I ran into my friend, Dr David Watson, former MLA for Moggill, the other day. We talked about the increase in bureaucracy in the Queensland Health Department without any apparent improvement in outcomes. This was of course in the context of the Jayant Patel inferno. Whatever else you say about Joh Bjelke-Petersen (and I’ve said plenty) he knew how to screw things down tightly, which led to a bureaucracy that cost less than the Australian average, but in many areas, delivered just as much.
David went on to say that until a few years ago he was keeping tabs on the growth of the public service under Labor. It was Mark Latham who first pointed out that the growth in Disability Support Pensions accounted for some of the decrease in national unemployment. Watson reckons that the increase in the size of the Queensland public service has been responsible for some of the decrease in Queensland unemployment.
Does anyone know what the increase in the public service under Labor has amounted to, right up to the moment (Watson’s figure stop some years ago)?
Australia currently has a shortage of workers in some occupations, which is being exaccerbated by the aging of the workforce – see this study from IR Minister Kevin Andrews. I wonder how many of these new public servants could have helped to ease these shortages if they were still in the private sector?
For example, good book-keepers are hard to come by. Many of these new public servants would surely be suitable for this. Where they are at the moment they are very unlikely to be increasing the net sum of total personal wealth, which means that our living standards are probably being lowered in order to pamper the public service. But then, most people will be more concerned about something they can easily measure – unemployment – than something they can’t – opportunity cost and a foregone higher standard of living.

The good people of the Sydney northern beaches electorate of Pittwater have sent the Liberal Party – and not just its NSW Division – a resounding message.
And it is message those it is meant for seem to have difficulty hearing.
The rampant right-wing, extreme factionalism now overwhelmingly evident in the Liberal Party does not sit easily with an electorate that does not trust politicians, let alone political parties. And it is even less trusting of extreme ideologues…such as those who “masterminded” one of the worst results ever “achieved” by a major party in Australian political history.
But, in the case of NSW at least, it is blame that must be shared by the extremists on the left as well as on the right.
Today the NSW Liberal Party is controlled (perhaps garrotted?) by the far right…but it used to be run with the same ruthless, winner-take-all obsession by the left.
And on this occasion they got the result they richly deserved…an absolute hammering.
The electorate of Pittwater is a bit like the seat of Cunningham in the Queensland Parliament. It has never been held by other than a Liberal (in the case of Cunningham, national) candidate.
The predecessor to Pittwater was Collaroy…held for a generation by the only genuinely successful Liberal Premier of NSW, Sir Robert (Robin) Askin.
Apart from the fact it has never been other than a strong Liberal seat, Pittwater should never have been lost by an opposition party in an environment in which the government of the day is facing serious political problems. The mess inherited by the Iemma Government makes the loss to an Independent clearly identified with the Government inexcusable.
The message for the Liberal Party of today is that the Party Robert Gordon Menzies established, and nurtured, was a “Liberal Party”, not a “Conservative Party”, and a “broad church” and not a “closed shop”.
The candidate for Pittwater was imposed on the electorate, over the top of well credentialed locals, and he was an outsider in a parochial area, but a favoured son of the ruling, right wing faction that seems to be headed by very dark people. He is now a discredited appendage to the history of NSW politics.
And the people of Pittwater – including thousands of voters who have voted “Liberal” all their lives – have rejected their brand of political hate and obsession.
And they will do it in South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria next year, and if the Queensland Liberals don’t mend their ways (fat chance of that) in this State late next year or early in 2007.
But the most miserable and pathetic aspect of this humiliating defeat is the attempt by the far right to blame John Brogden for it. How mean spirited can people possibly get?
Having driven Brodgen from public office by rumour and smear they now blame him for losing the unlosable.
The same far right, winner-take-all obsessive style the David Clarke, MLC, led NSW Liberals are being garrotted by is rapidly entrenching itself in the Liberal Party in Queensland.
The “tolerance” Menzies deliberately and carefully crafted into the fabric of the Liberal Party is all but gone. And the electorate does not like it one iota.
The “broad church” he was so proud of is all but gone.
And the basic right to dissent, exercised without the threat of recrimination, was exercised by a host of Members and Senators – Jim Killen, Bill Wentworth, Reg Wright (more than 150 times), Ian Wood (the same), Clive Hannaford and Wilfred Kent Hughes – who crossed the floor to vote against their own Government. And in the Queensland Parliament John Murray, Geoff Chinchen, Bill Lickess and Charles Porter
I can remember as a schoolboy corresponding with Clive Hannaford who, along with Reg Wright, defeated the Menzies Government in the Senate over the two airline policy. In our extensive exchange of correspondence he stressed constantly that “the Prime Minister” had not sought to extract retribution in any way, shape or form.
That is the Liberal Party of the past. It was a remarkably successful Party – the most electorally successful in history…at state as well as federal levels.
And it was the kind of Party that attracted to its ranks outstandingly successful young businessmen such as Jim Longley, the Member for Pittwater from 1986-1996.
Jim was in the moderate, or “wet” faction…but he held strong social values on key issues. And when he left politics in 1996 unquestionably frustrated at the way the Liberal Party was going he became a Senior Executive in the Aged Care Division of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney. Hardly a “radical” entity?
Today he is a senior executive in the Commonwealth Bank.
It is difficult enough as it is to attract good men and women to public office today.
A party run by intolerant extremists – of the left or right – will not only find it difficult to do so…it will become increasingly politically irrelevant to an electorate that is more discerning, and more demanding of reason and tolerance than ever.
That is the real message from Pittwater.

The Pittwater byelection result carries the same lesson for a diverse range of politicians. Peter Costello, Kim Beazley, the Queensland Liberals et al take note – don’t assume that political parties are for ever.
The incidence of Independents has been on the rise for some time. As of yesterday there are now 7 in the NSW Parliament and 5 in Queensland. This is evidence of dissatisfaction with the policies being dished up by the “Laboral” party – One Nation’s apt appellation for the political duopoly.
It is also evidence of the decrease in brand loyalty across society which not only affects political parties, but every other product as well. And it’s more pronounced amongst younger Australians, so things are going to get more difficult as time goes by.
The implication of this is that the entitlement mentality displayed by so many political operators will most likely bring as its reward the failure of their ambitions.
There would have been no Pittwater byelection if the religious right of the NSW Liberals hadn’t targetted John Brogden, destroying his political career and his mental equilibrium. They appeared to assume that the Liberals were going to win the next election because they were the Liberal Party, and therefore it was better to have one closer to their way of thinking than Brogden in charge.
Now they are are even further away from power. Perhaps they ought to listen to God’s not so still small voice and spend less of their time near the organ’s thunder!
Peter Costello and his supporters seem to assume that the leadership of the Federal Liberal Party is something to be inherited by the “next in line”. After this byelection result John Howard will be even more inclined to make him play Prince Charles and bide his time. It will reinforce for him how fragile the Liberal Party’s hold on power, qua Liberal Party, is. Howard understands that his government is held in place by a coalition of voters, unique in recent federal history, of the upper and lower demographics. It’s not one that Costello is likely to be able to retain, and there is a huge risk that he couldn’t find another to replace it.
Kim Beazley too seems to think that “turning up” is all he needs to do to win the next election. As a result the unions (who having seen membership levels halve in 25 years know exactly how fragile brands can be) have been forced to play the role of the unofficial opposition. If it wasn’t for them Howard would have much less trouble over his IR legislation.
Ironically the Queensland Liberal Party’s recent upsurge of internal insanity is driven by huge results in two byelections which they have misinterpreted. The Redcliffe and Chatsworth results were another example of volatility in the electorate, not a portent that Peter Beattie is sure to lose the next election. Having spent $500,000 to win these byelections, Chatsworth by the merest of margins, the Liberal Party organisation appears to be desperate to put the Chatwsorth winner, Michael Caltabiano, in as replacement leader to Bob Quinn. Yet there is no guarantee that without massive expenditure and a byelection atmosphere he can even continue to hold the seat!
As a result they have opened up rifts with the National Party, and made a public spectacle of themselves in fixing preselections for Caltabiano supporters. I can see the political tide ebb against their legs as I write.
Ironically the tendency to think your brand is impregnable appears to afflict opposition parties more than governments. Perhaps you have to be more optimistic to be an opposition. That has implications for the future stability of the Liberal brand more than it does for Labor for the reason that the Liberal Party, despite its dominance at a federal level is, on average across the country, in opposition more than the Labor Party.
Which makes you wonder what might happen to them if they were to lose their federal fiefdom. There could be even more openings for political entrepreneurs in a few years’ time rather than just the odd byelection.

In my previous post I reported comments by Vaughan Johnson about the federal IR changes and said I would invite him to make a post on the issue on this blog. Here is his response.

Dear Graham,
Thank you for your email of today 24th November. While I may have given the impression yesterday that I supported the federal Governments Industrial Relations Laws I cautioned Mal Brough that the advdertising needs to be put in plain basic english so that main stream Australia can fully understand and comprehend the detail- thus an education program that is not pulling the wool over peoples eyes is paramount.
We in the National Party in Queensland have voted to-day with the Labor Government to support their motion to get the Queensland Senators not to support the IR laws in current form until they are made clearer to the electorate and not disadvantaging ordinary workers who feel threatened at this point from the complexity of the magnitude of this exercise.
Many people are cautious and need to be given every opportunity to understnd what changes really mean and ultimately this legislation should not be rushed.
Regards
VAUGHAN JOHNSON

Barnaby Joyce is threatening to veto John Howard’s IR legislation because of pressure from his state National Party colleagues. The Courier Mail quotes National Party State Leader Lawrence Springborg saying “The Nationals remain unconvinced that the legislation, in its current form, should be supported.” Opposition is apparently broadspread – “The concerns raised by MPs were not geographically constrained, but came collectively from MPs representing the Nationals’ southeast and urban electorates as well as . . . regional, rural and remote electorates.”
But yesterday morning at a Conservative Club Breakfast National Party frontbencher Vaughan Johnson was impassioned in his support for AWAs and the changes. He told the story of a young constituent who he helped to get a $70,000 entry level mining job in his electorate who now earns $180,000 p.a. because of an AWA – a higher wage than a parliamentarian, and probably with more security.
His yarn was supported by another from guest speaker, Assistant Treasurer Mal Brough, who reported that close friend of the Prime Minister, Senator Bill Heffernan, was not comfortable with the new legislation because it meant that the shearers on his NSW grazing property would be able to demand a substantial raise.
Sounds like John Howard should be inviting Vaughan, Mal and Barnaby round to Kirribilly House when he returns from overseas to wrap up the vote he needs to pass his legislation.
I’m going to send Vaughan Johnson an email to see whether he’ll reprise his sales job on this blog.

When I reported that joint preselections between the Liberal and National Parties were a face-saving device and a deal had been done to carve-up the seats which would be rubber-stamped by the preselections I didn’t expect that this would be confirmed by the highest authority.
That is exactly what Lawrence Springborg did Monday when he complained that as a result of a deadlocked joint preselection in Redlands there would be a three-cornered contest in that seat. The Courier Mail reports that:

He [Springborg] said Nationals delegates had acted in good faith to install a Liberal candidate at last Saturday’s joint preselection for the seat of Springwood. Liberal preselectors, however, had acted “against the intention” of the coalition agreement by refusing to endorse a Nationals candidate in Redlands.
He said the Liberals’ lack of goodwill in the Redlands preselection – where a tied vote has forced a three-cornered contest – had cast doubt over the viability of the four remaining joint preselections.

Troublesome thing democracy – if you let the people decide things you might find that they end up disagreeing with you.
Springborg goes on to accuse the Liberals of “voting as a bloc”. While it appears to have been the intention of both sides that they would orchestrate a bloc vote to deliver pre-ordained results, in this case it is most likely that both blocs broke with traffic going in both directions.
Think of it this way. There are another 4 preselections to go. If the Liberals were intent on breaking the deal, why do it now when the Nats have four more opportunities to repay the treachery? Presumably the way that the deal works is this. In each of the preselections one or two defections are organised from the side which has decided to tap the mat so that the result is close, clear and not too humiliating. The smaller the designated number of defections, the greater the risk that something will go wrong. In this case, for whatever reason, it looks like the one or two, or three or four designated Liberal defectors passed an equal number of undesignated National Party ones going in the other direction.
The joint preselection solution always looked half smart (although as this tie demonstrates, no-one’s sure who’s in which half). Because it suggests that three-cornered contests should be avoided at all costs, it also undermines the proposition which the parties now need to put – that three-cornered contests can be a good thing.
I guess everyone is going to have to show everyone else their ballot papers next time, just to make sure the right result is obtained – it’s an old tradition in the ALP and the union movement.

The reason that Jim Nicholls was vetted out of the Broadwater preselection is supposed to have something to do with the accuracy of his application form. Nicholls says he is a “consultant”, the party says he is “unemployed” (well, what else does “consultant” mean?). Nicholls claims to be an active member of some community groups, the party says he might be a member, but he’s not active. How would they know – do these community groups send their minutes to LP HQ?
The decision to disqualify him was unanimous, so there must have been some cross-factional support for it, but surely not on the basis of a couple of fig-leafs like that. If exaggeration were a disqualification, then the pool of potential Liberal Party candidates wouldn’t be deep enough to slake the thirst of the average back-yard mosquito. Exaggeration is the life-blood of politics – if you don’t have some skills in that area you probably won’t be any good.
A google search on the successful candidate, Christopher Stear, also raises some questions about his suitability. It looks like he might have exaggerated a profit figure by $2.764 million in the context of an equity raising in Child Care Centres Australia, a listed public company. Or if he didn’t, he should have known that it was exaggerated by that figure. In any case, he left the company at around the same time the profit downgrade was announced.
Child Care Centres Australia was floated by J T Campbell, the Merchant Bank of prominent Victorian Liberal Michael Kroger predicting $2.8 M profit for 2002/2003. It then made a subsequent capital raising of $8.5 m without apparently changing the profit advice. Then, just after it banked the money from the share issue it revised its profit down to $64,000 (on turnover of $19.64 m) making the investors and their advisors very angry.
If Nicholl’s exaggerations were enough to have him knocked out, Stear must tell a good story, or perhaps Kroger put in a good word for him. Of course, he does come with qualifications for the job: he’s run for parliament before – as a Democrat.
Broadwater is one of the 6 seats subject to the dual preselection arrangements between the Liberal and National parties. All of this must make it more likely that the National’s candidate will win the preselection, unless of course he is an exaggerator too.

The extent to which the mainstream media can be totally out of touch with community attitudes is well evidenced by the saturation, and broadly favourable, coverage it is giving to the “model” Michelle Leslie.
The hero like status she is being accorded sits very uneasily with mainstream Australia if the feedback I am getting and the attitude of radio open line callers is any guide.
And, remarkably, the media’s approach, and that of politicians across the political divide, to the plight of the Australia facing execution in Singapore seems not to be shared in any way by a significant section of the community.
But back to the Michelle Leslie case. Even though her offence involved the possession of just two ecstasy tablets there is little community sympathy for her…and there will be even less now that it appears as though her story is up for sale to the highest bidder.
It may be because she has appeared dressed as a Muslim – though the garb appears to have been put in the bottom of the suitcase – but I suspect it is really because the community are really down on drug offenders full stop.
Now while it is true that radio open line callers are unrepresentative of the community at large, when the views are expressed so overwhelmingly they must be taken some notice of.
The plight of Van Tuong Nguyen has attracted almost unanimous political and media concern mainly because he faces death by hanging. That is understandable.
But the situation of Leslie is quite different. She served three months, in apparently relative “comfort”, but the media is fawning over her almost as though she was a “victim” herself.
A “victim” of what – at the very least of her own stupidity?
But the community does not see her in the same favourable light at all……..but surprisingly there is much stronger community sympathy for Schapelle Corby – and one senses that is because people believe she is carrying the can for someone else.
The next media “circus” is going to be the sentencing of the “Bali Nine” some of whom, quite frankly, will be in the same desperate circumstances as Nguyen.
And on the basis of open line feedback, and my own “soundings”, the community will have almost no sympathy at all for the “Bali Nine” and even for those who are sentenced to an appearance before the firing squad.
Now I suspect appeals by the Australian Government for “clemency” for those of the Bali Nine sentenced to death will get a more receptive hearing than those being made to the Government of Singapore.
But let there be no doubt about it, such appeals – that seems inevitable given the overwhelming body of evidence on show – will attract a very mixed response in mainstream Australia.
The media is under no obligation to reflect community views and standards but it would help at times if those who write and talk about “public outrage” and “overwhelming community alarm” actually tried to found out whether that is the true position.
And when it comes to drug related offences committed in our region they will invariably find the “outrage and alarm” are well removed from reality.

He’s advised British Governments and Virgin Airlines as well as Lockheed Martin. He’s 41, married with kids, isn’t an axe-murderer, and has never been investigated for anything more than perhaps a parking ticket. What’s more, a little over 12 months ago he ran for Liberal Party president as a non-aligned candidate, and got more than his own vote. You’d think he’d be a perfectly reasonable person to allow to present before a Liberal Party preselection – afterall Pauline Hanson met the standard, so the bar’s never been too high before. You might think that, but if his name is Jim Nichols, you’d be wrong.
Last weekend at its convention the Liberal Party changed its constitution, despite not meeting the constitutional requirements to do so. Its new powers have just been used to stop Nichols even appearing before the preselection council.
The result is that Chris Stear will be the preselected Liberal candidate for Broadwater.
This farcical situation means that power in the party has been tilted towards the factional chiefs. Previously a good candidate or member who differed with head office could still survive on the loyalties of his or her constituents. Now they are beholden to the central apparatus. So much for the party’s belief in the individual.
I’ll do some more analysis of this because it is an important shift in the way the Liberal Party governs itself and has ramifications for the whole of parliamentary democracy. Before I do I need to do some more digging around. Would love to hear from some of my readers.

Next Wednesday the Honourable Sir (Dennis) James Killen will celebrate his 80th birthday, and last night his many friends from across the political and community divide gathered at the Irish Club to mark the occasion.
It is fortunate that Jim Killen served in the Parliament of the nation in an earlier era because today’s sterile Parliament would surely drive him to follow his observation about the losing punter who was last seen heading towards the Gateway Bridge with a step ladder.
He loved Parliament in its purest form…as a forum for robust debate, cutting humour and oratory. The current Parliament, and its recent predecessors, fail miserably to deliver any of these qualities.
When I first began listening to Parliament on the ABC over 40 years ago, our National Parliament was blessed with some of the great orators, and political operators, in our history.
Robert Gordon Menzies, Arthur Augustus Calwell, Edward Joseph Ward, Frederick Michael Daly, Wilfred Kent Hughes, John McEwen, Clyde Robert Cameron, Thomas Eyre Forrest Hughes, Edward Gough Whitlam and Dennis James Killen in particular.
Only the latter four are alive today…and unsurprisingly Jim Killen keeps in regular contact his three former colleagues them.
In today’s House of Representatives you would struggle to fine ONE Member who would come even close to any of the above when it comes to oratory, political skill, or in the case of Hughes, eminence in his profession. Maybe Peter Costello?
The above possessed these qualities in varying degrees – oratory, independence of spirit, humour and wit, and a capacity for political ruthlessness. Some had all of them, others just one of them.
Jim Killen is best remembered, in my view, for his humour and wit, and his capacity to laugh at his own expense. How lacking are those qualities in today’s politicians?
I served as a very junior Ministerial Press Secretary when Jim was on the backbench in the McMahon Government. He and Tom Hughes sat immediately behind the Ministry – convenient positions when they wanted to tear strips off the Government.
I recall as if it were yesterday Jim’s response to the hapless Billy McMahon’s plaintive comment, “there are times when I am my own worst enemy”.
Killen’s instant response – “not while I am here you are not” – brought the House down.
After the 1975 election, when his great friend Fred Daly retired from Parliament, Killen arranged for Daly to bring his Old English sheep dog, Sir John, to be brought to Parliament House to be interviewed for a job in Killen’s office to help supplement Daly’s pension.
The attendants tried to block the dog’s entry…until Killen intervened to assure them Sir John was being interviewed for a job with the highest security classification. A priceless picture of Sir John with pen in paw “signing on” adorns Killen’s study.
The pranks he masterminded would today probably cause a major security alert!
And his exercise of his right to “cross the floor” – done more than once – would probably secure his expulsion from his party. And his interjections at the most opportune moment would surely attract the disapproval of the drabbest Speaker the Parliament has ever had to endure…the current one.
Jim Killen was fortunate to enter Parliament in an era when debate was robust, to put it mildly, and, when opponents were taken to pieces, but respected!
I recall him telling me on more than one occasion that the first advice he was given when he enter Parliament came from the distinguished then Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer, the Rt Hon Arthur William Fadden.
Fadden pulled him aside and told firm sternly “remember, Killen, in this place all the best batsmen are not in the one team.”
That helped give Jim the unique capacity to make, and keep, friends across the political divide…without surrendering his own beliefs in any way shape or form.
I know that when he watches “question time” today he despairs at how drab it has become. And he is rightly appalled by the fact that interjections, once the meat, bread and wine of Parliament, are simply not tolerated any longer.
But he has led a rich and interesting political life. He has made a legion of friends and very few enemies.
And, largely due to the personal intervention of John Howard, his relationship with the political party he helped to form has been restored.
In recent years he has endured bereavement and poor physical health, but his mind is as sharp as ever, and his wife, Benise, gives him the most steadfast care and support.
And his weekly telephone chats with Edward Gough Whitlam help keep his humour intact.
As he prepares to celebrate 80 interesting years, I wish him well.
It is an honour to have him regard me as a friend.