At 31 years old I remember the last big recession that hit Australia.  I was studying it in high school economics class and then felt the full brunt of it as I exited high school into the highest unemployment in Australia in my lifetime.  I went on to ride the Y2K boom in IT and then survive the dot-com bust that followed.  Since then I’ve married and had children, and we’ve built a comfortable lifestyle through hard work, some good luck, and some bad luck.  We own a house and two small businesses.  I ride public transport every day while my wife deals with Gateway traffic.  We worry about the environmental mess, schools, and health system that we’re raising our kids in.

When I vote I don’t necessarily vote for a leader, nor do I necessarily vote for a local candidate.  Usually I vote for the party that has a message and policy platform that I can relate to the most.  This means I try to pay attention to what is going on not just in my own electorate, but also other electorates and the state-wide issues being addressed by party leaders in their presidential-style campaigns.

Deciding who to vote for tomorrow is going to be tough.

Australia Labor Party

With the ALPQ at the wheel when the crisis hit it is easy to blame them.  I’m not naive enough to think any party could save Queensland from some impact from the global economic crisis but it is alarming the speed at which we slipped into trouble ourselves.  Health, education, roads, and utilities seem to be in more strife now than they should be considering the years of the mining boom and the stamp duty revenues that were generated by the housing boom.  However I do like the idea of trying to protect jobs by continuing to invest and spend on state projects that generate employment, despite the deficit it will cause.

Liberal National Party

Springborg in the big seat again?  How many elections has Lawrence lost now?  Almost any other political party would have some other new face come bursting through the ranks to replace a leader that has failed to win more than once.  It isn’t Lawrence himself that bothers me, its whether he has the bodies behind him to form a strong cabinet and run Queensland through some of the toughest years we’re likely to see in decades.  I’d prefer to see less prime time attack ads against Labor (“Not good enough” does nothing to convince me to vote LNP) and more substantive policy.  The main policy of saving $1 billion in public sector waste without cutting jobs has me unconvinced.  Relying on natural attrition to reduce those costs is no strategy – I’ve worked in the public sector and some of those people will sit in the most boring, do-nothing job for years without resigning.  And for those that do leave where is their next job coming from?

Greens

I’ve just built a new home and frankly was surprised that few sustainable initiatives were offered as mandatory or even as standard by the building industry.  We had the option to do nearly anything “green” we wanted but at 100% our own cost with no government programs or subsidies on offer, with the exception of a rain water tank.  The Greens want to lessen our environmental impact in a way that could create new growth industries and boost our economy at a time when traditional industries are struggling.

DS4SEQ

Daylight saving was great when I was a kid.  I remember being disappointed when it lost in the referendum.  The extra sunlight in the summer months meant more outdoor play time after school.  These days I’d like to just be able to go for a run at night after work without it being pitch black.  I also think kids might get out and be more active instead of getting fat in front of the XBox if there were more daylight.  I know I would enjoy taking my kids down to the park after dinner when they get a bit older.  All that said, it is hard to vote for single issue parties because the thought is always there “What if they actually win some seats and have a major influence in our government, without us knowing anything about their positions on other issues?”

Independents/Others

There are independents and some fringe parties running as usual but none of them have registered on my radar during the 3 week election.  At this point I can safely rule out voting for any of them.

Who will I vote for?

A tough choice and one I’ll probably make as I look at the voting paper.  Who knows, I may even be swayed at the last moment by what a candidate or volunteer says to me outside the polling booth. The election where the two major parties are locked in a tie in the polls is also the election where I feel my vote is more important than ever before.  We’ll find out tomorrow what happens.

Are you watching the election results tomorrow night? Follow the #QldElection09 hashtag on Twitter to join in the conversation with myself and others.

A quick look at the Courier Mail’s election section answers that pretty quickly.  While most coverage is given to the two major party’s leader’s campaigns at least three stories are given prominent placement for Pauline.  The trouble is that none of them are about her positions or policies, they are all about the alleged nude photo scandal that has popped up during the campaign.

That is a lot of coverage for an independent candidate.  That in itself would be encouraging if it was substantitive coverage and not gossip about what is potentially a manufactured scandal with no truth behind it.

There are many independent candidates running in this election and none of them are receiving this kind of media coverage.  Perhaps they are not fortunate enough to have some nude photos floating around, or perhaps they aren’t savvy enough to fake such a scandal as has been suggested of Pauline.

One of three things is true here:

1. The scandal was manufactured by the alleged ex-boyfriend and the Courier Mail has fallen for it and considers it newsworthy and relevant enough to the election to cover it in depth.
2. The scandal was manufactured by Pauline or her campaign staff and the Courier Mail has fallen for it and covered it in depth.
3. The pictures are real and the Courier Mail thinks 30 year old nude pictures taken in private are relevant enough to the election to cover it in depth.

Meanwhile I’m sure some substantitive, issue-based campaigning is going on as the two major parties campaign across the state.  On the other hand, the Courier Mail is still giving a lot of page space to the mugshot of the ALP candidate who can’t be bothered campaigning in his electorate.  Must be a pretty slow election for the media.

I’m not a party member, nor do I consistently vote for one party or another.  Each election (local, state, or federal) I do my best to find out what the important issues are for the electorate and for myself and vote for the party or candidate I feel will best achieve what I think is right.

I am also busier than ever before.  At no previous election did I have as much going on both professionally and personally as I do this year, particularly right now during the campaign cycle.  The basic outcome is I am very time poor, and that means limited time to seek out election news and find out which party is best suited to receive my vote at the polls on March 21st.

Television advertising doesn’t cut it.  The parties spend their biggest TV ad dollars during prime time, which is a time I am very unlikely to be watching TV.  For the odd show I record and then watch later it means the campaign ad is seen at 12x or 30x normal speed as I fast forward through commercials.  Tip for campaign marketing teams – test your ads at 30x speed and see if your message still gets through.  If I don’t realise its a campaign ad there is no chance of me stopping to watch it at normal speed, and I don’t want to stop to watch a negative campaign ad either.

Media coverage is a mixed bag.  I rarely catch the evening news (which is good since voting based on soundbites is not my style) but try to hit the Courier Mail website once a day to see what is happening.  My memory of the last state election is of a special Courier Mail website section dedicated to election coverage, and prominently linked to from the front page of the website.

This year there is none of that, and election coverage can quickly be pushed off the front page by other breaking news.  I took this screenshot a short while ago and there is no election coverage on the front page at that time.

Clicking through to the Queensland section reveals little more election coverage, but only two stories (and the Anna Bligh story is the only one above the fold, so the LNP misses out for the lazy internet visitor.

Billboards and road-side signs may as well not exist for me.  I don’t drive often and catch public transport to and from work.  Has any party managed to work out how to put their banners up where train commuters will see them?

I considered signing up to the LNP newsletter but could not find an archive of recent editions to see if it was a format I’d be able to digest quickly and easily.

One method I do use to try and keep up with the election is by following the campaign on Twitter.  I currently follow Anna Bligh, Lawrence Springborg, the Qld Greens and another other individual candidates I can find on Twitter.  No matter how busy I am I can keep my Twitter client open on my computer and click through on anything that catches my eye as being important to me for the election.

Some candidates got off to a rocky start on Twitter.  Some are finding their feet slowly but not really using it as a tool to communicate their campaign message.  Doing a better job of it are Anna Bligh and the Qld Greens, each using their Twitter account to notify followers about campaign events and policy, but it is clear Anna Bligh’s team is blowing everyone out of the water with regards to Twitter output.

So what does this mean for busy voters?  If you are an undecided like me then your vote is likely to go towards the party best able to get its message in front of you, provided that message is not something you outright disagree with. We all seem to be getting busier and are less tuned in to traditional marketing methods.  Public speeches, TV ads, news soundbites, billboards, and letterbox drops will hit fewer and fewer targets each election.  The party that understands this best and adjusts their strategy to include new mediums that connect them to busy people will win over many undecided voters and likely win the election.

Over the course of the event, I spoke with party staff members, volunteers, a federal member, local councillor and many of the party faithful. Probably the greatest surprise of the evening was the truly eclectic representation of people in attendance. That has always been both the true spirit and vulnerability of the ALP – the wide variety of people and position it represents. This was reflected in a complaint I heard from another member’s staff, who told me he was frustrated with the lack of cohesion of message between the ALPQ, the campaign and what was happening on the ground. Obviously he felt that this was the reason that the “message” wasn’t able to get through, and therefore the Galaxy Poll results.

I said yesterday that I was waiting for the excitement of this campaign, and tonight I felt it in the grass roots of inner city Brisbane.

With a humourous lead in by Jim Soorley (previous Lord Mayor of Brisbane), the sitting Federal Member who represents my electorate, Arch Bevis and my local councillor David Hinchcliffe – I learnt a lot about Grace Grace. Probably the greatest surprise was that she was one of the two “rebels” who organised protests against the Iraq war, back when everyone thought invading was simply a grand idea. This revelation really took me aback and made me smile as I had no notion that was her. But enough of my love affair with my local member.

Naturally today’s Galaxy Poll results were mentioned – more than once. The ongoing themes on this topic were:

• I would rather be them than us with the numbers
• I would rather be us than them – period
• There can be no protest vote
• It is up to every single person to make sure ALPQ gets over the line

When I heard Grace Grace talk about the ALPQ policies, suddenly they weren’t just convenient sound bites, but well thought out ideas with real outcomes. When she said that she was all about jobs (don’t get me started on the differences between work and jobs – I am looking at you, Mr Springborg) I must admit that my cynicism clicked into overdrive, but I was pleasantly surprised. Commitment to the infrastructure projects, traineeship programs, 3000 green jobs, payroll tax cuts, and not slashing support and direction out of the public sector sounded pretty damned good. To be honest it was like I was watching MSNBC and FoxNews at the same time – Dichotomous views. Here we seem to have the best of both solutions from the US. Whether this was intentional or no I don’t know, but it should work.

Will the ALPQ win? Will Anna Bligh buck the trend and be the first elected female leader? Will the National Party win back Queensland (the LNP really is the National Party with a sprinkling of Liberal seasoning so you don’t notice the meat)? Two weeks till we find out.

But to close on a happy note -

My favourite part of the evening happened moments after a photo was taken of Grace Grace surrounded by Jim Soorley, Arch Bevis and David Hinchcliffe.

“This one’s for Facebook!”

And a blah circus at that.

Maybe “I” am the one feeling flat at the moment, not the campaign – but I doubt it. The most exciting thing to happen and I include policy, was Warwick Capper failing to lodge his application – oh and his comment about flies.  Perhaps this flatness I feel for this campaign is its “safeness” and lack of real change.

With every announcement having its own personalised doom and gloom mantra are the major parties setting the bar so low that our reduced expectations are easily met? Whomever succeeds in this battle of underwhelming the enfranchised will win the paper crown!

Let’s have a quick look at the main announcements and policies over the past few days.

• ALPQ while being fiscally responsible will double our State deficit in 3-4 years to ensure we come out of this current economic climate (where will we be borrowing from and won’t we be paying more since our credit rating was downgraded?)
• LNP while being fiscally responsible will bring us back to the black in 3-4 years (though does include the caveat that this may not be possible).
• LNP will slash $1B in government spending by not replacing natural attrition at high levels (don’t even get me started on this one).
• ALPQ will fast track Green developments (you mean the approval process CAN be done faster?).
• LNP will play the money shuffle with the tourism budget for regional areas (robbing Peter to pay Paul is easy right? Unless you are Peter).
• ALPQ wants new homes to be 6 star green star rated (there goes some of the $$ from the federal first home buyers/new home buyers grant)
• Both are again promising a ‘new’ rail line to Kipparing (seriously again they are promising this? Chuck Bass keeps more promises!).
• LNP wants to change Queensland’s slogan (so pleased we are going to spend money on that!).
• ALPQ will freeze MP salaries (OK good but not exciting).

Excuse me while I throw back some Valium to deal with this craptastic festival of mediocrity.

Where is the social change? 10 days in and I am still waiting.

Has anything excited you this campaign? Tell me and share the feeling!

This morning, at her official campaign launch, she was asked if she had become a serial campaigner, a fairly legitimate question after a failed attempt in 2004 to run for a state seat, and a failed attempt in 2007 to run for the federal Senate , where she received just 4.3% of votes (Source)

Her response? To compare herself to Abraham Lincoln.

“I’d suggest you go and have a look at the number of times Abraham Lincoln stood for Parliament – to stand up for what you believe in.”

Source

Now, I’m no expert on American politics, but even I know off the top of my head that America doesn’t actually have a Parliament. And a quick look at Abraham Lincoln’s Wikipedia page reveals that while he did indeed run for a lot of things, most of his campaigns were successful.

Not bad for a campaign that is barely a day old.

As if the seat of Beaudesert wasn’t already about to become a circus, ex-AFL football star Warwick Capper has announced he will also contest the seat, and challenged Hanson to an election day cook-off. And, since his campaign is being sponsored by men’s magazine Zoo, his campaign launch will feature “a bevy of placard-carrying bikini girls.”

Source

Up here in Queensland, we cop a bit of flack for being a bit redneck, a bit backward, a bit country bumpkin. People of Beaudesert, you have a chance to prove the critics wrong – send these two joke candidates packing, and let’s make sure this election is about the issues, and not the drama.

The last few days has seen Brisbane traffic in true gridlock. Accidents, train issues, road works – you name – we have seen it, and when you put it all together you get a day like today.

On Tuesday, Shadow Transport Minister Fiona Simpson made a media release on the ongoing problems faced by Queensland’s South East.

“…the legacy of 11 years of Beattie-Bligh Labor Governments was a city in gridlock with transport failures regularly shutting major city arterials and rail links for hours on end.”

A friend of mine who actually works in Uban Planning and Development spoke of the current plans offered by Anna Bligh’s government as “too little too late” and that Fiona Simpson was “right.”

It doesn’t take much for a run to work to become a nightmare.

I commuted from the Gold Coast to Brisbane for a little over two and a half years before relocating to Brisbane Central. In that time I saw trains reaching capacity – even the 6am train from Helensvale station was standing room only before we hit Beenleigh. At night, it was pointless even attempting to get on a train before 6.30pm unless you wanted to stand for at least half of your journey. Fold out camp chairs are still common sites in backpacks down Creek and Edward streets as the distance commuters make their way from Central Station. To vary it up, I would sometimes drive to Upper Mt Gravatt  for Park and Ride – but I couldn’t obtain a park if I arrived after 6.50am. The buses were packed by then as well – and don’t even get me started on trying to do the drive every day. After moving to Brisbane Central, I became a walker and bus taker. If I caught a bus after 7.30am it would generally take a couple before one was not full.

These days I drive against the traffic to the far Western suburbs – against the traffic. However road works (which are important and had long been ignored) have turned a 25  minute journey to an average of 35mins – and blow outs to maximum of 55 minutes.

Curious about what the LNP’s position was on Transport/Infrastructure I checked out their policy. On the surface it certainly seems like some good ideas, even some are tack ons from Labour’s policies. $414m over four years is not something to be sneezed at – but unless I missed it I don’t remember anything about the River (eg. CityCats).

Only being a layperson, albeit one who is directly impacted on a daily basis, I asked another friend who is actually passionate about Transport Infrastructure and is currently undertaking a career change in Urban Planning and Development because of all the issues we face. He was less than enthusiastic about the LNP’s polices, suggesting that do nothing more than “exacerbate” the problems.

Certainly on the surface many of these sound pretty good, until you start thinking about it in the big picture. Between 6am-7am some of the trains are already packed (especially as they are reduced cars). The real problem isn’t those people living in Zone 1, but those in outlying zones working on getting into Zone 1 – CBD Fringe.  Yes some feeder buses will help, but Park and Ride is a self fulfilling prophesy from congestion and failure. Not to mention the whole question of where the extra space is going to come from, if not up.

The Bligh Government has certainly made a mad dash to try and get things done. I don’t think there are many people out there who felt that no enough was done over the past 5+ years to keep pace, but at least something is happening – even if they are currently rather inconvenient.  Unless things have changed with regards to the availability of CityCats and Buses, they are already going into use as fast as they can be made. I for one love the idea that the bus I travel on was assembled in the State where it is being utilised (even if they sometimes catch fire).

My major concern with this and all other LNP policies is that we are being asked to wait a “couple of weeks” for an explaination of where the money is coming from.  A couple of weeks lands us right before the election.

Breaking News – Anna Bligh announced a $12M traffic congestion plan moments ago at the Gateway Duplication Project. Let’s just hope it isn’t “too little too late.”

Given the success Obama had in using things like YouTube and Facebook through his election campaign, you’d offer these tools are now as important as having the website (right, Anna?) ready to go to support your tilt. With the surge in support and awareness now of things like Twitter, both parties have ensured their leaders are all set to Twit (or at least someone on their behalf). The differential, however, lies in the content…

The LNP and Team Borg are somewhat slow on the upkeep of their website, YouTube, Facebook pages, etc and particularly his Twitter account (with the latter noting only one entry from Jan 24 offering he’s “just getting into Twitter”). The ALP and the Blighster, however, use all these various mediums to fill into their website. The Anna4Queensland Twitter account gets constant, daily use, alerting followers to the latest updates or policy announcements or photo ops, or whatever. Anna’s YouTube account is setup to show off all their policy and promos, where as Lawrence’s just has a few videos listed. Anna’s facebook account has her correctly listed as a politician, so anyone can browse the info and there are links back to her YouTube entries for all of that content. Lawrence’s facebook account is extremely limited unless you request friendship… and then wait for that to be approved.

As for the others…
The Greens have a website (and Ronan Lee, noted ALP defection, has his own too). No social networking or other official internet media to speak of. Pauline Hanson, while only just throwing her hat in the ring, has a website however it was last updated nearly a year ago. As nominations don’t close until 03 MArch, there’s more time for others to weigh in. The Courier Mail has a better online presence (and better budget), allowing you to both track the movements of the main pollies via GoogleMap, and analysing speeches by both key candidates with a very web 2.0 tag word cloud. No candidates for the DS4SEQ party, but their website is at least current, and they have the mandatory Facebook group.

I’m confident that no matter who has the best online presence, this will not be the keystone that gets either team elected as a part of QldVotes09. The flip side is that if both the LNP and ALP (or any of the other candidates) want to connect with the younger, web-centric, socially networked voter and ensure they are across the important policy issues, then one camp certainly needs to sort out their act poste haste.

Tech/media score to date:
ALP – 1
LNP – 0
Ind/Others – 0

According to some pundits, Queensland Labour Party has 300 in the spin team – perhaps LNP should hire one to oversee what their current team is approving if today’s news story on the Brisbane Times website is anything to go by.

LNP’s candidate for Mt Coot-tha, John Pollard, has had solar panels placed on his campaign office. Great huh? Well it is, ‘kinda.’ The only ‘minor’ problem with these solar panels which are clearly visible from the street is that they are South facing. While they will provide sufficient power in Summer, in Winter they will be nothing more than roof art.

I can understand Pollard’s desire to be seen as a Green candidate (no not a candidate for the Green party but a candidate with Green leanings) in an electorate that is heavily environmentally focused, but window dressing, while pretty is still window dressing. Perhaps their pride of place, helps to remind his potential voters that while his leader may think global warning, Pollard takes it a little more seriously, at the appearance of it anyway.

I reside in Brisbane Central, but if I resided in Mt Coot-tha and the environment was my most important issue I would vote for someone who actaully was concerned with more than window dressing – Larissa Waters.

I would love to know if Pollard had his system installed under the Bligh Government solar program scheme.

Politicians and their respective parties start campaigning before Antony Green has finished showing his election night graphs on the ABC.

I agree that this election campaign period is a tad fast for my liking. Seriously how much can you understand of these new/expanded policies in mere three weeks? But, it isn’t as though this election caught the LNP on the back foot.

I don’t know about anyone else, but on the way to work I see one huge billboard with Lawrence Springborg looking to the left at one of the two candidates he is huxting for, and on the way home I see two more, with the same picture of Dr Springborg but looking in the other direction*. These have been up since the beginning of February, so the LNP certainly were getting their dance shoes shiny in preparation for an election.

Certainly the power in calling an early election lies with the incumbent party, and statistically a win is on their side – however Anna Bligh has some not so strong odds on becoming Australia’s first ‘elected’ female Premier.

We also have to factor in the fact that Queensland has been Labour for eleven years. When Peter Beatie retired, Anna Bligh inherited a less than meritorious state and now faces a very rough period ahead with the rest of Australia and the world. So retaliatory voting must also be taken into account. But then we have Dr Springborg, who has failed to lead his previous party to victory two times, and now leads a new party in opposition. Dr Springborg’s media profile has been far from stellar and am pushed to remember him adding value, just loudly dissenting the Labour Government since the LNP was formed.

With one Labour member of parliament retiring, and the world as it is, it opens a whole new ball game. Yes it is only one seat, and the LNP need 21 more, but there are many tight seats that, with enough dissent, dissatisfaction and distrust riding off the world economic S.N.A.F.U, might just be enough to get them over the line.

So enough with the snap election mantra. Timing works for both sides this go around.

*Dr Springborg – would it have killed you to take a few more pictures so you aren’t just reversed? Any kid with a computer could have made your billboards, but at least you didn’t outsource your website to Victoria.

Taezar resides in Brisbane Central and has strong Labour leanings – odd considering she grew up at National Party fundraisers, more often than not organised by her parents on the Gold Coast in the 70’s.