Gary Spence is the new president of the Queensland Liberal Party beating John Caris by 23 votes to 20, and demonstrating just how entrenched the factions still are. Spence was the Santoro faction candidate, and Caris the candidate of the rest. This makes it almost certain, as forecast in a previous post, that Mal Brough […]

Warwick Parer’s premature resignation as Queensland Liberal Party President is a sure sign that the Santoro forces don’t have the numbers at State Convention. Parer is reported by the ABC: Mr Parer says he had intended to retire last year, but agreed to stay on for the Federal and Brisbane City Council elections. The former […]

It’s more or less official – the National Party is over. Queensland National Party Leader Lawrence Springborg is launching a serious of advertisements this evening promoting him as the alternative state premier, according to AAP, but without mentioning the National Party at all. QUEENSLAND Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg says there’s no point in spruiking the […]

The weekend’s revelation that Labor will seek to cut $10B from the defence budget means that voters in Herbert probably called the consequences of a Rudd Labor government correctly. Herbert is home to Lavarack Barracks and saw a relatively small swing to Labor of 6.03%. (Leichardt next door saw a 15% swing to Labor). The […]

That’s the claim from the leaked report in this (and related) news story. I can’t believe it. Perhaps a couple of months’ consumption got counted in the wrong year. For bags used to have jumped by that you would need a number of things to happen. Population could jump by 20%, or the volujme of […]

Joe Hockey reckons that Campbell Newman’s win is the first step on the comeback for the Liberal Party. “In many ways this may become the emblematic moment that indicates that the Liberal Party has reconnected with the community and has built up a core base of support for better government and stronger values in government,” […]

The government is set to spend $53 M on the unsubstantiated binge drinking problem. It will be partly funded by clipping the amount of money available to members and senators for printing. That still leaves the other half to be funded from cutting something else. The government faces a huge task in finding genuine budget […]

Seems that they’re worried about binge drinking in the UK, but unlike Australia, they are actually looking at reliable statistics and coming to some different conclusions. That doesn’t stop the Austrlalian media trying to spin the issue, and this report from the ABC is a disgrace. The ABC claims “24 hour drinking fuelling UK violence: […]

Everyone seems to have missed the obvious. Garnaut’s radical position on greenhouse gas reductions also radically reduces the room for Nelson to manouvre in. Now Rudd’s fairly robust position looks conservative, and the possibility of running a more conservative credible position on greenhouse has virtually disappeared. The usual suspects will pick-up the Garnaut targets, which […]