Come on in. Take a seat at the Cabinet table. Let’s talk water.

Regular contributor Dee writes:

Just before the QR Float takes over the media completely.

Patrick Lion caught my imagination today.

I guess it won't be too long before there are many vacant seats at the ALP Cabinet table, however, I'd put a small wager there is now, and will be in the future, standing room only with the many advisers providing high quality advice by way of large numbers of options.

They have wound up the mis-allocation of taxpayer's funds to new levels.

Patrick Lion's Courier Mail post is well worth a read: Come on in. Take a seat at the Cabinet table. Let’s talk water.

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

Lazarus to Rise (yet) again - in Townsville

Guest contributor, Dee forwarded the following to me suggesting that we start collecting boots and shoes now!

I love the way it's tagged as a Book Launch - it must be the 50th time it's been launched in the last couple of weeks.

And I know that business is business and that they'll make a good quid out of it, but I must say that I'm surprised by Mary Who being the organisers/sponsors! (as will a lot of their regulars I suspect!!)

Alumni Association - Hon John Howard, former Prime Minister – Book Launch - Lazarus Rising

Date: Wednesday 17 November 2010

Time: Auditorium opens at 5.30pm

Location: Sir Geroge Kneipp Auditorium (Building DA026), JCU Douglas Campus, Angus Smith Drive, Douglas, TOWNSVILLE, Australia

Summary: JCU Alumni in association with Mary Who? Bookshop presents The Hon J Howard, former Prime Minister of Australia in conversation with Richard Lane and also launching his autobiography Lazarus Rising.

John Howard spent decades under media scrutiny, and while his credentials as a political leader, devoted family man and sports tragic are beyond dispute, in this autobiography he reveals much more about himself. In Lazarus Rising.

Howard traces his personal and political journey, from childhood in the post-World War II era through to the present day, painting a fascinating picture of a changing Australia.

We see the youngster who had to overcome serious deafness and who latched onto the family passion for current affairs and politics. From school debating, to a legal career, to the Liberal Party and life with Janette, it all seemed such a natural progression. Yet no one would say that Howard had it easy; not when his own colleagues sidelined him ... twice.

An economic radical and social conservative, John Howard's ideology united many Australians and divided just as many others. Lazarus Rising takes us through the life and motivations of John Howard and through the forces that have changed and shaped both him and the country he led for 11 years.

Lazarus Rising will be on sale afterwards and Mr Howard will be pleased to sign copies.
Presented by: JCU Alumni,  Mary Who? Bookshop
Cost: No charge

Registration: Please register online at http://alumni.jcu.edu.au/netcommunity/JohnHowardTnsv

Contact: Everyone welcome. For further information please contact Viv Sonntag, Email: Viv.Sonntag@jcu.edu.au, Tel: (07) 4042 1850.

And I just can wait to see how The Bully creams itself when they get the call for a 1-on-1 interview with the old war-horsemonger.  I wonder whether Editor Gleeson will keep that one for himself.......

Of Anna and the Vultures

Guest contributor, Dee writes:

"The Queensland Premier claims "16 key achievements" in a list in the article "Three-year Bligh sails on" (Townsville Bulletin, Tues Sept 14) but ill-directed determination is a failure within itself and self-praise is not worth the paper on which the press release is printed.

The Courier-Mail of the same day nominates the list as "Anna Bligh's Sweet Sixteen".

The Bligh government in reality has at least 17 vultures that are feeding on its corpse as it flails around looking for a way out of the appalling situation that is only of its own making.

These vultures are:

• privatisation of taxpayer-owned assets;

• failure to pay proper compensation for Stolen Wages;

• failure to implement findings of the Black Deaths in Custody Royal Commission;

• complete policy failure and discrimination in communities suffering alcohol management "plans";
• failure to have alleged misconduct by police investigated by an independent authority;

• homelessness and abysmal levels of public housing construction;
• high unemployment in provincial areas;
• pay debacle for health staff;

• poor response to the Barrier Reef oil spill;

• large fuel price and fertiliser price rises for primary producers;

• huge rises in specific vehicle registration costs;

• privatisation of water infrastructure and huge rises in water prices;

• failure to remove medical abortion from the Crimes Act;

• corruption at ministerial level;

• failure to fund the Townsville cruise ship terminal at the correct level;

• failure to provide appropriate and sufficient mental health services;
• broadscale lead contamination of people and environment at Mount Isa; and
• contamination of water resources and environment due to failure to correctly control coal seam gas projects.

The government propagandists who have been to the US political skills school who have generated the idea that programs such as "I'll come to your region and govern for a week" or "I’ll spend a day in your shoes" can have some wondrous effect in tricking the voters into thinking that government cares about them, should spend their time more productively for the people of Queensland and fix the items on the vultures list.

There has to be an active commitment from this government to fix the list and the voters must be able to see and positively assess some real change in its outlook and its activities.

There is still time for the Premier to send this privatisation of taxpayer-owned assets policy back to the well-remunerated bureaucrats in Treasury for a thorough revamp into something different which is not a sellout and betrayal of Queensland taxpayers and voters.

Vote well

Some crypictic advice from Dee:

"The community of northern Queensland has been served well by its elected Senators who have had offices in Townsville since Senator Jim Keeffe in 1965 and I suppose there are many community members who will remember their favourite Senator with a great deal of fondness.  After all they do represent us in Canberra and live and work in our diverse community.

I notice two of our most recent Senators are finishing their terms of office in the very near future or near future. Only one of these Senators is standing again and only one has had an office in Townsville.

When Senator Macdonald's term of office finishes the Townsville community will no longer have that representation. But I wonder if there is a way out of this mess not of our making that we find ourselves in?

A careful scrutiny of a sample ballot for the Senate candidates in Queensland indicates there is one local only who has been placed by their Party in the No. 1 spot or the No.2 spot and thus becomes the person most likely to be willing and able to maintain a Senate Office in Townsville."
Regards - Dee

As for me - I'm off to vote

Peter Lindsay's PET program, the longest gestation in history

New Contributor Dee posts:

The Liberals or the LNP have had Peter Lindsay MHR as Canberra's representative in Herbert since 1996; thirteen years consecutively. Now in 2010 as the time for the next federal election comes closer, here is Tony Abbott "promising" that the LNP will deliver a PET scanner "immediately".

The LNP now say "four years is too long to wait" and compare themselves favourably with the ALP's claim that they will deliver a PET scanner in 2014.

This glaring inconsistency will not be missed by any elector in Herbert, so one of the rhetorical questions has to be "how many people do the LNP think they are going to deceive?"

The other hilarious part in all of this is the claim from Tony Mooney's pamphlet that the "Life Saving PET Scanner Delivered for North QLD" - past tense for something "promised" to happen in 2014. Same question about deception applies.

I can hardly wait for the new LNP candidate to promise that the LNP will "flood proof the Bruce Highway" which was always the favourite of Peter Lindsay at every federal election. Never delivered on that one either.

Thanks again Dee and welcome on board.
I too have been noticing the seemingly daily full-page ads in The Bulletin featuring The Monk and his Pet. At $3,500 a pop minimum this strikes me as an 'interesting' tactic this far out and perhaps and indication of how cashed-up the Libs are going into the election - no doubt thanks to the Miners.

Or maybe they're just stupid - spend $3.5 grand a day and not once mention the local candidate's name (what-ever it is) is just plain strange!