Campbell Newman - Notes from Pig City

Bean-counters at the gates of Queensland

And here I was thinking that Queensland wasn’t about to return to the Dark Ages. That nice, “comparatively urbane” Campbell Newman wouldn’t do anything really dumb in his first fortnight, like, say, axe the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. Would he?

Oh, wait. He would. He has.

“…The Queensland government has decided not to proceed with the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards in 2012 which will save Queensland taxpayers $244,475, not including the cost of resourcing the awards.

“The government would like to acknowledge all the sponsors, judges, stakeholders, entrants and winners for their valued contribution to the program to date.”

Well, that’s nice. Clearly though, their contributions are no longer valued – or perhaps more to the point, their contributions are nowhere near as politically valuable as a holy budget surplus. I can only guess, given the speed with which the axe has fallen, that literary prizes fall under the umbrella of the “waste and mismanagement” Newman railed against while in opposition.

On one hand, it’s smart politics. Newman will guess that not too many people in the arts sector will have voted for him, and probably never will. This won’t be news for more than five minutes outside of the minority of Queenslanders that actually, you know, read books.… Read more..

Bean-counters at the gates of Queensland Read More »

Reflections on the Queensland election

I don’t get excited about Queensland politics the way I used to, which explains why I haven’t bothered to blog about the state election until now, with the dust settling on the result. They just don’t make politicians like Joh Bjelke-Petersen any more, although Bob Katter did do his best to hold up his end of the agrarian socialist/social reactionary bargain with a campaign that lurched from the bold to the bizarre.

Actually, I have to credit Katter – at least he addressed some of the real issues Queensland is going to have to face in the next decade: I admire his feisty representation of suppliers in the fight against our supermarket duopoly, and he’s spot on, too, in his concerns about the management of the mining boom (especially coal seam gas) and how to balance that with agricultural interests. I’d add environmental interests, of course, except Katter would have all environmentalists buried at sea if he could.

But then there was his anti-gay marriage ad, which reminded me that he was still a Katter, the same one who said (back when he was a minister in Bjelke-Petersen’s government) that he’d walk backwards to Bourke if there were any gays or lesbians at all in his former electorate of Charters Towers, and added that condoms were despicable things that would do nothing to help prevent the spread of AIDS, but would encourage the community to have sex with gay abandon.… Read more..