Her political inheritance was replete with riches but the Queensland Premier has squandered it
ANNA Bligh is only surviving as Queensland Premier because there is no one else willing to lead the ALP into near certain defeat at the next state election due in 2012. The Bligh government is a political disaster lurching from one terrible poll result to the next.
There is no doubt the poor standing of the Bligh government was a significant contributing factor to the ALP’s poor showing in the federal election. Based on a post-redistribution assessment, the …

DESPITE ructions within the NSW Liberal Party and the utter blandness of opposition leader Barry O’Farrell, state Labor, led by the inexperienced and easily influenced Kristina Keneally, is on the nose with most voters.
It beggars belief that in the coming national election the chronic state of Labor in NSW will not translate into a gain for the Coalition of some federal seats, possibly Robertson, Eden-Monaro, Dobell and Bennelong.
Given the federal election will be held well before the NSW election, there is every possibility that voters will punish federal Labor for …

THE timing of the departure of Queensland Premier Anna Bligh’s highly talented chief of staff Mike Kaiser last Friday could not have been worse. Kaiser’s announcement that he will join the federal government’s national broadband network from December 1, as head of government relations, came only a day after the scrapping of the controversial Traveston dam by federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett.
Brisbane’s Courier-Mail reported that the day before his retirement announcement, Bligh’s office had denied Kaiser had quit.
Kaiser’s retirement and its timing sent a message that the Queensland Labor government …

ANNA Bligh recently returned from her first overseas trip since being elected Queensland Premier in her own right on March 21.  She visited India, the Middle East and Russia.
The worst world economic crisis since the Depression has led to the loss of Queensland’s AAA credit rating, rising unemployment and the government’s unpopular decision to sell off public assets such as ports, rail and timber.
Yet Bligh did not visit Queensland’s main trading partners: Japan, South Korea and China. It was the loss of coal royalties that reduced government revenue and in …

QUEENSLAND Premier Anna Bligh’s spectacular backdowns on recycled water and on the controversial Traveston dam project will not save her at the next state election. Not unless she shelves her plan to add fluoride to the drinking water.

Those who think the introduction of fluoride is a minor issue should think again. It was, after all, a highway through koala habitat in southeast Queensland that ended the government of Wayne Goss.
Fluoride will be added to Queensland drinking water just before the new year break. The …

Ross Fitzgerald hails Anderson Dawson, political trailblazer and leader of the world’s first Labor government
This week is Kevin Rudd’s Labor government’s first birthday. Whether it will form part of Australia’s collective political memory is as yet unknown.
Certainly Barack Obama’s historic American presidential victory means that, throughout the world, Tuesday 4 November 2008 will be forever etched in the global consciousness.
But there is another historic date which deserves to be remembered, and that is 1 December 1899, which heralded the world’s first Labor government. Believe it or not, this occurred in …