initiating the Fitzgerald Enquiry, and many in the Nats were alarmed at the levels of corruption exposed.

These were not 'bad' people, just bred National supporters who had believed in Joh, and too late found out everything about their government was corrupt.

The Nats that took our ALP HTV cards were very clear why they were voting ALP.

They had not 'changed their minds' on the 'good' of the ALP, they simply felt cheated by Joh, and the entire Ahern team that took over.

I suspect this will happen in NSW too, when thousands of ALP voters, bred ones too, give the ALP a wide berth and vote Liberal or Green.

Qld has an unquestioning culture (and we are not alone in that) so the young of the 1973 era would have been just as unquestioning as their parents, and just as happy with Joh.

Those who marched were an absolute minority, so although they probably did not vote for Joh, their numbers would have been far too small, particularly within the gerrymandered areas.

Bligh is currently enjoying support, for appearing to be 'decent' about the floods, and I too believe she has 'appeared' well, particularly compared to Gillard's performances, but her test is how she ensures Qld is rebuilt, without it becoming a massive BER-insulation scandal.

Which it has every chance of becoming.

In twelve months time, there will be an army of subbies left unpaid as contractors fail and go broke, to open up again as a 'different' company.

Joh's era thrived on such scams, and few governments want to tighten things up.

Continued

My point in interpreting the 1989 Queensland elections in this way is to highlight the role of the many unsupported assertions as to the corruption of that era being JOH'S CORRUPTION in helping to hide potentially serious issues in the present day, maybe even as to literal public safety, that can now be seen to have arisen from the cancellation of the Wolfdene Dam project, from public examination.



My witness is Tony Fitzgerald himself.



This is a link to a Lawyers' Weekly report of the full text of an introductory address given on 29 July 2009 by Tony Fitzgerald before the inaugural Tony Fitzgerald Lecture at Griffith University: http://bit.ly/h9y3by .

Whilst generally observing that the corruption that was found to have surrounded the Bjelke-Petersen government remains, albeit perhaps in a different incarnation, around government in Queensland to the present day, Tony Fitzgerald specifically warned in that address as to:


"secrecy [being] re-established by sham claims that
voluminous documents [are] "Cabinet-in-confidence".


This is something of which the public in Queensland need to be particularly wary does not occur with respect to documentation relating to the management of the Wivenhoe Dam in the years since 1990.



Fitzgerald also said:

"Under Beattie, Labor decided that there were
votes to be obtained from Bjelke-Petersen's
remaining adherents in glossing over his
repressive and corrupt misconduct."

With all due respect, I suggest Fitzgerald has erred in attributing the corruption of that era to Joh himself, and a tolerance of it to those who voted for his governments. Joh's governments had become increasingly autocratic one-man-bands. He increasingly depended upon advisers, some of whom were in positions wherein they could abuse their trust, and evidently did. Lacking personal avarice, I think Joh had become a roadblock to some who wanted to take advantage of their proximity to, or position within, government to advance their own ends.

As Fitzgerald observes, the corruption continues. Who has benefitted? Not Joh. Not the Queensland public.

I think Joh, in 1986, may have been deliberately electorally 'set up'.