[stephen]

Originally Posted by James90

Knives have already pierced the skin.

The amount of work some people have done to keep her in the top job...at some stage they'll dessert a sinking ship and save their own bacon one feels.

The fact that Bligh has survived this long is testament to the fact that there are too few seats in QLD parliament at the moment. There are not enough backbenchers and because of this there is little internal party pressure on the leadership.

The lack of a senate really hasn't helped QLD politics either. We really need one reinstated and enshrined in the QLD constitution - though I doubt that any government will do that.

Originally Posted by James90

Considering that the feds are mostly responsible for taxation and immigration issues, it's not surprising that the public is happy to stick with grossly conservative leaders who pander to people's fears and run negative campaigns about how a Labor Government will waste your money on pointless things like health and education and infrastructure. People are much happier with low taxes and zero population growth even if the country goes backwards on the world map and doesn't invest in the labour market or new technology.

I see the ALP as a necessary evil to remind us how good Liberal rule is.

Seriously though, big spending governments being good for a country is a fallacy that only works on the West Wing. Keynes debunked work notwithstanding.

On a different topic, I hear that there was a lot more pressure on ALP MPs to vote with the government in the recent QLD conscience vote than there was on the last one. I am really not surprised that Margaret Keech and Michael Choi were the only ones to cross the floor, when you hear terms like "ignorant redneck" and "vile stupidity" thrown around by the Anna Blighs and Andrew Frasers of the party. Really think the whole leadership team should be knived just for that to be honest. I mean what's the point of calling for a conscience vote if you put so much pressure on your own party that it effectively isn't a conscience vote?

The fact is that Bligh might appeal to the lefties who live in her electorate, but she is seriously angering a lot of people in suburbia at the moment. And we all know that suburbia turns elections. I understand how Howard Haters felt now that we have Bligh in charge of QLD (except that Howard was a good leader ). There is no redeeming value in her being in parliament. It's bad enough to make me want to move to WA.