This Time, It's Personal
There was another Newspoll out recently which showed that here in Queensland, Campbell Newman’s LNP government has lost nary a vote since its massive win in March. I find that hard to believe.
Campbell Newman’s six months in government have been
Here are some highlights of the last six months, in no particular order:
Capitulation to the ultra-conservative Christian lobby by reversing surrogacy legislation which had brought Queensland into line with the rest of Australia, so it is now illegal for same-sex couples to use surrogates to have children. This was not mentioned during the election campaign and was done in the first sitting of parliament after the election, despite Newman saying his focus was the Queensland economy. The Christian lobby struck again with the watering down of same-sex civil unions;
There was the reckless and sensationalist comparison of Queensland’s economic situation to Spain’s economic woes. There was the overkill of sending police troops to handle a small situation at Musgrave Park
Even though he said the public service had “nothing to fear” provisions for job security in the public service have been removed so now no one has a permanent job anymore…. frank and fearless advice - who needs it? They went a bit Orwell, too, with the Commission for Public Sector Renewal, which was created to cut public sector jobs. About 14,000 public servants have been made de-necessary.
There were the insults towards the public service by government ministers, such as public servants not having real jobs and public servants not being part of the real economy (to which I thought - great, it won’t make a difference if I don’t pay my car rego).
There was the Minister whose son was given a high-paying job when there was a blanket freeze on public sector recruitment. It is currently under investigation.
There was the first Minister for Police who turned out to have driven with a suspended licence.
There was a protest by about 10,000 people the day after the budget was brought down.
There has been worrying signs about the direction this government will take in regards to the environment, resulting in this open letter to Campbell Newman from the Federal Minister for the Environment, Tony Burke.
The LNP government has announced a review of the Criminal Misconduct Commission - the CMC - which was set up as part of the recommendations of the Fitzgerald Inquiry, which uncovered astounding corruption in the old National Party government (that would be the one Joh Bjelke-Petersen ran).
There have been heartless cuts made to charities running programs for the most vulnerable in our community. They cut $390,000 given to St Vincent de Paul’s emergency fund, used mainly to give people with no where else to go enough money to find a hotel room for the night, or a bus fare home. There has been a change to the funding criteria so the Coffee Brigade, which has been providing tea and coffee and sandwiches to the homeless for 42 years may lose their government funding of $130,000 per year. Not to mention Skilling Queenslanders for Work which among other things funded adult literacy classes for people so they could get a job.
The latest unemployment figures for Queensland has shown a sharp increase in jobless numbers. There may not be heaps of sympathy for public servants but what people may not realise is that the funding cuts have also resulted in job losses, as the government grants often fund paid positions within the community organisations.
Taking out so much money (and therefore people’s ability to spend) out of the economy so quickly can only result in a contraction of the economy. This is not good, especially in the current world economic climate, which is best described as recovering but not out of the woods just yet.
And amidst all this, Campbell Newman announced he needed a new office because the Executive Building carpets were threadbare and there was peeling paint. Apparently this new building could be built in a way that would cost the tax payer nothing! And the George Street site of the old Executive Building could be turned into a Casino (the Treasury Casino is in George Street but why stop at one??). Is he even listening to himself? The new Executive Building will be where Parliament House’s car park is by the river. I have a friend who pointed out the site is a car park because it is prone to flooding.
All this in six months! Oh, and I lost my job as well. Campbell Newman said no one was actually sacked, which makes
With all this in mind, the opinion poll by the respected Newspoll was perplexing. Thanks to this article from Crikey it turns out my political radar is not out of order. It is a long article about poll analysis and probably boring to normal people so I’ll summarise it for you.
Newspoll base their state polling on information gathered from questions added to the end of their fortnightly national polling over three month periods. This latest poll is based on questions asked from July (when the sackings and cuts had just been announced) to September (when the budget came down, followed by the 10,000 strong protest). If I was being impartial I would describe it as a dynamic three months.
It's not that the Newspoll result of 60% tpp figure (to the LNP) is incorrect. It’s reflected when averaging out the results from the more frequent reachTel polling (which is turning out to be surprisingly accurate for an automated system). However, the reachTel polling has also shown a significant decrease in LNP’s TPP vote from a (extremely) high 68% to 55%, hence the 60% average. That is a huge and fast loss of support for a newbie government which stormed into power only six months ago. Their primary vote has also decreased significantly from 57% to 45%.
Also, Newspoll shows Campbell Newman’s approval rating is unchanged at 47%. However, the reachTel polling shows a drop in support from 51% in July to 42% in September (again averaged out it reflects Newspoll’s results). Considering Newman won an election in a way that re-wrote the record books, and he has been in government for only six months, it should be much higher. For comparison, the approval rating for former Queensland premier Wayne Goss was somewhere around 70% for quite some time after his landslide election win in 1989 (but Campbell Newman is no Wayne Goss).
What we are seeing here is the flaw in the LNP’s unprecedented move to draft Campbell Newman from outside state parliament. There is a big leap between the demands and scope of local and state government. Some of his actions have demonstrated his learning curve, such as the silly comparison with Spain, the insensitivity he has shown public servants (here’s a hint Campbell - don’t stand up in Parliament and call them poop) and his stated desire for new digs, despite the state's apparently parlous finances (priorities, Campbell!!). State government also means more scrutiny and more opportunities for a leader’s strengths or weaknesses (Newman has a reputation for being autocratic and not tolerating dissent of any sort) to be revealed.
The folly of the LNP’s move to get Campbell Newman into Ashgrove was this - up against an unpopular government which was so passed its use-by date it couldn’t even see why its mistakes were mistakes, getting him into a marginal seat, even against a popular local MP, was do-able. The win the LNP had was of a scale that they simply cannot lose the next election, no matter what anyone thinks. They could I guess if they did something really, truly appalling but I can’t think of anything that they haven’t already done…
Campbell Newman holding on to Ashgrove and being Premier beyond the next election is another story. Either no one in the LNP thought much beyond winning the 2012 election, or they didn't worry too much what happened to him once he had served his purpose. After three years in power and more unpopular decisions and mistakes, defending a 5% margin will be difficult at best (this is why leaders almost always have safe seats). According to the polls, his support has tanked. There are a lot of public servants in the seat of Ashgrove…
The LNP could tap someone on the shoulder and get them to vacate a safe seat but it would look shifty and cynical to the electorate. And politicians are ambitious people - once they are in power, they won’t give it up. That’s human nature.
So good luck in 2015, Campbell. I’ll bring the popcorn…
Yours in political commentary
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