State pollies miss the point of the rise of independents

IF the ALP and LNP had been more trustworthy ... voters would not have turned to independents.

State opposition leader Annastacia Palaszczuk at Amaroo Childcare Centre with Coralee O'Rourke in Townsville during the election campaign. Pics Tara Croser.

I GET it, democracy blows if you are a politician.

All those grubby voters ­getting to choose if you will be out of work the next day or whether you will continue to reap a huge wage and retire with a hefty pension. But it is what it is so suck it up.

This week Opposition ­leader Annastacia Palaszczuk and Premier Campbell ­Newman both ruled out ­negotiating with stinky independents or minor parties to form ­government if there is a hung parliament.

Premier Campbell Newman on the campaign trail earlier this week.

This means if they both throw petulant tanties when the Governor asks them to attempt to form a government, Queensland voters will be forced to go back to the polls and go through these month-long shenanigans again.

“I’ll make it very clear, no, no, no, no deals,” said Ms Palaszczuk. Not to be outdone, Mr Newman pouted and then declared he would rather lose power than negotiate with those fools.

He didn’t actually say fools but he was thinking it.

Look, no one wants a hung parliament – although some have suggested the only good parliament is a hanged one.

But, and let me write this slowly so they understand: in a democracy the voters get to choose who they vote for and if politicians don’t like the outcome, too bad.

No matter how onerous and stupid the result may appear – I’m thinking of some federal senators at the moment – ­politicians don’t get to choose the outcome.

Because that would not be a democracy.

Understand?

Besides if, as the polls suggest, it might be a close one with independents deciding the balance of power, the major parties only have themselves to blame.

If the ALP and the LNP had been more trustworthy and acted less like geese over the past decade or so, voters would not have turned to independents in the first place.

Unfortunately, the LNP also seems to have a problem with mathematics.

Everyone, particularly Mr Newman, is denying Mr ­Newman could lose Ashgrove to Labor’s Kate Jones at the same time the LNP retains government – to be led by a wildcard premier.

This is despite a rather simple equation – that while a swing of about 11 per cent is needed to oust the LNP only 5.7 per cent is needed to end Mr Newman’s rule.

And a swing of 5.7 per cent is not unlikely given voters’ current dissatisfaction with the government and the results of two 2013 by-elections which saw swings against the LNP of 14 per cent in Redcliffe and 19 per cent in Stafford.

No wonder Ashgrove voters have their snouts in a giant pork barrel trough courtesy of Mr Newman. The leafy Brisbane suburb (a journalism term that usually denotes well-off spoilt brats) even has its own glossy $18 million Ashgrove Plan on top of the $100 million spent by the state government on the electorate since the LNP won power. Where are the glossy plans for the other 88 electorates, Mr Newman?

Mr Newman said every electorate would have its own plan but I’ve done a quick ­Google search of some of our local LNP MPs and the best I could find was something about a cable from Mermaid MP Ray Stevens.

Meanwhile, Ms Palaszczuk went for an easy vote grab by promising to slash the number of ministerial time wasters in a Labor cabinet from 19 to 14. This would save about $27 million over three years with the added benefit of reducing the number of ministers who could possibly get in trouble and embarrass the government.

Ms Palaszczuk was, however, unsure which portfolios would be merged or cut.

It’s a detail that you’d think Ms Palaszczuk would have worked out before announcing it.

She said it would be easy peasy because all ministers were overpaid and underworked anyway.

Or something along those lines.

Actually she said when she was a minister she also took on the environment portfolio when Kate Jones was on holiday AND handled estimate briefings.

This is the equivalent of a toxic work colleague taking over your job while you are away and then bragging to the boss about how easy it was – implying how useless you must be.

No one likes a suck-up.