It’s a bit late for that

Today’s front place splash in The Bulletin “Let’s get this one right” is wrong on two counts:

• The closing of the Mall to traffic in the early ‘80s wasn’t wrong – it was in fact incredibly successful - until the rise of the suburban (car-centric) shopping malls.
• It’s a bit late to hope that TCC has “got it right”

Mayor-in-waiting David Crisafulli’s comment in the page four article that follows is a bit of a giveaway:

“What we’re doing is a catalyst that will lead to investment for private enterprise”

I’m sure he meant “…by private enterprise” be he’s actually right as quoted – it’s a subsidy to the profit sector (and Lancini’s planned some-day Flinders Plaza Development in particular).

It’s $56,000,000 worth of business welfare, pure-and-simple.

Has Crisafulli cooked Les’ goose (and maybe his own as well)?

News that debt-ridden Townsville Council has put $1,000,000 on the stump to help rescue the North Queensland Fury won’t go down well with ratepayers forking out the highest rates in Queensland.

Those who regularly drive past Council’s $5,000,000 “investment” in the V8 dinosaur racing track and see it vacant and disused for 360 days of the year will be livid – along with the 164,484 or so locals who don’t go to soccer matches.

And it seems from the reports that this was a decision made solely by mayor-in-waiting Cr Crisafulli – apparently without reference to full Council, any committee of Council, possibly any official of Council or even the Mayor.

Perhaps it was all part of a clever strategy to sink Les’ re-election chances if he’s game enough to stand again? If so, I don’t think young David thought it through very well. I suspect that he’s cooked his own goose along with that of Les.

Rumours heard this week

Heard around town this week:

Rumour #1
Mayor-in-waiting David Crisafulli has put the kybosh on any of his “independent” Councillor colleagues putting their hand up for the LNP preselection race for Herbert.

It’s not that he’s particularly concerned that the punters will twig to the fact that the “independents” were actually a LNP ticket all along. Rather he’s worried that if someone like Cr Dale Last (just for the sake of argument of course) were in the Herbert race and lost, as Crisafulli and everyone else (including Peter Lindsay) expect they will, the profile they would gain in the process would provide a platform for Dale them to run against him in the Mayoral race and he’s determined to keep that one for himself.

In a similar vein, I bet Crisafulli is pis*ed of at the Bully’s parking ticket story today – despite ¾ of the article quoting his press release, Dale Last gets the three-column photo!!

Rumour #2

Either Mooney is desperate or Crissafulli is running scared

Spotted in today’s NQ confidential section of the Bully (hat-tip to renown socialites M&C) is this little gem (see scan on the right - no pun intended).

By my reckoning the only two sitting councillors who also sat on the previous TCC are Jenny Hill and David Crissafulli.

If I’m right, either Crissafulli is a closet member of the ALP or scared of having to run against Mooney at the next Mayoral election if Mooney fails to get preselection for the Herbert race.

Either way, if Mooney has to rely on Crissafulli’s support in the race for Herbert, he’s in deep sh*t!

Preselection for Herbert - the never-ending story

You heard it online here first – about 12 hours before the Bully ran the story online.

The most interesting things in The Bulletin’s online coverage of Peter Lindsay’s abdication from the throne of Herbert are:

• Mayor-in-waiting Crissafulli’s indication that his missus won’t let him nominate for the Lib’s preselection (as apparently won’t Kim Faithful, the V8 event manager)
• Serial publicity seeker and failed LNP candidate for Mundingburra, Colin Dwyer, is interested in nominating - if they’ll have him (and if they believe that “somebody who understands economics” is a prerequisite for a successfully candidacy)
• Mooney staying coy about whether he’ll nominate as the ALP candidate

I also liked this online Opinion piece (un-attributed) which doesn’t seem to appear in the hardcopy version and which rightfully points out Lindsay’s failings:

• He has consistently lied to his electorate about his intentions of re-standing
• His lap of honour last year, “…a global study tour to 13 different countries at a significant cost to the taxpayer.”
• His amateurish effort to Photoshop himself into the study tour report, faking his photograph at a Beirut war cemetery.
• His tawdry plagiarism, with huge slabs of his report lifted straight from Wikipedia and other sources.

As the piece asks: “For taxpayers, the question is; why did Peter Lindsay go on an overseas junket last year if he knew two years ago that he was getting out?

As for Lindsay’s list of achievements that he’d like recorded in the history books – everybody (the Bully, Lindsay, the Libs etc) are kidding themselves if they really think a backbencher or Parliamentary Secretary (read letter-signer and inconsequential speech maker for the Minister) can influence a decision like the transfer of a new battalion (3RAR) to Townsville is having a lend of themselves

Herbert – the abdication

Well I was wrong! – Peter Lindsay will not be standing for the Libs in Herbert at the federal election later in the year.
But the really good news is that Barney Joyce won’t be either!
The most intriguing thing about the article announcing The Prince’s abdication is the statement that he told the party that he wouldn’t renominate some two years ago but “there was a strategic reason for not publicly announcing that until now”

So I suppose the big question now is whether Crisafulli’s missus will let him off the leash to play in Canberra or will the Libs come up with a surprise celebrity??

If you're really interested, Lindsay's retirement press release is available here.  It includes his version of his page in Australia's Political History book - don't worry - it will be edited down to a sentence before publication.

Crisafulli is gonna have to learn to do better

With all the talk around of Cr Crisafulli replacing Peter Lindsay as the Libs candidate in Herbert (if the missus agrees), it’s time that the pretender refined his political skills bit.

The gross hypocrisy he has displayed this week has been just a little too blatant, too obvious – On Monday he bashed the State for its ``blatant disregard'' for the city’s Town Plan when it comes to the location and building of social housing.  On tuesday he aggressively spins the Council’s decision to vary the Town Plan to enable the Railway Estate Boat Ramp to go ahead over-riding the wishes of local residents.

The art of successful hypocrisy is a key ingredient in political success. When it comes to hypocrisy Crisafulli is a natural, but he is a long way from mastering the art.

More broadly on the social housing issue, I thought that Housing Minister Struthers’ response to Crisafulli was excellent but not as to-the-point as this article by Paul Syvret in the Courier Mail

Is he stupid or just a skilled opportunist

Full marks to Mayor-in-waiting (or is that Candidate for Herbert) Cr David Crisafulli for using The Bulletin’s rubbish readers’ survey to claim that the punters of Townsville approve of his Planning and Economic Development Committee’s approach to unit development in the city.

That is, despite 51% of them that filled out and posted back their survey feeling there were too many unit complexes in the city and only 34% of respondents feeling there was appropriate development and use of land in line with the city's lifestyle.

What I can’t work out is whether he considers the Bulletin’s poll as in any way a representative survey of what the punters are feeling and/or whether he believes his own rhetoric about development and design in the city.

Mooney boosters are at it again

So the Bully is at it again today - leading the Mooney for Herbert cheer squad!

Lendl Ryan’s assertion that Herbert was “once died in blue” and that now, because of an evil redistribution, “Peter Lindsay is staring down the barrel of political annihilation” shows both her youth and her political naivety (a bit of a worry for someone the Bully has tagged as their “City Reporter”, whatever that is).

Herbert has always been a Labor seat and the election of Lindsay on the back of Howard’s Battlers campaign was always an aberration. Lindsay’s vote has been dropping since his first term and he would have lost the last one if Labor had had the right candidate and had massaged the defence vote the right way.

Given that Lindsay hasn’t been seen or heard of in the last two years in the departure lounge (except for the very occasional bagging of the State Government and reports of his very important overseas junkets), he was always going to lose the next election irrespective of any redistribution. The only reason he’s not gone already is that the Libs are having trouble believing that Crisafulli could win it and they (foolishly) believe that the incumbency factor will let Lindsay sneak back in again.

As for Ryan’s assertion that Mooney is a shoo-in for preselection and then Herbert – it’s a total beat-up with no new information since I last posted on the subject here. Mooney won’t declare his hand until he knows he has the numbers for preselection. He knows he can’t win a local plebiscite of members and is relying on the Administrative Committee or National Office to determine the candidates. But even then he knows there is no guarantee – he’s as much disliked and distrusted by the ALP power brokers as his is be the local membership.

Get over it!

Which Townsville housing development, top right or bottom really looks most like the 1975 East German housing block pictured top left on today’s front page?

In typical Bully style and on a slow news day, it’s time for a bit of a beat-up. And in the process, why not give a free ride to the Prince Regent, Cr Crisafulli.

As chairman of Council’s Planning and Economic Development Committee, the pretender to the throne of King Les has been copping a fair bit of flack for his appalling Cape Pallarenda decision (see: Another win for the developers). And what better way to distract the punters and redirect any residual anger than to use a couple of well-tested tactics learnt by the prince from his mentor the Monarch of Herbert, Peter Lindsay:

1. Shift the focus to a different level of government.
TCC has made and continues to make some truly dreadful and certainly uncreative planning decisions, so let’s get stuck into the State Government.

The reality is that around the country, State Governments can veto local government planning decisions just as the Feds can overrule State decisions in environmental planning and other areas. It has been that way for decades and for good reason – Local Government decision-making is arguably more open to graft and corruption, less focused on the greater good and more swayed by the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) factor – see 2. below

2. Frighten the bejesus out of the punters.
NIMBY is a world-view that runs deep in the Australian psyche and there is no more effective way of diverting attention or whipping up a bit of a storm than to appeal to this unsavoury undercurrent. The most common and effective NIMBY frenzy targets (in rough order) are:

• paedophiles (including former paedophiles)
• boat people (as opposed to illegal immigrants or asylum seekers per se),
• blackfella rough-sleepers,
• blackfellas,
• the mentally ill, (See Catherine Jones' excellent piece Fairfax's National Times today: It's not right to demonise mental illness
• whitefella rough-sleepers,
• Public Housing tenants,
• the poor, and then
• teenagers

The story is a shameful beat-up by the Bully, playing to the Prince Regent’s tune in order to distract attention.