The conservative Liberal National Party has won the Queensland election by a record Australian margin. The Labor party lies in ruins with just a netball team of seven members. Ten, possibly eleven ministers have lost their seats and premier Anna Bligh has quit politics after almost losing her seat sparking an expensive by-election which Labor will, in all probability, lose.
Let me make one thing perfectly clear before we continue. Right-wingers like myself do not like to see the Left totally rejected, completely destroyed and absolutely humiliated like this. WE LOVE IT!!
The whole Queensland campaign for Labor was a train wreck from go to whoa. They employed cynical, American style personal attacks on LNP leader Campbell Newman. The mud was being slung left, right and centre. At first it seemed to be working. Polls showed the margin between the parties narrowing, and for a while it looked like the LNP would win the election but be denied a leader and the state left without a premier. Labor was willing to cause a political and Constitutional crisis in Qld just because they couldn't stand the thought of losing office. But then it went completely over the top.
Anna Bligh put out a full media alert calling an emergency press conference where she gave details of what she called "explosive new revelations" about Campbell Newman's business dealings. Even the hardened, leftist journalists present knew that it was all Labor spin, that there was no truth in the allegations. The Crime and Misconduct Commission had already been investigating all the allegations and a few days later released a damning report saying that all of Labor's allegations against Newman were completely groundless and that no corrupt or unethical conduct occurred. Labor was dead.
The reaction from federal Labor politicians following the election has been confused and puzzling. Early on the message went onto all their Blackberries to tell the media that the election was fought on state issues and that there were no implications for federal Labor. False bravado personified. They have to say that, don't they? But it was the reaction from Anthony Albanese, that little smartarse bastard from inner Sydney who called last year's anti-carbon tax rallies "the convoy of incontinence" and "the convoy of no consequence" which had everybody shaking their heads with disbelief. On Ten's Meet the Press he said "Well, there you have Tony Abbott out there spinning and spinning hard. Tony Abbott is someone who has substituted policy for just having slogans". He just doesn't get it. Here we have the biggest rout in Australian electoral history. Labor doesn't even qualify anymore as being a political party in Qld, they won't even be able to form opposition or to have proper shadow ministers, yet there was Albanese on national television knocking Tony Abbott again. It should be blindingly obvious to even a moronic, birdbrained pipsqueak like Albanese that the strategy of trying to blame Tony Abbott for everything has been a spectacular failure. It doesn't even play well amongst his trendy, inner Sydney constituents anymore.
Regarding the reaction from Campbell Newman, Tony Abbott and others on the conservative side of politics, you can only admire the dignified and statesmanlike way in which the Qld victory was received. No triumphalism, no putting the boot in, just an acknowledgement that a new era has begun with the difficult uphill task of rebuilding Qld ahead. There won't be time for gloating, the sleeves will be rolled up immediately and the hard work of restoring Qld and wiping out the devastation and heartbreak of the 20 year lost weekend under Labor will begin in earnest.
As much as federal Labor is in denial, the fact remains that where goes Qld, Canberra follows soon after. The second worst Labor defeat in Qld in 1974 was followed by the record victory by Fraser and the Liberal National coalition in 1975. When Qld voters waited on their porches with baseball bats for Paul Keating in 1995 and Wayne Goss arrived first, they turfed out a state Labor government with a big majority and led the charge against Keating the following year putting Howard and the coalition in power federally with a near record majority. Gillard is now in a similar position on death row and the fat lady will soon start singing.
I said on this blog a while back that Labor - as a party - is unsuited for government. More and more people across Australia are reaching the same conclusion. Political experiments rarely work. People want stability and good, soundly based conservative government so they can feel confident about their lives, their jobs and their future security. They don't want glib one-liners, they don't want crisis management, they don't want focus group driven hucksters and they don't want shallow, amorphous leaders who lie their way into office and pull the rug out from under the populace when they are safely ensconced in their ministerial offices drawing their salaries financed by the hard work of taxpayers.
You can fool some of the people some of the time, but as the Qld election has demonstrated Labor can't fool all of the people all of the time. The tide is turning with a vengeance and they continue to do ostrich impersonations at their own peril.
