Cage Fight: Could Campbell Newman be right about One Nation?
CAMPBELL Newman’s prediction about One Nation was either another example of his tin ear for public opinion or a further sign of the rise of the Right globally. 850+ comments so far. Join the debate
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
YOUR bare-knuckle brawlers John McCarthy and Des Houghton are back for another week of political fisticuffs.
Today’s debate: Could One Nation become so popular the next Queensland Government will need Pauline Hanson’s party to form government?
Join the debate from 7am in the comments section below.
Newman meets with Hanson’s right-hand man
John says:
Campbell Newman’s prediction of a coalition government with One Nation is another example of his famous overreach and tin ear for public opinion.
He has clearly shown he has no idea what the public thinks. If he did, he would not have lost his own seat and the 2015 election.
If Newman didn’t have a tin ear we wouldn’t have a Government that is still stumbling in the dark looking for a reason to exist.
But is there global lurch to the Right?
Clearly, yes, and it’s not a good thing.
The alt-Right, as they are now being called, are false prophets promising isolationism, a rejection of climate change and mono-culturalism as some sort of panacea.
It’s happening in the US, Britain, France, Germany and to a lesser extent it is happening here.
But it won’t work there or here.
It’s a protest against a world that doesn’t make sense and that’s understandable, but in Australia, we don’t have the loss of hope that exists in the US heartland and we have a far better economy than France.
We certainly don’t have the social woes of Europe.
The world can’t go back to the 1950s to solve problems. Those days are gone.
Australia isn’t a manufacturing nation, but it can do other things really well and cheaply. That’s where our future lies, not in trying to recreate a past that will only make us poorer.
And we also need immigrants who will do the jobs Australians won’t.
The Turnbull Government’s last ditched attempt to get the ABCC though Parliament is another cack-handed approach to appease the Right.
The entire construction industry needs a shake up, as does the enterprise bargaining system and the ABCC is only going to inflame an already volatile system.
Do you think the CFMEU will take it lying down?
It will see it as a rallying call. If you think the ABCC is the solution you don’t understand the victimhood that drives the CFMEU.
Des writes:
Australia is at the crossroads.
Workplace reforms to curtail union bullying and save on infrastructure costs are back in Federal Parliament.
The Australian Building and Construction Commission bill to restore the workplace regulator will have to jump a Senate hurdle.
If it does not pass the Upper House, Australian taxpayers will continue to pay hundreds of millions too much for their hospitals, universities and roads.
More than $100 billion in construction has been disrupted by the CFMEU, the “lawless” union that bankrolls the Labor Party, as Malcolm Turnbull’s Employment Minister Michaelia Cash outlined this week.
On the home front, the Palaszczuk government is going from bad to worse. It stands accused of causing hundreds of jobs to be purged from the government-owned power utilities it lumbered with billions of dollars debt.
It all makes me wonder. If Campbell Newman got it so wrong, how come the Labor government is now following many of his policies? Privatisations and redundancies are now on the Labor agenda.
The ghost of Pauline Hanson, meanwhile, is rising in the background with One Nation seeming to grow more popular.
This is bad news for the Labor Party.
Hanson’s success mirrors the rise of the Right globally.
Where will it end?
Rory Gibson reveals the one thing women should never do
I know we are in holiday mode, but if you don’t mind I’d like your opinion on an issue of great importance before we all clock off for the year.
Think outside box with Olympic bid
Today readers have their say on Queensland’s bid for the 2032 Olympic Games, the volcano tragedy in New Zealand and an inquiry into veterans’ suicide.