Tuesday, September 12, 2006
TeamBeattie - a one man government
The polling barely moved from the time the election was called, to the opening of the stations. In that respect, no one was surprised that Beattie, sorry, the Australian Labor Party, retained power in Queensland.

Queensland nominally has a Parliamentary system of government (though only one legislative chamber), but this election was all about one man. The name of the ALP’s election website: www.TeamBeattie.com kinda gave it away.

This election was all about demonstrating leadership and effective campaigning. Two factors the opposing conservative coalition simply didn’t have and TeamBeattie could at least portray, in spades.

Springborg and the other guy (Bruce Flegg, I think, but it doesn’t matter, as he will be out of a job within a month) were simply hopeless. Well that’s the impression TeamBeattie’s TV campaign cleverly go across, right up to the last minute: “They’re just not ready”.

Certainly Queenslanders warm to the type of guy TeamBeattie is. Sure he’s a bit of a media tart, but he understands that people like accountability. When one of his ministers mucks-up, or a crisis is brewing, he is pretty quick to pound the streets in the trouble spots roll up his sleeves and ‘listen to what people are saying.’ Of course, this also makes him an enthusiastic centraliser.

The big issues in this election were water and health. Both things TeamBeattie is heavily involved in: he has ‘taken personal charge’. They are both things he can ‘fix’, and the electorate has entrusted him to do so.

It is difficult to gauge how much federal politics influenced the poll. But if it did, it would have been to the benefit of TeamBeattie. Howard’s labour relations reforms are universally unpopular and have crystallised Labor support by carving out a point of difference between traditional left and right; one that most people can understand.

Additionally, Howard’s unconditional – some would say slavish - support for US foreign policy is beginning to grate, particularly after his indefensible position vis-à-vis the recent war executed by Israel in Lebanon: “there needs to be a cessation of killing, but not just yet…”

Howard and TeamBeattie – from different sides of the political fence - stay in power through simple incumbency in a time of GDP expansion. With high population growth and the Chinese and Indians paying a fortune for what lays buried under Australia, it would take an economic incompetent to muck up this boom. Australians have managed to look no further than their wallets and new McMansions, in choosing who governs them.

Of course, as GDP has grown, so have house prices, interest rates, petrol prices, levels of household debt, greenhouse gas emissions, waste to landfill, traffic noise, overcrowding of our greenspaces, the amount spent on controlling exotic pests and animals, air traffic noise, pollution, congestion, overcrowding on public transport, energy prices, urban sprawl, animal road kill, the number of fat kids with bad teeth and levels of early onset diabetes. But we have just deeper into our deeper pockets to buy things that make us instantaneously happy, like chicken nuggets, DIY and foreign holidays at international chain hotels and sink deeper into the crazy world of running faster just to stand still.

For some of these reasons, the electors in the most conservative of Australian States continue to gather around the Greens, which continues to be the only political party to offer a significant alternative to the ‘dig it up, sell it cheap, and whatever you do, don’t tell the electorate they can’t have it all’ policy of the mainstream.

Two local issues also boosted Green polling: the Lord Mayor of Brisbane’s stupid plan to spend $13bn on road tunnels (the State government is lending the council money to help build them) and TeamBeattie’s plan to build two dams to solve the water crisis.

It is not a water crisis; it is a rain crisis. We have been in drought for 10 years. If it isn’t raining, why build dams? They will take 10 years before they contribute a significant yield to SE Queensland. This sounds a simplistic argument, but more dams are a simplistic solution, to a far more complex issue.

The Green Party has been the only party to put forward an alternative transport policy, which included congestion charges, investments in non-car alternatives and other travel demand and mobility programs. Mainstream politics has developed a fatalistic attitude towards growing car dependency. When you say you are helpless, it simply lets you off the hook, when really, it is simply another issues which requires public policy.

Australia’s voting system – optional preferential – allows minor parties to build their vote with greater confidence than a first-passed-the-post model. Voters can vote ‘1’ for Green but still have their preferences count somewhere, once their first preference has been discounted. A vote for Green in the UK, is simply a waste; as is a vote for the Tories in Hull, or Labour in New Forest West.

As a result, people can watch as Green primaries steadily build, giving them more confidence that others are voting the same way. Whilst a long way from a proportional representation system, I believe that Greens will soon have representatives in Lower Houses around Australia, to match their strong showing in Upper Houses already. The Green candidate in Mount Coot-tha in Brisbane polled 22% last weekend.

TeamBeattie will deliver 2 ½ more years of the same, which is great, because people won’t have to think too hard. We can just put off difficult decisions for another time.

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