Conservative Politics in Queensland 2005

LETTER TO EDITOR - 4 March 2005

Dear Editor

Being the Editor of a daily newspaper must be a challenging occupation, and at times it must be hard to come up with something to write about. However, Thursday's editorial (FCC 3/3/05) was a disaster. Instead of the usual lucid, well-informed comment it was more like a cut and paste from local Liberal Party minutes.

The reality is, we have a handful of serial under-achievers representing a Party which could only win five out of the 47 seats it contested at the 2004 poll trying to tell The Nationals to stay away from seats they think belong to them.

Instead of bickering about regional seats like Maryborough, which they have no foreseeable hope of winning, perhaps they should come up with a plan to win more seats in their own urban heartland. One seat out of forty, Moggill, plus three on the Gold Coast and one on the Sunshine Coast, is a pretty shabby result from a Party anxious to return to the Treasury benches in Queensland.

Full credit to Laurence Springborg for his attempts to unify conservative political forces in Queensland. Blind Freddy knows that the majority of conservative voters want a united voice, and yet the Liberal Party executive refuses to give their members a vote on the proposal.

Until the disunity ceases, nothing will change. We will continue to watch Labor abandoning regional Queensland, dismantling local hospitals and under-funding essential community services. We will hear more of Beattie's excuses for dishonest and unaccountable administration and watch as his government continues to squander the legacy of growth and prosperity left by previous conservative governments.