The Queensland Liberals have been thinking that Dr Death’s final fatality will be Premier Peter Beattie and that government and dominance over the National Party will just fall into their hands in the next state election. Latest research by the Whatthepeoplewant project suggests they might just be hallucinating. The reason is that while voters think Peter Beattie is to blame for the hospital debacle, they also blame the Federal Liberal Party. So, while they’d boot Beattie out if an election were held next weekend, they’re tending to favour the Nationals rather than the Libs, and at the same time Beattie is clawing back ground.
The reasons for partly blaming the Federal Liberals are fact (the feds effectively control the number of doctors being created), a clever marketing campaign by Peter Beattie, and inattention by the Federal Health Minister.
While the Queensland Libs can play incompetence like just about no other political party, apart from the Dems, Abbott deserves a lot of criticism. He’s been all over the place on the health issues, even suggesting at times that the federal government should take health away from the states altogether.
At the moment he’s telling his rosary over RU486 and “right to life”, an issue which is a fait accompli and on which no election in the history of Federation has ever been won, while his state colleagues lose ground to a rickety, tired and incompetent state administration.
The Queenslanders should be telling their electors how Beattie has squandered the rivers of gold from the GST, and they could do with some support from federal heavy-hitters. Particularly as the health problems are unlikely to be unique to Queensland. If Beattie gets out of jail by sheeting the blame home to the Federal Liberals, the infection will spread amongst state premiers.
Beattie’s federal colleagues could also learn some lessons from him. They’ve been banging away at the government on the AWB for some time now without much effect. The government’s performance on the AWB is at best inept, but I suspect voters don’t think Labor would have done any differently. Bread and butter issues like health are another matter. Voters trust Federal Labor more than the Liberals on the softer social issues. Health could really turn things around for them.
Tony Abbott needs to start concentrating on the battles he can win rather than courting martyrdom.

According to the first electorate-based national index of well-being, compiled by Deakin University, Wide-Bay, one of the poorest electorates is also the happiest, whilst one of the richest, Sydney, is the unhappiest.
In quotes from the researchers in The Australian‘s report it is put down to population density, but has anyone else noticed another possible explanation? Here are the nine unhappiest seats to give you a hint:Parramatta (NSW), Perth (Western Australia), Gorton (Victoria), Hasluck (Western Australia), Werriwa (NSW), Reid (NSW), Rankin (Queensland) and Grayndler (NSW). And in case you haven’t noticed the pattern:Wide Bay, Richmond (NSW), Eden-Monaro (NSW), Ryan (Queensland), Higgins, Bendigo (Victoria), Murray (Victoria), Riverina (NSW) and Mayo (South Australia).
Yes, with the exception of Bendigo and Richmond, all nine happiest voted for the Coalition at the last election. And out of the nine unhappiest, none voted Coalition.
I’d be interested to see the whole data-set, but it does suggest that something other than population density is at work here. In fact, in our surveying we consistently find that the optimistic people are more likely to vote for the Coalition, while the pessimists vote Labor or Greens.
The issue that I’m really interested in is whether this is an effect of the policies being implemented by government. If you think the country is heading in the right direction, then you appear to be more likely to vote for the government at the moment, and I imagine you’d probably feel happier. Will that be reflected in the opposite direction when we have a change of federal government? Will Sydney replace Wide Bay as the happiness capital of Australia?
Or is the optimism a reflection of different personality types predisposing individuals to vote for different parties. Coalition voters certainly appear to be more pragmatic and outcomes oriented than Labor and Greens voters, who are more concerned about process and risk. Does pragmatism make you happier? Concern for due process less happy?
There’s a lot to think about here, but I doubt whether the happiness index really has anything to do with urban density at all.

Here’s a twist in the tail for all those who think John Howard having control of the Senate is a bad thing. According to Keryn Phelps on RN’s Breakfast program on Friday, the power of the Health Minister to veto RU486 was given to him courtesy of a deal with Senator Brian Harradine for the part-sale of Telstra. Harradine was pro-life and was one of the senators in the previous parliament with the balance of power.
Now Howard doesn’t need to negotiate with Brian Harradine and has a majority in the Senate, upsetting “balance of power” senators isn’t such a big deal. Alternatively, as I’ve put it in another post, there are now 45 balance of power senators, all in the coalition party room. Whichever way you look at it. If Howard had a minority position in the senate and had to depend on Harradine, there is good reason to think that he would not have allowed a conscience vote, in which case we wouldn’t be seeing this outburst of non-party political decision-making.

With the exception of one Queensland state election – that in 1995 – three-cornered contests have been an issue for the National and Liberal Parties in Queensland as long as I can remember. They needn’t have been, and if the Coalition parties want to win the next State election, they won’t be in 2007.
In 1995 there was the possiblity of three three-cornered contests, but eventually only Barron River saw both a Liberal and a National candidate. In the event the seat was won by the Liberal Party with a similar swing to the rest of the state. From all the evidence at the time the contest between the National and Liberal parties had a negligible, or even mildly positive, effect on the outcome.
There are two effects that happen in a three-cornered contest, both of which are in opposite directions and tend to neutralise each other, meaning no net damage to the overall Coalition vote.
One effect is an increase in the total number of people voting Liberal and National. Two campaigns equals twice the effort to convince voters not to vote Labor. Two candidates means a broadening in the appeal of the non-Labor side as there are some voters who won’t vote National, but will vote Liberal, and vice-versa.
The other effect is for preferences not to flow through perfectly, which decreases the percentage of the vote eventually caught under the two-party preferred system. This is more of a problem if the National Party candidate is ahead on first preferences because there are more Liberal voters who won’t vote National than vice-versa, reflecting the first effect.
In 1995 in Barron River we avoided directly criticising the National Party candidate. We also had a strategy of keeping the leaders away from Barron River as much as possible – a task made easier by it being the northern suburbs of Cairns and therefore a long way away from the south-east corner where most of the campaign action was.
Three-cornered contests have really only been an issue in the past because the National Party wanted them to be. It suited them to portray the Liberal Party as a disruptive influence rather than a legitimate partner, and they managed to sell that story to the media. It’s strange that three-cornered contests should be an issue in this way in Australia. In most democracies in the world people accept that parties are quite capable of robust dispute in election campaigns, and then settling down to form coalitions afterwards. There’s no reason, given commonsense amongst the non-Labor contestants, that Queensland should be any different.

The Honourable Sir Reginald William Colin Swartz, who died last week at the grand age of 94 was perhaps the last link with the Liberal Ministers of the Menzies Government – 1949 to 1966.
I knew Sir Reginald Swartz from my first year of high school. He was our local Federal Member (Darling Downs, 1949-1972). I met him first when he turned up in our little town and stood outside the council chambers meeting anyone who wanted to talk to their local Federal MP.
Each year he visited every town and village in the electorate – probably 40 or so – at least once just to meet voters and residents generally. Before he did so, plain signs would go up on lamp posts simply saying “R.W. Swartz, MP will be here. Date…Time…”
At the age of 11, I turned up after school and introduced myself. It began an association that was to enhance my interest in politics as he studiously met my every request for Hansards, reports and so on. And each request was met with a personally signed note, and the accompanying reports no matter how bulky they were.
It may well be that he is the last surviving Liberal Minister, who was elected in 1949, from the Menzies era. His Ministerial career was long, distinguished and entirely without blemish.
He was a Parliamentary Secretary for Commerce and then Trade between 1952 to 1961, and then successively Minister for Repatriation, Health, Social Services, Civil Aviation and National Development between 1961 and his retirement in 1972. For the term of the McMahon Government he was Leader of the House.
But this record does not tell the real story of Reg Swartz. I asked my friend Sir James Killen over the weekend whether Reg Swartz was among the most genuinely liked Members he served with. He had no hesitation in saying he agreed completely.
He had no enemies, on his own side, or the other side of the political divide. I doubt if he made one personal attack on an opponent in his whole career. His Labor opponents universally respected him for his integrity and decency.
He was a competent Minister. There was not one hint of scandal, and none of significant maladministration in his Ministerial career.
His answers to questions were long, and painstaking for the Opposition. But they were delivered without reference to notes or briefs. They contained innumerable facts and no vitriol.
But throughout his Ministerial career he assiduously “worked” his electorate. He won election after election with large majorities.
His Press Secretary, my late friend Mort Nash, followed the dictum that his job was to keep his Minister out of the “Sydney Morning Herald”, and in the “Toowoomba Chronicle”.
And during World War he was a prisoner of the Japanese, but as Minister for National Development he promoted trade and investment links with Japan as enthusiastically as any of his colleagues.
His death marks the end of an era. He was one of the last, if not the last, Liberal Minister from the Menzies Governments – and he was almost certainly the last who was first elected when Menzies won office in 1949.
He will be given a State Funeral in Caloundra this Thursday.
His long and distinguished service to Australia – in war and peace – deserves nothing less.

We’ll know how badly Peter Beattie is doing over the health issue shortly because we are conducting an online poll into his handling of it. That said, the signs are not good for him.
This morning’s Courier Mail carries the headline “Beattie fights revolt”. It then goes on to how he is giving himself “greater personal involvement in fixing the problems facing public hospitals,” which appears to mean freeing up some of his time by bestowing the Treasury portfolio on deputy Anna Bligh.
All this is more than a little bizarre. Beattie is a former health minister who according to many, never managed to leave the portfolio, consistently micro-managing succeeding ministers. He’s one of the people culpable for the whole fiasco.
Anna Bligh managed to keep the whole issue boiling away over the January holidays by some very inept handling of the Caboolture Emergency Department issue. Her bumbling statments where the department seemed to open and close a number of times, and then eventually was open, but only between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., so please have your accidents during business hours, brought back memories of her “in denial” performances on the issue of asbestos in Queensland schools. Normally you would think she’d be lucky to hold her portfolios, let alone be promoted to Treasurer.
While The Australian has been reporting some apparently leaked research saying that, while electors blamed the Beattie government for the public health problems, they weren’t moving to the Coalition, because they wouldn’t do any better, how long before they decide they couldn’t really care and a change is as good as a cure?
The only plus for Beattie at the moment is the Coalition itself. The Nationals want to undo the coalition agreement, largely because the “sham” joint preselections are turning out not to be so sham, and they’ve lost out in at least one they thought they had sewn up. Liberal Party President has tried his best to do a new deal, but apparently keeps getting rolled by his boys – Santoro and Caltabiano. And then there’s the defection of Julian McGauran and the Prime Minister’s generally inept handling of Queensland Liberal Party internal politics (another blog piece there). Oh, and Michael Caltabiano is busily trying to raise support for himself as Liberal Party leader, as well as encouraging Bruce Flegg to challenge Bob Quinn (yet another blog piece coming).