The Queensland government faces the voters every 4 years on the last Saturday of October; this year it’s the 27th. What are the issues? Our two-party system offers up a smorgasbord of options. The Laberal duopoly are truly diligent in their effort to identify their differences at election time. Given how studiously they avoid addressing the underlying causes of our most pressing issues, they are to be congratulated for fooling as many people as they do that there’s a choice. [This article, by Simon Cole, was originally published with the title, Voters Go to the Polls in Queensland, at https://equanimity.blog/2024/10/20/2024-queensland-election-issues/]
Housing
The Leaders have eye-balled each other over their similarities in three television debates. Housing is a particularly good example of how difficult it is for them. With Brisbane facing an unprecedented housing crisis, they were both asked (in the second debate) if house prices were “too high, … do you want them to go down or up?” Miles simply said, “Yes, they’re too high.” Crisafulli said, “Yes, because wages don’t match the cost of doing it, and there’s only one way to fix it, and it’s supply.” (See The Guardian 16 Oct 2024 for some erroneous reporting.)
On this most essential human need they are so in lock step with each other’s pathological obsession with supply (which has failed for more than a generation) that the leaders descended into childish barbs over the other’s ‘mental rigor’.
Crisafulli didn’t elaborate on wages, but the implication is that builders’ wages are too high to meet supply. So tradies are overpaid? You’d think Miles would have jumped at that. He also said there had been 29% fewer “lots” approved in the last decade and that “we need more supply in all forms”. (See this video from the Qld Media Club at 45:36 for more.)
Clearly neither of them have read the 2024 State of the Climate Report or the 2023 State of the Environment Report, let alone the book Limits to Growth (1972). Had they, it might occur to them to address demand – artificially raised by their buddies in Canberra who incentivize property speculation and keep immigration way above popularly supported levels.
By saying so little, Miles might have demonstrated how less is more.
Strategic voting
The ludicrousness of the two party system is illustrated in the politicization of preferential voting. The previous LNP government under Campbell Newman changed it from compulsory (fill in every box to make your vote count) to optional (just one box is enough). The Palaszczuk government changed it back. Now the LNP is promising to change it back again. At the second debate, this earned Crisafulli the only audience reaction of the debate; a round of applause (Qld Media Club). You would think something more profound would inspire a response, but I suppose only people who think there’s a real choice attended.
On the topic of preferences, I’ll be voting strategically because there are no parties representing my chief concern; untrammelled [sic] growth – both population and economic – and inequality. I’m also concerned about the imprudent and hasty uptake of technological and cultural change, too. No party is talking about them.
Preferential voting is a hallmark of Australian democracy – it was adopted federally in 1918 and it began in Queensland in 1892. It’s something we should be proud of… countries like the U.K., France and the U.S.A. still don’t use it. Sadly, in Queensland it’s been used as a political football since it was first introduced. A review by the Electoral and Administrative Review Commission (EARC) recommended optional preferential voting from the 1992 election onwards, probably because it reduces the informal vote count and discourages parties from handing out ‘how to vote’ cards directing their preferences. Many voters aren’t aware these cards are purely advisory.
Preferential voting allows us to send a message when none of the parties represent us. We can vote to bring about hung parliaments and marginal seats. This makes our representatives more accountable to us, the constituents, than to their parties. For example, if you’re in a safe seat held by the sitting government as I do, put the incumbent last. It doesn’t matter what the party is. If they get back in, it will more likely to be on preferences and a reduced margin.
Olympic Stadium
An Olympic Stadium is another ping pong ball they’re bouncing back and forth. The LNP has backed away from upgrading QSAC (formerlly QEII Stadium), but nobody knows until next year, when the project validation report is delivered.1 They’re grasping at straws to appear different. Personally, I’m opposed to Brisbane hosting it, favouring permanent sites on each continent hosting them on a rotation basis.
Cost of living
The relief packages announced in the last Budget – 50 cent fares, $1,000 electricity cost of living rebates, rego discounts, Fair Play vouchers (what are they?) and price relief plans, etc. – have been seen as a vote bribe and yet will sway no one because whoever forms the next government won’t be able to retract them. Labor is paying for them from mining royalties instead of paying down state debt and reducing borrowing costs.
Urban Planning
Over the past four years, I’ve been involved in a number of residents groups representing Sustainable Population Australia. The Save Our Suburbs groups in Nathan, Salisbury and Moorooka have resisted upzoning and densification plans to accommodate a bigger population with the coded language that has become standard across the nation; slow down, not so much, do it better. A new Brisbane urban coalition of residents’ groups is similarly opposed to developer-driven Big Australia. Everything they do indicates a desire to slow down growth. In my suburb of Coopers Plains the Boundary Rd level crossing looks like being overkill. Local and state authorities seem more concerned about getting things done than getting them right for the people who have to live with them.
The Bicentenary of Queensland that no one knows about
November, 2024 marks 200 years since Governor Brisbane sailed from Sydney to tour the fledging Moreton Bay Penal Colony on the Brisbane River. This marks the beginnings of Brisbane. Hardly anyone knows about this. Neither party has the guts to mark the occasion. It’s an appalling indication of how low Anglo Celtic Australian cultural esteem has fallen. The major parties aid and abet a culture of materialism, neglecting the inner life we have that connects us to each other. Our ethnic identity – wherever you are from – enriches us, unless you’re Anglo Celtic Australian. Then your culture is the only one that needs to be enriched by all the others. Both parties have entered a pact not to speak of this and how we need as many people as possible from as many different cultures regardless of how compatible they are to come here. In fact, the more divided the electorate the better. All the easier to sway it to your will, keep the wealth pump going and distract it with superficial issues. Meanwhile the source countries can go on merrily being homogeneous and exporting people.
Road Use Efficiency
Keeping left unless overtaking is THE MOST broken road rule on our motorways. Too few people are aware of it. A higher speed limit in the fast lane would increase the volume of through-traffic, saving expense on road widening. Stewart Collins (of Black River) petitioned the government on a Proposed raising of highway speed limits. Simple efficiencies like this – common overseas – escape our growth-obsessed politicians.
The LNP’s prospects are looking good for no apparent reason other than the electorate has the seven-year itch – to kick Labor out. The debates are focussed [sic] on symptom issues like abortion, crime and domestic violence. Neither side of politics addresses the primary drivers of what is undermining the middle class and shrinking per capita GDP; cancerous, rampant, population-driven GDP growth.
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