Painting Fakes

So, Campbell Newman has finally decided to put us all out of our misery by calling the 2015 election for January 31 this year.  His stated reason - that he wanted to provide certainty for business - tells you a lot about our present Liberal-National Party government.  This is the most business-friendly government - and people unfriendly one - we have had in a long time. I'm not going to pretend to give you an unbiased view of this election.  Let me tell you right up front, I won't be voting LNP.  Not that I'm much of a fan of the Labor Party either.  They have largely sold out to the same business interests as the LNP, but at least they are able to soften it with a slender padding of social responsibility.  I would like to be able to vote for a genuinely socially progressive alternative, but in the current environment I have to accept that my preferences will eventually flow back Labor's way. Anyway, having got that out of the way up front, I want to talk to you abo

Privatisation, lately rebadged as "asset sales", is electoral poison for political parties and their leaders in Australia.  In 2008, after NSW Labor Premier Morris Iemma proposed to privatise parts of the state's electricity system, he was rolled at the party's State Conference by a huge margin and resigned as Premier soon after. Queensland's Labor Premier Anna Bligh didn't quite manage to learn the lesson.  Soon after her government's re-election in 2009 she announced a privatisation process that included parts of Queensland Rail, various forestry assets, the Abbot Point Coal Terminal and the Port of Brisbane.  Anger at this announcement was heightened by the fact that not a word was breathed on the subject during the election.  She may have hoped this anger would have faded by the 2012 election but it clearly hadn't and her party was almost wiped out . All this left the incoming LNP government with a problem.  The combination of the Global Financ

You're probably aware of the Law of the Conservation of Energy.  This is a law of physics which states that energy cannot be added to or removed from a closed system.  Energy can change its state or type - for instance, the chemical energy in dynamite can be changed into kinetic energy via an explosion - but overall the amount of energy will remain the same. You are probably not aware that there is a very similar law in public administration - the Law of the Conservation of Red Tape.  This states that red tape cannot be added to or removed from a system of government.  It can be converted from one portfolio or area of business to another, for instance by changes of law or changes of government, but it cannot be completely removed.  This means that when governments promise you that they will "cut red tape" what they actually mean is that they will cut red tape for some people while increasing it for others. Red tape is used in government departments to bind files -

Last night Tony Abbott treated the world to the unedifying spectacle of his use of a global forum (the World Economic Forum in Davos) to criticise his Labor opponents .  There's a lot else to dislike about his speech.  It was a classic of simplistic dry economics - low taxes, deregulation.  He also made the breathtaking claim that "stronger economic growth is the key to addressing almost every global problem", conveniently ignoring the fact that decades of growth have done no such thing.  If you keep doing the same thing, you will get the same results. However, I was most interested in the way he used the speech to criticise the Labor Government's economic stimulus program, suggesting that this program was unnecessary and caused the economic problems we are facing now by pushing the government into debt.  Doubly interesting when in the same speech he urged the US to exercise caution in winding back its much more ambitious stimulus program.  You could see this

Misdirection is a technique used by people such as stage magicians and pickpockets to distract their audience, or their victim, from what they are actually doing.  They might make a loud noise, wave their hands or their wand flamboyantly, talk fast, have an accomplice distract you, while they perform their trick.  If they are a magician you will be amazed.  If they are a pickpocket you won't notice a thing until sometime later when you discover you are unable to pay for the coffee you have just drunk. Apropos of which... On the 15 October this year the Queensland Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie introduced three acts into the Queensland Legislative Assembly, and they were passed the same day.  The Criminal Law (Criminal Organisations Disruption) Amendment Bill 2013 gives the Minister power to declare an organisation a criminal organisation through the Criminal Code (Criminal Organisations) Regulation 2013. This regulation, which was declared as soon as the law was passed, cont

Sorry everybody, I'm going to break the rule again and talk about something related to my work.  It's because I'm feeling frustrated.  To put it mildly. In Queensland we have a service called the Tenants' Advice and Advocacy Service (TAAS).  It's a network of little services that provide advice to, and advocate on behalf of, tenants who are in dispute with their landlords.  The service is funded from the interest on tenants bonds held in trust by the Residential Tenancies Authority. In the midst of their cost-cutting frenzy last year, the then Housing Minister Bruce Flegg announced that the program would be discontinued and the funds reallocated to build new public housing.  Flegg and his successor Tim Mander have been unmoved by the outcry that has followed this decision.  Not so the Commonwealth Government, who stepped in with interim funding to keep the services open until the end of June this year.  They even offered another $2.5m to take it up to the end

About 18 months ago I had a good laugh at the expense of then Queensland Opposition Leader Campbell Newman's plan to "move on" colonies of flying foxes which have taken up residence in urban areas.  As I pointed out, the idea sounds good in a soundbite but is rather absurd in practice since flying foxes are not easy to herd. Of course we all know that since then Newman has become Queensland Premier with such a thumping majority that he thinks everyone now has to do his bidding, even wild animals.  Every silly thing he said as opposition leader has now become law - including move-on powers against giant fruit bats.  He is annoyed that some local governments are not falling into line, and is threatening to override them, arrange for the bat move-on himself (at least get one of his slaves to do it - or several!) then send the local council the bill. Sometimes I think I might be one of the few sane people left in Queensland but the Brisbane Times reassures me I'

With the London Olympics winding to their close, it's hard to think anyone can have missed hearing about the woes of Aussie 100m freestyle swimmer James Magnussen and his team-mates, or missed out on seeing the Commonwealth Bank advertisement featuring his hopeful smiling face.  For those who forgot, the ad (which interestingly is now unavailable on the internet) features Magnussen out for a training run, followed by guys wearing the letters "C", "A" and "N".  They start talking him up: "Not long till you bring home gold for Australia." "Hope so," says Magnussen. "Know so!" Then a guy in a "T" joins them and starts to cast doubt on the expected gold medal.  "After all, it's not like you haven't been beaten before."  The ad ends with the "T" bloke tripping over the edge of a cliff and landing in the ocean below. Fortunately for our sometimes tenuous link with reality, Mag

I mentioned previously that I am very skeptical about the Queensland Government's supposed budget crisis .  I believe it has been greatly exaggerated by the Newman LNP Government as an overarching story to justify cuts which are essentially ideological.  Recent events in the housing portfolio, dear to my own heart, have confirmed this suspicion.  New housing minister Bruce Flegg, who has no history of involvement in housing issues, started his tenure by announcing that (shock! horror!) Queensland's public housing system is losing $2m per week, and is struggling to cope with the demand for housing from low income tenants.  He proceeded to float a number of ideas for "improving" the system, most of which involved moving tenants on from their housing in some form.  He advocated alternatives including shorter leases, compulsory transfers and asking single tenants in large housing to share if they are not willing to move. Then this week he has announced, without warning,

So apparently the Queensland Government's budget is in crisis, and without drastic action we will all be ruined.  It must be so because Peter Costello says so. Soon after its election the new Queensland Government appointed Costello, long-serving treasurer in the Howard government, to head a commission of audit into the Queensland budget.  Its interim report suggests that the government needs to save 25 to 30 billion dollars over a five year period to regain its AAA credit rating from Standard and Poors. Should we believe them?  Well, I'm no economist but I have my doubts.  For a start, why did the government appoint a veteran Liberal politician, and one notorious for his fiscal conservatism and love of surpluses, instead of, say, a distinguished economist?  Why does new Queensland Treasurer Tim Nicholls look so much like Costello's little brother at the press conference to launch the report? Secondly, the report includes a set of forward estimates from Queenslan

So, the weirdest of elections just got nasty.  Not only did the Queensland Labor Party lose the house (which was expected) they lost the furniture (which was always possible) and their clothes as well.  In an 89 seat house they look like they'll have a maximum of 9 members.  One of these, former Premier Anna Bligh, has already announced her resignation from Parliament.  Far from losing in Ashgrove and leaving the rabble to govern themselves, President-elect Newman won easily with nearly twice the swing he needed and now gets to lead the biggest rabble in the history of the Queensland Parliament.  Labor's deperate last minute plea to voters to provide a decent opposition and their reported tactic of pretending to be Greens and handing out how-to-vote cards with themselves as second preference were to no avail.  Of course we've known for a long time that the Labor Government was on its last legs, but this is unprecedented.  I'd like to be able to say something witty a

The end is nigh for one of the weirdest election campaigns I have ever witnessed.  My poor sitting local member Simon Finn, who Anthony Green's Election Tracker says will narrowly lose his previously safe seat according to the March 16 Galaxy poll, must be exhausted after weeks of listening, acting and getting results.  To all appearances he has had to do it on his own, with the Labor Party presence on his flyers getting so small that it has disappeared from some of them altogether - like this one where his mock ballot paper does not show his party affiliation even though the real one will.  Still, someone must be footing the bill for all these flyers. Meanwhile in another first in my 32 years as a Queensland elector, I can now tell you the result ahead of time because in a break with normal protocol, the Labor Party has officially conceded before election day.  The concession has come in the form of flyer addressed to my wife, which appears below.  They know they'

Here's a little something which appeared in my letterbox this morning.  It looks like an environmental flyer, doesn't it?  I'm not sure who it comes from because contrary to Section 181 of the Queensland Electoral Act 1992, it doesn't contain a name or contact details of the person who authorised it.  However, it does bear a few clues. Firstly, one column talks about "Simon Finn and Labor", while the other talks about "Campbell Newman's LNP".  So which party is promoting the identity of its local candidates while trying to smear the man attempting to become President of Queensland ? Secondly, you may notice that we are not explicitly urged to vote for any particular candidate - not, for instance, Greens candidate Libby Connors whose properly authorised flyer also arrived today.  So this is clearly not a Greens pamphlet.  It is certainly not a piece of LNP advertising.  We are, however, not very subtly encouraged to give our preference t

It's two weeks until the Queensland Election and the contest is an interesting study in contrasts.  In the blue corner we have perhaps the most Presidential campaign in Australian history.  Campbell Newman, the LNP leader, is not even a member of Parliament , trying to gain a 7% swing in Ashgrove as well as lead his party to success.  The campaign is all about Newman.  The LNP campaign slogan is his nick-name, "Can-Do", usually said in a slightly ironic tone.  His party is not bidding to be the government, it is bidding to make him the Premier. Meanwhile in the pale pink corner, beyond the daily media grind the Labor campaign is just the opposite.  Premier Anna Bligh is all but invisible in local campaign material, the focus firmly on the local candidates.  This is most obvious in the seat of Ashgrove, where Newman's bid for a seat is opposed by the " Keep Kate " campaign.  Labour MP Kate Jones quit her cabinet post almost a year ago to devote herself to

As I was making my lunch today, I noticed the label on the margarine container (pictured).  It occured to me to ask - why are the large bold words "Lowers Cholesterol" followed by the small-type word "absorption"? I'm sure you don't need me to labour the answer.  The message the Unilever marketing department wants me to get from the package is not the literal meaning of the words, even though these are actually the truth.  They want me to get the much more hopeful (but untrue) message in bold type. Meanwhile, having survived floods, cyclones and the GFC, the Queensland Labor Party is faced with what may be the biggest disaster of them all, a landslide at the March 24 State election.  Forecasts indicate mass unemployment for current Labor members of parliament. Cue the arrival of some marketing material from my local MP, Simon Finn.  Mr Finn's name and smiling face loom large on the flyer, listening carefully to local constituents, acting on local

Queensland's media and politicians are currently in a tizz about what is being referred to as an outbreak of Hendra Virus.  For those outside Queensland who may not have been following this story, Hendra virus primarily occurs in populations of  flying foxes, giant fruit-eating bats of the genus pteropus.   However, from time to time it also spills over to infect horses and, via them, humans.  Its name comes from the suburb of Brisbane where our main racetracks are located, and where it was first detected in 1994, taking the life of horse trainer Vic Rail and a number of horses.  This is where it gets emotional. To some extent, the emotions are understandable.  Australians love their horses, and Hendra virus has been fatal to every one of the 50-odd horses known to have contracted it since 1994.  It's also very dangerous to humans, having led to the death of four out of the seven humans known to have contracted it.  This winter there have been more horses infected than ever