Do nothing to p*ss this man off anymore than he is already!!

Reading the news feeds and listening to the airways for the last two days, I get the firm idea that Stephen Smith is one very p*ssed off Minister.  I certainly wouldn't want to be the one in uniform who has to deliver any more bad news to him over the next few days or weeks!!

In fact, I have the strong impression that Smith has been getting progressively more p*ssed of with Defence since he came Minister and had to deal the constant fallout stemming from their appalling culture and abysmal budgetary, cost and other management performance (not to mention their media management). 

If he plays his anger right (with the Department and Defence Chiefs and publicly), we could see the makings of a great Defence Minister and a real contender for next leader of the ALP - along with Greg Combet who's ultimate (and equally as difficult) test will be to deliver a palatable Carbon Pricing package.

Bligh and Fraser sell Port of Brisbane … to themselves

Regular contributor, Dee, prompted me to cross-post this piece from John Quiggin

Bligh and Fraser sell Port of Brisbane … to themselves

According to the Brisbane Times, the Bligh government has just sold the Port of Brisbane to a consortium led by the Queensland Investment Corporation. This must have been a tough negotiation, given that the QIC website states

As a Queensland GOC, QIC’s shareholding Ministers are the Honourable Anna Bligh MP, Premier and Minister for the Arts, and the Honourable Andrew Fraser MP, Treasurer and Minister for Employment and Economic Development

Note: As with the QR sale, it looks as if the government has retained about $1.3 billion of debt in the Port of Brisbane Corporation, which now has no assets, so the net proceeds will be less than half the announced price of $2.3 billion.

I also love one of his tags for the piece - "bonehead stupidity".  It should be well worth following the comments on John's page during the day

Found in Slim's letterbox

Regular contributor, Slim writes:

Bligh's local representatives are getting desperate by spamming the community far and wide.

The community could show their appreciation by sending a message to:

• thuringowa@parliament.qld.gov.au
• mundingburra@parliament.qld.gov.au
• townsville@parliament.qld.gov.au

The community could picket this function.

Cheers,
Slim

I for one am tempted to go just to see how many turn up (my bet is 18 not including the organisers) ....

ALP 2010 Election Review

The ALP Have set up a website for anyone to make submissions to their national review of the Election Campaign.  Here's my two-bobs worth

I'll keep it to the point:

1)  In Herbert, the Federal/Rudd intervention to preselect Mooney was a huge blunder - lots of bagage with the punters and little support (even loathing) in the Branches

2)  Herbert seems to be like many other electorates in the lack of talent available among our (ALP) potential candidate pool

3)  More broadly, changing leaders was the right thing to do, going when we did was probably the right thing, the "Rudd leaks" were killers and the campaign was woefull, uncreative and largely missed the point. Campaigns should be managed by tacticians not statiticians (or worse, market researchers) - You know what I mean John!

4)  We seem to have forgotten that we weren't elected in '07 because of Rudd - it was because the punters want the big issues addressed. Since then we've played the same small target we've played since we lost Keating as leader and have suffered the consequences.

5)  I don't envy your task

Two-bob is better than nothing!

Lessons from 1995

Guest contributor Slim writes:

The lessons of 1995 for the ALP in Queensland have been lost.

It was not that long ago.

The report of The Young Inquiry should be compulsory reading for all Queensland Caucus members and paid ALP employees at Peel St, South Brisbane.

A repeat of the national swing against the State ALP in 2012 of around 5.5% would mean that more than 20 seats, and government, would be lost:

• Chatsworth
• Everton
• Broadwater
• Cook
• Barron River
• Toowoomba North
• Whitsunday
• Southport
• Mount Ommaney
• Townsville
• Springwood
• Cairns
• Mansfield
• Ferny Grove
• Pine Rivers
• Kallangur
• Mount Isa
• Burleigh
• Pumicestone
• Mount Coot-tha
• Redcliffe
• Mount Isa.

Cheers, Slim

You wouldn’t want to be Tony right now .....

Things aren’t looking great for Tony Mooney’s second shot at the big time.

While, judging by Julia’s visits, ALP campaign polling is showing Herbert as still winnable, the Lib’s polling is presumably showing the same thing (given the Monk’s new-found fondness for the town).

Given that the seat is so tight Mooney won’t be happy to learn today that the Greens will not preference him and will not hand out how-to-votes on the day. This decision will invariably lead to the loss of green preferences on the day and is of course contrary to the Greens’ national deal with the ALP – a very open demonstration that, locally, the Greens memories are verrrry long.

But it seems that many in the ALP locally have long memories too!  I hear that a number of Branches around town are having trouble getting a booth roster together for the day - it seems that members of the left in particular just can't bring themselves to help the man they've come to loath.

The fly-in fly-out count will be interesting to watch over the next couple of weeks as the leaders time and the campaign dollars gets concentrated on the must win seats (for the ALP, read "must keep seats" of which Herbert of course isn't one) - it will be an early indicator of the likely outcome locally.

What do Mooney, V8s and toilet paper have in common?: A letter from Slim

Hi Islander

The recent letter and campaign update from the Mooney Kamp tells us a number of important facts and also allows some speculation, because that is what we like to do!

• "the fight ....... will be hard fought" - outstanding prose from one of JCU's finest?



• "cuts to services and a return to the worst aspects ........ including work choices" - is this what Mooney is promising?






• "broad based Campaign Committee" - does this mean they'll sit around on their big fat arses, like last time, when they could not "out" Tyrell's team as Liberals


• "I will be campaigning on a range on a range of local issues including health reform" - he'll be at the V8 races dispensing toilet paper and making all sorts of spurious claims to all the drunks about who brought the V8 races to town and just how soon they are going to open the case that contains the PET scanner



• Vi Cox has opened the Currajong ALP Branch purse strings at last for her beloved Tony - Colbran's taxpayer-funded business expenses no longer required; get well soon



• Barry Mitchell as campaign director - have the loving couple of Mitchell and Jack Wilson kissed, cuddled and made up? Or has Jack been asked that famous old ALP saying - do you like sex and travel?

The next campaign meeting will be 31 May at the office. Will there be space on the campaign team for a few "National Party" members? How about some "Liberal Party Members"? How about some "Independent Party" members?
You going to the meeting?

Cheers - Slim

Slim posts the first election pamphlet

Occasional contributor, Slim Cayenne, sent in this scan of Mooney's first Election pamphlet with the following comment:

Puffery and hyperbole will be commonplace from now. Well, only if it wasn't already!


The wait for these basic services is over ONLY if anyone has forgotten that these items/equipment/infrastructure will not be delivered until 2012.

Way past Rudd's, McLucas', Mooney's and Lucas' political life spans.

You're spot-on in your observation about puffery and hyperbole Slim, but I’m not so sure of your longevity diagnosis for Rudd at least

Comradeship, unity, equality, solidarity, justice – the ALP in Herbert

Occasional guest blogger Slim Cayenne sent this copy of the latest letter doing the rounds to ALP members in response the shoehorning of Tony Mooney into the party's candidature for the race for Herbert (click on the pick for better view).

Slim added the following comment:

"Governments lose elections by not listening to those who will make the decisions about who they will vote for.  The LNP will hold onto Herbert."

I agree on both counts Slim.

More on the ALP battle for Herbert

The Poll Bludger reports:

Labor’s national executive has installed three marginal seat candidates in what The Australian reported as a deal granting Herbert to the AWU sub-faction of the Right, Dawson to its rival Labor Unity sub-faction and Bowman to the Left. The respective candidates are former Townsville mayor Tony Mooney, who won the nod despite local support for councillor Jenny Hill; Whitsunday mayor Mike Brunker, who was picked over Julieanne Gilbert of the Queensland Teachers Union and finance industry worker Louise Mahony; and “local businesswoman and mother of two” Jenny Peters. The candidate for Bowman in 2007, Jason Young, reportedly lost his Left faction’s backing late last year due to his campaigning against the Bligh government’s asset sales in his capacity as an Electrical Trades Union organiser. Sean Parnell of The Australian reports Brunker faces the difficulty of a “lengthy Crime and Misconduct Commission investigation over his links with property developers”

I still can't help but wonder whether Mooney has brought a pup

It's all happening in Ingham

Guest post by Slim Cayenne

They're so excited up at the Ingham branch of the ALP that they've sacked the proofreader and forgotten what each other looks like. (click to expand and count the errors)

Looks like Labor will form Government with the Green in Tasmaina

Tas Liberals rule out Green ministers

Herbert – could this be the ultimate game plan?

Over the weekend I started wondering again about the ALP’s federal intervention into the preselection for Herbert .

Could it be that this pick has been made in the expectation that the ALP will lose the seat – that the preselection is a give-aways to appease the factions or to settle old debts in the expectation that it in fact won’t be won?

Unless Abbott totally implodes (a distinct possibility but maybe not a probability), history tells the campaign strategists that, in all likelihood, Labor will lose rather than gain seats at the next federal election.

Understandably, parties concentrate their campaign resources in marginal seats and, if the expectation is that seats will be lost, they are concentrated in those seats you marginally hold and not those marginally held by your opposition.

For the record, Anthony Green estimates that the currently Liberal (or is that LNP) held seat of Herbert is marginally Labor (by 0.4%) following the last redistribution.  Green also estimates that on the new boundaries, the ALP has to protect 14 seats which they currently hold by a margin of 3% or less.

With the demographics of Herbert changing since the 2007 election and arguably trending to the right over the last decade or more (witness for example the increase in defence force families in the electorate), the seat could be difficult for Labor to win if, as realistically expected, the national swing against them is on come election time.

If I’m right, the ALP’s campaign resources won’t be wasted on seats such as Herbert (they will seek to, for example, protect Maxine McKew in Howard's old seat of Bennelong before taking a punt on Herbert), Mooney will lose, and his last shot in the locker will have been spent (and all party debts to him will have been paid).

Worth thinking about? What do you reckon?

For the sake of completeness

Further to my post here about moves by some disgruntled ALP members to set up a NQ Labor Party to run (against Mooney) in the race for Herbert and for the sake of completeness, click the graphic below to read Mooney’s letter to members

Breaking News: Mooney wins preselection

News just through that, as expected, Tony Mooney has "won" ALP preselection for the race for Herbert.  Well actually, he has been handed the preselection by the party's National Executive.

Don't bother checking The Bulletin's web site for the news - well not for a few hours anyway.

While everyone is a bit focused on the off-shore cyclone right now - I forecast, as a result of the ALP's decision, an extended period of mud flying for the next few months (see, for example, my earlier post)

I'm currently setting-up a book on Mooney losing the seat as a result.  Any takers?

Who exactly is backing Mooney for Herbert?

I hear that it’s not so much the PM who is backing Mooney for ALP preselection  for the race in Herbert (as The Bulletin and others would have us believe) but one Leigh Birmingham who has been touting for Mooney’s consulting business in recent times - presumably in return for his doing quite well out of TCC when Mooney was Mayor.

With the Federal ALP executive apparently taking the risky road and likely to back Whitsunday mayor Mike Brunker for Dawson preselection despite his being under investigation by the Crime and Misconduct Commission, you’d think that they’d look a bit more closely at the links between Birmingham and Mooney as investigated in a previous Criminal Justice Commission probe.

Expect more federal intervention in Herbert

Expect an article from Rosanne Barrett in The Australian in the comming days/weeks on the federal ALP's intervention to assure the preselection of Tony Mooney in Herbert. 

It seems that quite a few local ALP members are only too happy to voice their outrage (and opinions on Mooney's chances of getting local members to "man" the booths on election day and of actually winning the seat).

You heard it here first

NQ Labor Party - The letter

If you happened to read John Andersen's reference to moves to set up an NQ Labor Party in response to federal intervention in the ALP's presenection for Herbert you may be interested in reading the letter he mentions.  See it in full by clicking on the pic or here.

Could Mandy be in trouble?

The traditionally safe Labor State seat of Townsville has been drifting away from the ALP for a number of elections now as the demographics of the seat (and in particular, the inner city suburbs) change.

However, as this report from the Possum at Pollytics.com shows, Mandy Johnstone could be in real trouble at the next election over the asset sales issue.

Analysing the “leaked” results on the issue of union polling by ALP pollsters UMR, Possum shows a -9 point swing in the primary vote against Mandy in Townsville resulting in a Two Party Preferred result for the ALP of 47% of the vote.

Keep in mind though – the results relate to an election if it were held now and involve a margin of error of 5.5%

The full report is here

The battle when you're not having a battle

So, the first battle for Herbert begins.

Both Jenny Hill and Tony Mooney have nominated for ALP preselection and we learn today that, contrary to previous reports from ALP state office, the preselection decision is to be made by the national executive of the party and not by local members.

From what I’m hearing around the traps,