Newman roadshow continues to draw fans

GYRATING and hip-thrusting on stage ... it probably wasn't how Campbell Newman, the politician, ever imagined himself.

Campbell Newman

GYRATING and hip-thrusting on stage ... it probably wasn't how Campbell Newman, the politician, ever imagined himself.

Newman is more your hard-hat-and-fluoro-safety-vest type of leader than a look-at-me-on-the-dance-floor diva.

Yet there the Liberal National Party leader was in an impromptu dance-off against Labor MP Kate Jones, his opponent for the state seat of Ashgrove.

For Newman, his dancing feats will be the enduring image of his 100th day as LNP leader. And in many ways it is a scene that captured the essence of this contest so far.

There have been lots of fancy footwork and cute political moves from both sides. But there's been very little else to help voters decide between one side and the other.

Mind you, Newman hasn't needed to do much more than a bit of gyrating since stepping on to the Queensland political stage. After all, it's been his honeymoon.

The first few weeks of Newman's unorthodox bid to become premier were tough.

He was dogged by questions about how the processes of an external leader would work and what would happen if he lost his bid for a seat but the party won. Yet these issues were largely ephemeral to the Queensland public which seemed to welcome Newman with open arms.

Polling in the days after Newman announced his decision to stand showed the LNP had surged back to the dominant poll position it held before the summer of disasters.

It wasn't a lead greater than what his predecessor John-Paul Langbroek held. But the bounce back was interpreted as a Newman-led recovery, which was all those behind the push needed to justify the audacious attempt to switch him from City Hall to George Street.

On a policy front, Newman has attempted to lay down some of his platform after declaring all LNP policy positions "null and void" in his first days as leader. This was a decision many MPs now believe was a mistake, given that some of those same positions are now being recycled by Newman as his own.

On the key issue of cost-of-living pressures, he's promised to freeze family car registration, reform water delivery and cap electricity prices. There also have been commitments on law and order, such as establishing a Gold Coast crime squad and longer jail time for police killers.

Yet other so-called policies have been paper-thin and populist as the LNP continues with a similar low-risk strategy to the one it had under Langbroek.

Take, for instance, the promise to install a Minister for Agriculture with a seat at the Cabinet table. Queensland already has one under a different name. And he sits at the Cabinet table.

The policy front has proved most problematic for Newman. As a civic leader, he appeared at times to struggle with the detail. However, perhaps his worst moment during his first 100 days as LNP leader was a political rather than policy mistake when he branded Premier Anna Bligh and her senior ministers xenophobic for poking fun at his Tasmanian heritage.

The comments had LNP MPs slapping their own foreheads and Newman looking overly sensitive, not to mention a bit silly. Yet Newman has probably done some forehead slapping of his own, given he has had to deal with internal ructions, something he faced very little of as a mayor.

At one point he had to brush off one of his own MPs branding another "the most hated man in the bush".

Yet through all the trials and tribulations of the first 100 days, Newman has continued with his renowned energy and enthusiasm. While there have been plenty of problems, there's no sign yet that the Newman experiment is faltering.

Queenslanders seem to want him on the political stage. They want to have a choice for a change - and if that means they have to watch him bust out the odd dance move, then so be it.