Queensland local government

On 22 April 2007 Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, then Deputy Premier, rejected calls for ending Queensland's population growth, claiming that it "would have a very serious impact on the construction industry that a lot people rely on for jobs."₁.

A year later, on 25 April 2008 as reported₂ in the Sunshine coast daily, town planning lawyer, Andrew Davis, similarly objected to the plans of newly elected Sunshine Coast Mayor, Bob Abbot, to cap the coast's population growth at 400,000 from the current population of 300,000₃. Davis claimed that Abbot's initial plan to reduce annual population growth from 3.5% to 2% would result in the loss of 8,500 of the region's 20,000 construction jobs. He also claimed that there would be further job losses in the transport, property and business service sector, with flow-ons to other sectors of the economy like retail, tourism, manufacturing.

Indeed, in a manner uncharacteristic for property developers' advocates, even Andrew Davis implicitly acknowledged that such a transition would be necessary when he said, “Turning off the tap of growth, without first achieving success in creating sustainable business, will cause enormous pain for everyone, whether you work in growth industries or not.”

Given that the region does not have adequate water resources, transport infrastructure, electricity generation, or health and education services to meet the needs of the existing population, many argue that it is urgently necessary to end growth now rather than to increase the number of people who will become dependent, for their employment, upon further growth. At the very least, a plan to end the region's dependence upon growth must be adopted without further delay. Sunshine Coast residents should not hold their breath waiting for Davis and the Sunshine Coast developers to devise a plan for a sustainable economy for the region.

Putting back the date for the necessary transition from a growth-addicted economy to a stable steady state economy will only make the eventual adjustment more traumatic.

At least Bob Abbot's plans for a cap are a step in the right direction. As far as it goes, he can rightly claim a popular mandate for his stance, having won the election for Mayor against pro-developer candidate Joe Natoli, with over 70% of the vote₄.

Comments posted to the web-site of the Sunshine coast Daily News, in response to the story, also confirm the overwhelming popular support enjoyed by Abbot. (See Appendix 1 below).

Saturday's Sunshine Coast Daily in the story Coast told to grow up and diversify₅ of 26 April reported that Sunshine Coast business leaders supported Abbot and called for the diversification of the economy away from dependence upon tourism, retail and the property industry.

Sunshine Coast Business Council chair Paul Pettigrew said, "Reliance on the mainstays of tourism, retail and property development industries must be reduced. The growth of the knowledge, creative, research and innovation, manufacturing and other such skills-based industries will create a larger total economic base that is better positioned for the region’s social and economic future."

Sunshine Coast Environment Council manager Ian Christesen said the time was right to have a debate about growth₅.

“The time is right, the people have spoken at the elections, so let’s get on with rational discussion,” he said.

“The rhetoric the state government has been going on about for some time is ‘we’re managing growth’. Everyone realises that’s not the case, growth is managing us.

“We have to diversify our economy. We can’t rely on the vagaries of construction and development to underpin our economy.

“We need to move on and develop something a bit smarter.”

However, as former State Labor MP, Cate Molloy, warned (see Appendix 2) Sunshine Coast residents may see their expressed wishes to curb the demands of the developers frustrated. State Labor Government's supposedly independent assessment panel, has powers to over-rule planning decisions of the Sunshine Coast Council and other local governments.

Already in 2007, at the behest of the Property Council of Australia (PCA), the State Government forcibly amalgamated a number of local governments, against the wishes of the residents served by these councils₆. The Property Council viewed the abolished Noosa and Douglas Shire Councils and many other councils, as impediments to its agenda for unrestrained development.

However, the Property Council and the State Government's plans suffered a setback when anti-development candidates in a number of key local government areas including the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Cairns, and Redland City overcame the additional difficulties caused by the amalgamations and defeated candidates heavily financed by developers₇.

In response to this democratic resistance, the Queensland State Government, encouraged by pro-developer Murdoch Newsmedia, set up the independent assessment panel, of which Molloy warned.

Clearly, if Queensland is to be saved from overdevelopment and overpopulation, then anti-development councils, together with their grass roots supporters, will have to show at least as much determination as the developers and their government stooges.

Footnotes

1. Qld govt rejects population cap in the Age of 22 April 2007.[back]

2. Curbing growth 'would cost jobs' by Jane Gardner in the Sunshine Coast Daily News of 25 April 2008 [back]

3. Sunshine Coast plan to cap population on Radio National's PM of 24 April 2008 [back]

4. See Electoral Commission of Queensland's results for the Sunshine Coast Mayoral elections. [back]

5. Coast told to grow up and diversify by Bill Hoffman in the Sunshine Coast Daily News of 26 April 2008 [back] [back]

6. Cate Molloy : Forced council amalgamations planned by Property Council of Australia of 7 Sep 2007 [back]

7. The Australian laments outcome of Queensland local government elections of 29 March 2008 [back]

Appendix 1: Some comments in support of Mayor Abbot's population cap

Comments were posted in response to Sunshine Coast Daily article Curbing growth 'would cost jobs' of 25 April 2008.

"The coast cannot cope with the current growth. ..."

"Growth on the coast needs stemming. At present there are subdivisions without supporting services. The building quality is less than desired, but maximum price is called for by the developers. All in the name of greed."

"It is ignorant for anybody to suggest that we need "Growth" to sustain a economy, most problems in the world are caused by growth, sure there may be "some" job loss for a while, but this will naturally adjust after a while.

"Nothing is gained without pain.

"It's good to see somebody like Mr Abbot standing up to the development industry."

"There are so many examples across the coast of where we are playing 'catch-up' because growth has not been carefully monitored. I invite any Coast residents to try getting around the Sippy Downs / education precinct between 8am - 9am and again from 3pm - 5pm. I sat in traffic there yesterday for 35 minutes - to move only a couple of hundred metres. We're all waiting for the new Dixon Interchange to open and look forward to a reduction in congestion. I'm sure the residents of Maroochy North Shore are also looking forward to the Maroochy River Bridge project completion.

"What Mayor Abbot is suggesting is reasonable, and shows an interest in the long-term livability of the Coast region. I think his vision proves that we have elected the right man for the job - someone who looks at the big picture and doesn't play into the hands of developers and their dollars."

"We don't have a infrastructure now to cope with the people we have here, Look at the most important stuff like the poor state of hospitals,the lack of public transport, the traffic nightmare."

"I don't see why we have to concentrate so many people into one place changing the entire coast into a rat race, ..."

"Enough is enough.Overdevelopment only puts money into the pockets of large developers who are not domiciled on the coast. They are only here to make fast easy money at the ultimate expense of residents. ...

"We can't afford any further development on the Sunshine Coast that only puts money into the developers pockets and leaves the rest of us to pick up the bill. More strength to Bob Abbot and his plans. And an end to the Natoli 'sleep with the enemy' policy.

"From the story and the comments all I can say is, Good for you BOB!"

"The increase is being driven by the federal government via immigration, due to the failure of various other ridiculous schemes to maintain the human plague i.e 'baby bonus'.

"Since 2003, our immigration rate has doubled. This is short term economics; selling state forest, water supply, and sacrificing entire species for a quick-buck. This is a threat to our future far worse than terrorism."

"Perhaps Mayor Abbott's proposed growth rate will help alleviate the difficulties house buyers are having getting their homes completed due to a shortage of tradespeople. (see Saturday's Daily)."

Appendix 2: Cate Molloy warns of threat of dictatorial use of State Government's planning powers.

This comment by Cate Molloy, former Labor state member of Parliament who was expelled from the Labor Party for opposing the Traveston Dam was also posted in response to the abovementioned Sunshine Coast Daily article Curbing growth 'would cost jobs' of 25 April 2008.

The current Minister for Infrastructure and Planning Paul Lucas has stated a five member independent assessment panel would be given the first right of refusal on all Noosa development applications so that means they also have first right of approval, of those applications not just the ones in conflict with the planning scheme.

We now have this Famous Five who are about to duplicate the work not only done in council but also that which is referred to the State government for review- a call in- how can any council operate effectively if the responsibility to plan and approve is removed from their hands.

OK so Noosa is only one part of the cake but this kind of eroding of democracy smacks of arrogance.

Noosa got much of its planning done well with a great deal of community input, that is now being removed not only from the mayor but also all the councillors.

We can address this by pressuring the mayor and those councillors who enjoy close relationships with both federal and state government ministers to reinstate our democratic rights.

There is a specific tactic of turning the heat up on our elected representatives to stand up for us on this important issue and not simply roll over, making a few noises about how they hope the process is thorough enough and the state government doesn't select poorly.

I would like to see those councillors who have used state and federal politicians to advance their campaigns to now actually do something with that endorsement.

Vivien Griffin and Glen Elmes have openly declared they want to work together that's great so now Viv and Glen you have to take these issues to state parliament and report back to us the people what you have both achieved.

Debbie Blumel has represented as a labor candidate at least 4 times with endorsements from Wayne Swan and a tinny full of state pollies so now come on Debbie, you can get down to Brisbane get Wayne Swan to go with you, to see Minister Lucas.

You then can report back to us on what you have achieved to get Minister Lucas to rescind this ridiculous Famous Five duplication and removal of our democracy.

Russell Green has mates in State Government and has even turned up at a State Labor retreat. This level of friendship surely must allow you Russell to put forward our case.

Of course we have other councillors who also have close ties in government but lets start with this small but highly and well connected group to really start using their connections as they have so implied they would do.

The editorial writers of newspapers from Rupert Murdoch's News Limited, including the Courier Mail and The Australian, are not shy in showing their contempt for public opinion whenever it runs counter to the powerful vested interests they represent. Examples from recent years include their support for:

• The privatisation of Telstra
• The privatisation of NSW's electricity generation
• 'Work Choices'
• The Iraq war
• The Mary River Dam₁
• Queensland forced local government amalgamations

Naturally, in 2007, with local governments such as the Douglas Shire Council and the Noosa Shire Council receptive to the wishes of their constituents to stand up to developers, the News Limited editorial writers gave their full support to the Queensland government's forced local government amalgamations inspired by the Property Council of Australia₂.

However, the hopes The Australian held out for in these amalgamations came unstuck when, on Saturday 15 March, anti-development candidates standing in the amalgamated shires were able to overcome the additional difficulties posed by their having to campaign in larger shires and were able to defeat candidates backed by developers. These included the Cairns City Council into which the Douglas Shire had been forcibly amalgamated and the Greater Sunshine Coast Council into which the Noosa shire had been forcibly amalgamated. In at least two other large local government regions, the Gold Coast City Council and Redland City Council, anti-development tickets won control in spite of extravagant developer-funded advertising campaigns against them.

In response, on 18 March an editorial entitled "Queensland faces a tougher job on regional development"₃ was published. It commenced:

Queensland's local government elections demonstrate the difficulty that beset public administrators trying to manage the competing demands of population growth.

The 'difficulty' being that electors in those council areas were not prepared to put up with the further degradations to their quality of life necessitated by continuous population growth. As has become the established practice with the Murdoch Press, the question as to whether population growth is an issue over which affected communities should have any say, is not even posed, rather population growth is treated implicitly as a given over which no power in Heaven or on Earth can have any control:

... the Queensland (state government) must grapple with an influx of thousands of new residents each week and deliver, health, education and other public services.

In fact, the choice is being made, but instead of it being made by the affected communities, it is being made by politicians, like Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, who serve the same vested interests as does the Murdoch media. They include principally the aforementioned Property Council of Australia, whose members gain from population growth, through land speculation and property development, at the expense of the rest of the community, the environment and future generations.

To be sure, there is a moral ambivalence to this issue as many who oppose today's population growth were part of yesterday's additions to the population to those areas and the editorial writer seeks to gain from this the high moral ground:

... much of the growth comprises city refugees making a sea change to what they consider their own piece of paradise. From Cairns to Coolangatta, it was easy to detect a determined anti-development flavour to much of the voting on the weekend's election.

A 'flavour' that the editorial writer makes clear he/she wishes to be ignored by the state and federal governments. It is interesting that The Australian is silent on what the sea changers were seeking 'refuge' from, namely the over-crowding of Australia's capital cities, which has been greatly encouraged by the Murdoch media through its past promotion of population growth.

Of the triumph of Val Schier over the long-serving pro-developer Cairns Mayor Kevin Byrne, the editorialist opined, this "will test the state Government's willingness to use independent panels to make decisions on development applications". Supposedly 'independent' panels are made up of people who, unlike popularly elected councillors, are not accountable to the residents who will be affected by their decisions. In this way it is hoped that the opposition to over-development can be swept aside.

The editorial acknowledges that the "new batch of local leaders can legitimately argue that they have a mandate to resist change." It, nevertheless, concludes:

Amalgamation has happened, but given the weekend results, the reform push is clearly unfinished business.

Can we come to any other conclusion from this editorial except that the 'reform push' is expected to be 'finished' by the use of dictatorial state government powers to over-ride the democratic wishes of Queensland communities?

Footnotes

1. See The Australian newspaper backs environmental vandalism in the Mary Valley of 5 Jan 08.

2. See story Cate Molloy : Forced council amalgamations planned by Property Council of Australia of 7 Sep 07

3. Unable to obtain URL for this editorial.

The following article was printed in the free community newspaper Gympie Life on 20 March 2008. The Integrity Gympie Team were unsuccessful in either the Mayoral elections or the Councillor elections₁.

This is no joke!

The multinational daily went into a late frenzy of fear and deception on Friday and Saturday to avert voters from thinking clearly and constructively on polling day (Saturday 15 March).

Friday's election eve cover story sought to discredit Ron Owen as having purposefully connected his campaign web-site to community group web-sites and identities so as to improperly claim their support for his campaign.

The facts prove the story to be a vicious beat-up. The most obvious and shocking of these facts is the fraudulently constructed front-page picture used to launch the attack.

This cover image (reprinted to the right) was a photographed web page containing a google search. The typed search terms shown in the picture, and stated in the article, are 'little haven gympie'. The top 'hit', supposedly returned from this search, is the 'Ron Owen for Mayor' website.

From this image is spun the story that Ron Owen coded his web site to appear whenever a range of Gympie community groups are sought on the web.

However a close look at the image shows that the actual search made to deliver the search result was not 'little haven gympie' but 'little haven ron'. This is proven beyond all doubt by the words that appear embedded on the page title bar, the search tittle bar, the search results bar, and the bolded type in the search result (all circled in red on the picture).

The words in bold in these four circled locations are generated by google coding and are the exact search terms used to deliver the page results. They are locked within the page structure. They cannot be changed without making a new search.

However the typed search field can be changed whilst the existing search results remain in place. Which is exactly what the multinational muck-rakers did. The search field term 'ron' has been deleted after the search was complete and replaced with 'gympie'. The altered page has then been photographed and printed as 'evidence' to shock and convince readers. The evidence is fraud. The whole story is error, exaggeration and defamatory vapour-ware.

Deft Dealings in Dirt and Denigration

According to Alan Caulfield, the developer of the web-page in question, the actual issue is nothing more than a simple and explainable misunderstanding. Mr Caulfield said that the paper could have easily checked and included the facts behind the published assertions prior to printing them. He says he did get an enquiry from the Times journalist, but it was looking for dirt not daylight. None of what he correctly explained to the journalist was included in the printed story.

"After reading Friday's printed article", says Mr. Caulfield, "I immediately sent them an outline of the technical facts that prove their assertions to be wrong. I requested they print this letter on the next day as some fair response to this concocted damage. It wasn't printed".

Checking both sides of the story before printing accusations, and giving timely right of reply after making accusations, are both basic journalistic standards. Neither was done. Both omissions were purposeful.

Mr Caulfield says we now have a much bigger issue, in fact a huge one: how and why has this paper purposefully manipulated a non-event to deliver personal damage, rather than acting to fairly and responsibly inform the public interest?

The Saturday edition of the daily then let fly with both barrels (the editor and the general manager) in an explicit and vitriolic attack upon the standards of the Gympie Life and all that is associated with it.

Considering the photo fraud, and its clear intent to derail the fair composure of the election, this is gross and despicable hypocrisy. Worse, it follows a criminal breach of the Electoral Act.

So then, to respond to Saturday's huff and puff editorial, who really is the gutter press?

Usually, and repeatedly, the Times cons its readers by what it doesn't print. It accuses and insinuates without giving right of reply. It beats the drum of developers and their tame politicians whilst avoiding printing any of the facts and the injury that exist on the other side of the story.

This works because it is deft. People naturally have trouble noticing what isn't visible. It works because it is relentless, drumming its skewed messages of favor and attack into our brains like clockwork. People may pick up on some anomalies, but the sheer torrent of it seeps in regardless. The only certain cure is don't read it.

To actually construct and commit a fraud as material and obvious as Friday's front page is remarkable. Quite obviously the stakes within Saturday's election were high enough for that paper, and whomever it is that really runs it, to risk this very extreme action.

The Life prints the facts and, as much as it can, the full facts. These can be confronting, and can sometimes be confounding given they appear nowhere else. Nonetheless they are the facts. If they weren't the Life would be sued. The paper does often opinionate upon those facts. However, given the facts, everyone can make and share their own opinion.

What the Life does not do is manipulate public opinion by censorship and distortion of fact. Neither does it fabricate untruths. It acts to shine light on things that need to be visible. Sometimes these can be shocking, even frightening. But do we want to live in the dark?

Gympie Life thinks not. We will continue to print the truth, as we know it, and all of it, for those who do not want to live in the dark.

Greg Wood, 19 March 2008

Footnotes

1. Neither Ron Owen nor any of the eight Integrity Gympie councillor candidates won office. Undoubtedly, dirty tricks at the hands of the Gympie Times played their part in this outcome. This would have been compounded by former Mayor Mick Vernados' peculiar choice of using the undemocratic first-past-the-post system for both Mayoral and Councillor elections. Mick Vernados also failed to win office. For the Councillor elections, the 8 divisions were abolished and single combined electorate, in which 42 candidates contested all the positions, was created. This turned the councilor elections, in particular, more into a lottery than in an exercise in popular will, with 5 of the 8 the successful candidates not achieving the 4% of the vote required to get their deposits back from the Queensland Electoral Commission. Their votes ranged from 3.41% up to 5.94%.

Australians, finally able to rejoice at the demise of the hated Howard government, can count themselves lucky that the Queensland Labor Government's undemocratic local government amalgamations program enacted at the behest of the Property Council of Australia did not fatally undermine Federal Labor's election campaign in Queensland as had been feared earlier earlier by Margo Kingston amongst others.

In the early stages federal Labor Leader Kevin Rudd did publicly oppose the forced amalgamations and correctly supported Prime Minister John Howard's Federal legislation₁ to over-ride the now infamous Queensland Government's legislation under which councils which attempted to consult their communities about the amalgamations through ballots could have been dismissed and under which any councillor who even voted in favour of any motions enabling such ballots could have been fined.

In spite of Rudd's support public distancing of himself from the Queensland Government the "Friends of Noosa", opposed to the forcible amalagamation of the Noosa Shire Council into the Greater Sunshine Coast council, launched a "Dump Labor" campaign in early September 2007 which featured demonstrations in which effigies of Rudd, as well as Beattie, were put in a bin. A large hoarding on a major road on the northern approach to Brisbane also featured the "Dump Labor" slogan.

Had they succeeded and returned a Howard Government this could have paradoxically, been counterproductive to their stated goals. State Labor governments, including the Queensland Beattie Labor Government have been notorious for their undermining the electoral prospects of Federal Labor in order to serve their own cynical survival strategies₂. This is because the state parliament election dates have tended to occur near the middle of the three year Federal parliamentary election cycle, when the Howard Government had felt most immune from popular opposition. At these moments, when the Howard had chosen to inflict his nastiest policies upon the Australian public, state Labour governments have been able to exploit the resultant public backlashes in order to be able to cling to office themselves. Thus, former Victorian Premier Steve Bracks was re-elected in 2006 in spite of breaking a 2002 election promise to build a freeway, instead deciding to have a privately operated tollway built. The unpopular New South Wales state Labor Government of Morris Iemma was re-elected in March 2007 largely as a result of a backlash against Howard Government's "Work Choices", even though the Government in which he was a minister under the leadership of former Premier Bob Carr helped bring about "Work Choices" by undermining Mark Latham's election chances in 2004.

Given all of this there would have been little reason to suppose that either Premier Peter Beattie or his successor Anna Bligh would have been concerned in the least by the "Dump Labor" campaign.

As the election date drew closer other leaders of the anti-amalgamation movement appealed to Kevin Rudd for his public support. Had he done so, there would have been every reason to expect that the Queensland Government would have have been forced to abandon the amalgamations. However, he did not, even ignoring appeals for him to do so contained in full paid advertisements from the "Local Democracy" group (one partially in Chinese in which Rudd is fluent) published in the Courier Mail prior to the elections. Predictably, at least two large advertisements which called on Queenslanders to vote against Federal Labor were published in the Courier Mail in the last week before the election.

However, Rudd's gamble appears not to have backfired against Federal Labor and the appeals of the anti-amalagamation movement to vote against Labor went largely unheeded by Queenslanders, most fortunately for both Queensland and the rest of Australia. There was a 8.31% swing against the coalition in Queensland (as of 3.45pm AEDST) giving Labor 51.22% of the vote on a two-party preferred basis.

Whatever the reason for the high vote for Federal Labor may be, Queenslanders, opposed to the Howard Government, who may have objected to the anti-Labor campaign, would be ill-advised to turn their backs on their rural cousins. If the undemocratic amalgamations are not stopped it will eventually harm the interests of ordinary Queenslanders to the benefit of land speculators, property developers₃ and other powerful vested interests, who at the moment have at least the Queensland Government in their collective pocket, if not the now defunct Federal Liberal Government.

It is important that people vote in the areas living in council areas affected by the amalgamations use Australian Electoral Commissions plebiscites, scheduled to begin on 26 November with the mail-out of postal ballots, to make their opposition to amalgamations emphatically clear.

Furthermore, if the democracy is to have any real content in this state the Queensland Government must be made to accept the outcomes of these plebiscites and, if necessary reverse the amalagamations now underway.

Footnotes

1. Howard's support for democracy in Queensland stands in stark contrast to his own record in Government and to his own attitude to forced amalagamations in New South Wales and Victoria. See, for example, Media releases by the Indepenendent NSW Federal MP Peter Andren (since deceased) Howard's paper thin hypocrisy on amalgamations and my article Dictatorial Conduct published in Online Opinion on 21 Sep 07.

2. This was revealed in the Latham Diaries, with examples of how the Victorian, New South Wales and Tasmanian state Labor governments had acted to harm his own election prospects. Sadly, Mark Latham has, himself, more recently emulated this behaviour which he had so rightly exposed in his own diaries, by turning on Federal Labor in two articles published in the Australian Financial Review (see article Mark Latham's Political Gift to John Howard dated on 19 Nov 2007 on Margo Kingston's web diary).

3. See Cate Molloy : Forced council amalgamations planned by Property Council of Australia, 7 Sep 2007

Links

Peter Beattie bent on destruction of Rudd's chances Margo Kingston, 18 Aug 2007

Online Opinion discussion forum: Don't let Peter Beattie save John Howard's political hide 8 Aug 2007

Dictatorial conduct by James Sinnamon, 21 Aug 2007

Queensland's burning - local government amalgamations Beattie-style by Scott Prasser, 27 Sep 2007

/NoForcedAmalgamations

www.localdemocracy.com.au

www.friendsofnoosa.org

Those who have read "The Latham Diaries" will have found startling confirmation of the fact the State Labor Premiers are cynical enough to deliberately damage the electoral prospects of their Federal counterparts in order to better ensure their own survival at the state level.Adapted from an article cross-posted to Online Opinion. Also, see article on webdiary "Peter Beattie bent on destruction of Rudd's chances" by Margo Kingston.

Those who have read "The Latham Diaries" will have found startling confirmation of the fact the State Labor Premiers are cynical enough to deliberately damage the electoral prospects of their Federal counterparts in order to better ensure their own survival at the state level. Former NSW Premier Bob Carr expressed it thus in his own diaries on 6 November 2001, quoted on pages 305-306 of "The Latham Diaries"(2005):

Published polls and the Party's polling starting to show Federal Labor edging up. Can't believe it. ... (Michael Egan, NSW State Treasurer said,) 'We'll be the ones weeping if Labor wins.' Yes - the secret agenda: State Labor wants to run against a rotting hated Coalition Government in Canberra. A Labor Government there only makes a third (State) term harder.

Mark Latham commented: "People used to get expelled from the Labor Party for this sort of treachery. Yet when it appeared in Marilyn Dodkin's book on Carr last year, no-one batted an eye-lid. Has it become part of the system? Everyone now expects Carr Labor to selfishly look after itself, cheering for a Howard victory, ..."

And certainly Bob Carr, together with his Victorian and Tasmanian counterparts did just that, as Latham abundantly illustrated, and we have them largely to thank for Howard's victory in 2004, together with "Work Choices" and all of his other policy abominations.

Which brings us to the forced council amalgamations in Queensland. There are no sound reasons derived from Labor principles to justify Beattie's current plans to abolish so many local governments which are in tune with the needs of their constituents. Indeed, it was a former Queensland Hanlon Labor Government which gave local government the powers they have enjoyed up until now (see "When amalgamations failed" by Dr Mark McGovern of the QUT).

The only possible motives that I see are:

1. To take away the powers that local communities now have to prevent the further ravaging of their regions by property developers, and
2. A cynical political stunt, in emulation of Bob Carr, to use the perpetuation of John Howard's rule to ensure the survival of his Government at the next State election.