UNBEARABLE POLITICS OF BEING

This Queensland State Election campaign has been a big KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. DON'T MENTION CLIMATE CHANGE, KILLING COAL, GRASPING JOBS FROM THE GIFT OF THE SUN...

I did say this to Jim at pre-polling and of course he agreed!

IN A MINUTE COMPETITION LINK FOR CANDIDATES 

The LNP Premier Newman did call the election as parents prepared the Preps for primary and high schools, and workers holiday avoiding political machinations from the Media. 

Did he really think the voters were stupid - not saving up their powerful franchise?
Politicians rely on short memories of what voters didn't like and the Opposition try to remind them. Even so, it is all very shallow with little detail of HOW things will be achieved. SOLAR INVESTMENT - GRANDKIDS - EASY PEASY

Being a political passionista I remember the tearing down of Labor's legislation which protected the environment against the rapacious addiction of making money at any cost.

From the day the LNP went into mass majority government they Repealed laws to permit LAND CLEARING, pollute pristine rivers, damage coral reefs. Somerset Councillor Jim Madden had joined our Somerset branch(formerly Wivenhoe). He was on the Healthy Waterways board, had a Science degree aswell as being a local Lawyer.

Somerset branch held a meeting devoted to the Attourney General's autocratic dismissal of Parliamentary tradition and principles with the VLAD laws. 

Loving their Union Jack flag and Monarchy the Attorney-General attacked the integrity of the processes and separations between the State and Law; Westminster Parliamentary tradition had evolved involveing struggles in blood. 

We were all reminded and frightened about the return of the Bjelke Peterson regime which toppled in the early 1980's after 3 decade. Now the current government of the LNP was showing they acted more like the 15th century PRINCE by Machievelli.

Then we have those Dissenters of the LNP party machinary.

KATTERS
HANSONS
PALMERS

Going to Pre-poll at Brassall Hanson got my attention on a bill-board - her candidate and her red head surrounded by a halo of stars (of course from the flag). How Brazen!So thoroughly hateful as her candidate points out their mantra for election: no Mosques, No Halal, No Burqua!

This provocative and hateful woman inciting division in a region which is so White!

WITH A POLITICAL PEDIGREE, THIS IS THE WOMAN and the SMARTEST CHOICE TO LEAD THE STATE OF QUEENSLAND.

                                                        LEADING LABOR


What is behind so much distrust in Politicians when they deflect from the evidence to back up policy action - like paying deference to the appetite of the coal and minerals industry at the expense of the environment, indeed the planets weather! Perhaps a course in Buddhism CAUSE AND EFFECT!

SOMERSET Branch of the ALP in the Brisbane Valley, campaigns for
Ipswich West with Jim Madden, and Nanango electorates..

I will be hoping for a win for Annastacia Palaszczuk in Inala and to lead a Queensland Labor Government. Naturally, instinctively, I agree with the majority of their ALP Party Platform but it's damn slow to put it into action!

(eg. repealing abortion law which has been in the platform for over 10 years).

I might be a little bit too Left for some, but the 2012 landslide to the LNP gave them a taste of returning to an authoritarian, Joh Bjelke-Peterson style Government, denigrating ordinary people and creating a Police State and Private business era corruption, reminding us of how quickly it can go back.

The Ego's are so large in many Politicians(testesterone fuelled?). I perceive they do believe they have a Divine Right once they have the People's vote even in a Secular Westminister tradition, (although the Chaplains in schools enthusiasm shows more theocracy than democracy).

So down to the Fernvale booth I go, mulling over my ideas to reform the system.

Fernvale booth presents a civil society - Paul from Fernvale up with the Sun to set up the booth
before the LNP get there! Well done.

ELECTORAL proposals from me : Lead the change, show your ethical back-bone: legislate a maximum of dollars each Party can use for an election campaign. 
It will make them more creative. They could hire artists to show them how to get the wow factor out of the box! Hire my husband and I to do a puppet show for YouTube...Yes you can change things.

It's the end of the Labor line membership for hubby and I. Handing out how to vote for a return to Labor Government, then Scrutineering. 

GREENS FIRST, LABOR SECOND

My Mental Health requires Peace, and hearing Christine Milne et al the words I believe in - taking the reality and moral challenge up to the population and major 'old' parties with the facts. 

I've enjoyed the experience and met some lovely Labor members, but I can't handle the increasing inner conflicts on the outsider view.

No sneaky machinations - the FACTS. Climate and human rights matter. I wrestle with my Soul and the ALP which requires an increase in medication.....Fact.

3 years ago I had a vision of a Labor/Green alliance!
But the State Secretary didn't agree 

  Every time I hand out how to vote flyers I imagine how good it would be to have a digital board at each gate where Party Preferences can be read. One poster in each electoral booth to consult and you would stop the WASTE of colour glossy printing reams of trees that have a 5 minute benefit.

Will report back after the tally.....on the STAMINA, INTELLIGENCE and GRASS-ROOTS CAMPAIGNING on 3 hours sleep is what candidates do to make a difference for the community, and themselves.

Annastacia Palaszczuk & Jim Madden of the Somerset branch and candidate for Ipswich West will do a much better job than the authoritarian LNP.

SEEING RED - THE KATTER AMONGST THE PIGEONS

FERNVALE STATE SCHOOL
 24/3/2012 Val and I labouring on the right for
Wayne Wendt MP/ ALP/  Ipswich West/9.5% margin.

I don't want to talk about it, but it may be therapeutic...


I'm in Mourning; wearing black the day after the metaphorical massacre of all Labor's best and brightest. 
The LNP have reduced Queensland Labor to a rump in Parliament, and executed the potential future leaders like the talented Deputy Premier/Treasurer, Andrew Fraser and Education Minister, Cameron Dick.  
 7 seats max. LNP Conservative CHOAT has taken Ipswich West from Wayne! 
Katter's mob have had their bubble burst but they've got 2 seats in Parliament with 18.86% of the State wide vote. Our 7 opposing 78...
This is Democracy in action Queenslanders style. I have no doubt  Parliament will be a source of  myopic utterances in the years ahead which will be a sensation for the other States like it was for us living in Victoria during the Joh Bjelke Petersen era.


As Paul Keating said at a recent Labor event: the Hayseeds will be in control. 


Our local Member of Parliament Wayne Wendt has been caught in the anti-Labor landslide. 

The new force of puritanical parliamentarians - put together by divinely induced LNP President Bruce McIvor  has finally defeated and decapitated their sworn enemy - the Party who had brought Queensland into the 21st Century over the last 20 years to become a vibrant, better educated, diversified economy with a thriving arts and science culture, preparing the population for adaptation to climate change.

The Conservative team colour is blue in Australia. On Election Day of the 24th March 2012, I wear my bold Red cred so people know I'm Australian Labor Party. I pull up alongside the Fernvale School polling booth ready for my shift.

I am made a fool.

Wayne Wendt's  face is beaming from the sandwich board, so I assume the big fella sat next to it  wearing a red T.Shirt with creased white letters is who I am relieving. I leaned down and  introduced myself, said I was doing the 1pm to 6 shift. He seemed slightly puzzled like he didn't know somebody else was coming in to share the labour. Now closer I read the How To Vote sheets he was holding, then glanced at his chest: He's from Katter's mob!

There are a couple of older women under the shade of a gazebo, one with the clear words of the latest addition to Australia's democracy,  Katter's Australia Party.

"Oh My God!" I turned, horrified, "I've got the wrong side here!" and it finally came clear, "You've got the same outfit as Labor you tricky buggers!"


I laughed it off, but I felt a twit, and was not amused when I had a chance to think about it. Further, Katter's 6ft 10 bulky volunteer had moved to block me from the voters approaching. He pushed  his card first, but didn't name the party he was from!

It was a typical male bullying tactic to use their physical stature against  a woman so it is hard for anybody to see her. Wizened to that bullshit I kept away from him, making sure the people who took our election material knew what they were taking.
Could it have really been a strategy by Bob Katter's team to make  electors confused by making us indistinguishable?

Commentary had been written of the Katter Australian Party platform being reminiscent of the old socialist ALP of the 1950's for it's economic protectionism and anti-environment stances over lobs. The right for dominant males to use the environment to hunt and be superior  on land, sea or sky is God-given.

Proud to bring back that old time religion(as though it had ever gone away), small right-wing parties such as One Nation(Hanson), Family First, DLP and now Katters -  use God and Nationalism to define an identity that most Australians have thankfully liberated themselves from.

As a man in a big cowboy hat the maverick ex-National Party and Independent Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter, dispenses blessings but is clearly homophobic and sexist. The LNP have obviously been unified in keeping quieter on their social prejudices and how that will translate into legislation.

On the whole, our local polling booths are friendly and respectful affairs - being careful not to get into political debates knowing people with political passions are bound to get upset!

For some in the ALP the GREENS provoke a spike of agression, but I'm one of many members who fit comfortably with their environmental and social policies.

I discovered the Greens worker, JOHN was a neighbour and like my husband and I had found a couple of acres and a house in Fernvale around 15 years ago. 

Thrilled to hear he had also improved his 2 acre patch of ex-agricultural land with Australian native shrubs and bushes and rainforest timbers like Red and White Cedars, Blue Quandong and Bunya, Hoop Pines and Black bean. 
We shared our love of being fortunate to live here enjoying the bounty of our orchards and stories of cockatoos pinching our pecans!

SCRUTINEERS

Dave arrived to pack up and take the paraphanalia off the fences and I walked up to the hall with John and witnessed the cutting of the voting boxes so they could be emptied onto the tables to start the sorting.

Scrutineers are nominated by the Candidates to observe the vote count especially if there is an 'informal' vote which might take away a vote from the others! This might mean a ballot paper has been filled in a way that is not clear of the voters intention such as marking a candidate with a cross and another a tick instead of numbering.

Scrutineers can challenge a ballot paper so the electoral officer can judge to accept it. As the papers were placed in a pile for each candidate the first signal of something different occuring was the observation that there was a low number of 'informals' compared to previous elections.

We pondered silently what this might mean. In Australia we have compulsory voting, so if somebody isn't marked off the electoral roll they get sent a fine. Those who don't care or are ignorant about the importance of voting may turn up and write 'Minne Mouse' 'Mickey Mouse' 'bunch of f...ing arse-holes etc etc etc

The LNP and KAP scrutineers knew each other. The big fella (I couldn't be bothered to know his name), seemed optimistic and excited by the process - better than going out to the movies!  Would he doubt his decision to join the man with the oversize hat when for the first time in a long time his side of politics had won?
The  LNP candidate Sean Choat who was on his third try had finally beaten the well-liked local, Wayne Wendt. In fact, the opposition used to taunt the Member for Ipswich West about being a member of the Labor party when he should be with them! The stereotype that because Wayne was an Accountant and employer before he entered Parliament meant his natural affiliation would be with them.

I think about the struggle of the Suffragettes, then I think about Syria suffering immense atrocities because they want to elect their government and hold them accountable. The struggle of Burma Democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the impoverished people; once the richest Asian country before the military dictatorship entrenched itself. 
Looking at the purposefully vandalised votes I was grateful it was only 25 in this election.

Missing from the numbers are also those who refuse to vote on religious grounds. During a local audit of the electoral roll for the Australian Electoral Commission 
 I learned there were some protestant groups like Jehovah's Witness and Seventh Day Adventists who don't vote because their duty to God is higher than their responsibilities to the State. 


Obviously the Australian Tax Office makes sure they get the money for the Government programs they use every day of their lives, but the individuals involved don't want to influence what priorities are decided upon which will have an effect on their lives.


I was thinking about the principle of informed and participatory democracy when I mentioned this at party office it was suggested the exemptions remain because their votes would probably be anti-Labor!


Since joining the ALP in Queensland I have been learning more about the nexus between religion and politics, and it never fails to astound me!

THE BALLOTS ARE COUNTED and unlike 2009 the Fernvale Booth has voted against the ALP.  We party devotees quickly dial our mobile numbers but are met with "No Services available for this number" so I try another number and same again.
Here I am doing a job where communication is vital, and there is a blackspot for Virgin mobile in this hall! I'm informed Vodaphone is the same, but the Booth captain, one of the teachers who always does this job, loans me his mobile so I can inform the collators in Ipswich.


The Scrutineers from the different parties hardly see each other as we pick up our bags and leave after a long day which for many has been since 5am having been setting up the polling booths in their area in the primest positions.


I had seen the previous election count at my local Fernvale booth as an achievement because Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party had got the primary vote there once upon a time!

Bob Katter MP might have bragged he was going to do better than One Nation in the Queensland Parliament, old National party members in the new coalition would be pleased his treachery had come undone that night with only two seats won.

Standing in the doorway of our home T.V. tally room, my husband looked up from Kerry O'Brien and said "It's a ROUT". A banner went across the screen showing Choat had beaten Wendt. 
"He's lost Ipswich West!

I sat down, my feet and legs ached - I felt 50 and wouldn't be able to get off the couch. So early in the night and the commentators were saying it looked like a 15percent swing against us. It wasn't so much about Wayne as a local member of parliament, it was Labor of 20 years - The voters were throwing us out and dumping us. The shock being so many who were prepared to risk the consequences.

There was no way I had the energy to shower and dress and mingle at Wayne's house. All I wanted was my slippers, a cup of tea and medications.

THE ONLY IPSWICH CITY PARLIAMENTARIAN TO RETAIN HER SEAT WAS JO-ANN MILLER in the seat of BUNDAMBA. Showing enormous stamina helping the citizens of Goodna clean up after the floods, Mrs. Miller defied Caucus by being the lone voice against the privatisation of Queensland Rail assets.

Public Transport links

Springfield developer Maha Sinnabathy with Minister for Transport, Annastacia Palaszcuk and Jo-Ann Miller MP - March 2012

THE LAST BIT OF NEWS I WATCH IS  ANNASTACIA PALASZCUK HAS RETAINED THE SEAT OF NEIGBOURING INALA.

 SHE IS THE MOST LIKELY TO BE LEADER OF THE ALP OPPOSITION, IN THE NEW PARLIAMENT.

We are left to seek signs of  direction in the entrails.

As I lay down my weary bones, the Best thing to do now is think of  tomorrow. Eighteenth century Voltaire's conclusion for Candide after the madness and atrocities of  wars and natural disasters was retire and 

CULTIVATE THE GARDEN 

Husband and entertainer, Roy - My Green Man and fellow

ALP member - we reckon our vision of the 

 Red and Green can compliment each other on the Road to re-energising the labour movement with new alliances/coalitions?

DOWN, BUT NOT OUT IN THE SOMERSET SHIRE

SAT 14TH JANUARY   The Premier of Queensland was in town - Anna Bligh, Member for South Brisbane and Minister for Reconstruction: Apron on, well practiced in the art of cooking sausages at the gas BBQ's and speaking with strangers - no not completely - because we are from Queensland!


The old Esk, now Somerset Shire Councillors, their wives and Fernvale citizens who were part of the State's first anniversary of the devastating floods were "Back Together".
State MP for Ipswich West, Wayne Wendt, Mayor Graham Lehmann and Shayne Neumann, Federal MP Blair with their indefatigable presence on the lawn of Fernvale Futures (information and meeting place),

at the planting of  AN INDIGENOUS HOOP PINE

(Araucaria cunninghamii).

I sat on the bench, self-contained.  I've been withdrawn from community contact lately due to a slide into bi-polar depression. I had gathered the skant energy and motivation I had for community functioning. It wouldn't surprise me if residents who had been traumatised by the flooding of their houses would be feeling forlorn  a year on, especially if so much of what they valued had been washed away - strength and assets sapped.

THROUGH THE WINDOW THEN

 Our neighbour's Dairy. 

 ADAMS RD SIGN 

FERNVALE RD Black Snake Creek Jan 2011

We were fortunate to have found an old Queenslander home, high-set on a hill so when the deluge came we were dry. We couldn't go anywhere as the water around cut us off for three days. There was no electricity so I used it as an exercise, imagining what it was like living in the nineteenth century - when the malnourished Irish were enticed here,  to found a future for their children on our Fairney View selection.


Very glad it was only for 3 days! I had faith in the energy company to get the service up and running again as soon as possible. Our drinking water is pumped from the tank so we had only stored a certain amount. We stayed close to the battery operated radio. Our predicament was negligible, but we all have our limits before our sanity snaps.

A year later, sitting on the park bench, it occurred to me, this might be the last time Anna Bligh would be Premier, or even be a figure in Queensland politics if the Opposition had their triumphal election win in the near future.

My inner physician messages me to slightly increase the dose of anti-depressant to allow my brain a more realistic perception! Bligh was as bold and sassy as Boudicca - she had a bloody good chance of forming government again. 

Knowledge was power and she had it in spades! I'd seen Anna Bligh at the State Library at a public forum on Education and Training. Years of experience behind her, she was comfortable discussing and providing information on everything that was presented to her by the many professionals in the room.

Still, I would ask my State MP for a photo opportunity with both of them as I have been the local Wivenhoe - ALP branch secretary for a couple of years and didn't have any photographic evidence - except for recording others posterity...

The seasonal rain was holding off  for the community gathering. The Somerset is a conservative farming area and most of the Labor votes come from populous Ipswich. The Premier's presence was appreciated by all - but will they vote for Team Bligh at the anticipated State election now the other lot have a new leader?


People weren't thinking about this though - they were holding it together - being gentle with each other.
I know how  important compassionate support is to get you through crisis to recovery, and I am always impressed by the abilities of our M.P's to empathise with constituents and try to make the struggles in life seem a little bit easier, even better when they have the resources to do something practical.

Local Butchers would be doing alright around the State with a sausage led recovery... I couldn't stomach a sausage but I did get the photo opportunity. 

Comrades for Progress via the Australian Labor Party, Anna Bligh, Julie McNeill, Wayne Wendt

Fernvale January 14th 2012

Anna Bligh - Premier and Minister for Reconstruction - Member for South Brisbane 2012.

Previously, Deputy Premier and Treasurer.Minister for the Arts. 

Minister for Infrastructure, Finance, State Development, Trade and Innovation.

Education Minister for five years overseeing many reforms.
National President-Australian Labor Party

SUN  15TH JAN  FERNVALE MARKETS 6-12

As a local said to me the next Sunday morning at the weekly Fernvale Markets - Queensland Labor had their time (20 years) so it's time to break the cycle. Of course I don't agree. 


The overall guiding philosophy of a political party does have a profound generational effect, especially with Education, and creating jobs with infrastructure.


As I set up the ALP stall my thoughts were of  the time we came to work in Queensland primary schools with our curriculum based, environmental puppet shows. We found bedraggled state school facilities, but worse, no separate arts and science specialisation - let alone decent libraries. I talk about the institutional censorship of our work here, as Australian Puppeteers.


Premier Joh and his cronies may have built sparkling new towers and enabled a defining cultural and trade Expo( but at a cost to Heritage buildings bulldosed in the middle of the night). The dark ages of  Conservative rule with the underlying old time religion of  Joh Bjelke Petersen( who went out of power with a lingering smell of a culture of corruption), has meant the Labor governments had a lot to catch up in comparison to the other Australian states.

In 2001 I couldn't even send my daughters to the local high school because they didn't cater for pathways into Science, Maths, Chemistry, Physics or Asian languages for University entrance.
It was a great shift in cost and ideology to send them to a private school which catered for scholars, farmers and tradies.
I wasn't happy having to front up to the Principle and beg for a bursary.


Here in the Brisbane Valley there has been strong resistance to pricing carbon pollution, and respecting the scientists findings on climate change and its consequences. 
The local Somerset free newspaper encourages a weekly dose of unhealthy skepticism and misinformation.
My instinct tells me that the Patricians of power in the "Pineapple State" kept the Plebeians blissful with a Belief in a Creator  but unable to understand the evidence of  the science that has created the world we live in.


What I fear the most though is a Lib/NatParty dominated by fundamentalist Christians, setting its narrow agenda on our children who have to compete in a global village.
Now that schools have been fitted out with new Science labs, libraries and halls(thanks to the economic stimulus of the Rudd Labor government), and a National Curriculum(via a Gillard led goverment),  the LNP want Creationism given equal value to Evolution, and the CEO who got the Chaplains in State Schools is hoping he is elected in by the voters of  the Everton electorate in Brisbane - my guess, to end up as Queensland's Education Minister.


" Scripture Union Queensland is absolutely intent on providing youth hope, direction and purpose which can only come from a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Each S.U. Queensland program is a vehicle for local churches to use to reach a young generation". Tim Mander


So, the little influence I had at this years Ipswich Regional Conference was to move a motion: That this Regional Conference calls for an amendment to be made to the Education Policy in the Party Platform to state that: "a state secular education requires scientific learning and enquiry, and matters of faith are a parental choice in after-school hours." 


Whilst there may be teachers who can't help but try and sabotage the principle of church and state, science and theology in the classroom we must be informed as to the lines between the physical and the imaginative realms of our minds...


As someone who has experienced spiritual highs and agonies, and takes lithium for it(thank you Dr. Cade), I'm one with the insightful nineteenth century intelligence of  Karl Marx who saw that religion was the opium of the masses.

Having a Relationship with a fine Australian illustrator and poet, Michael Leunig.
.The Michael Leunig Website

THE SHADE COVER IS UP, THE RED TABLE-CLOTH IS SPREAD AND THE FACTS OF ALP ACHIEVEMENTS ARE ON THE TABLE.


My political anxieties are interrupted by the curiosity of market goers whose  attention is caught by an enlarged diagram  - they have been waiting for over 20years for something to be done about the intersection at Blacksoil on the Warrego Highway!


Relieved that Wayne has arrived to explain the new fly-over infrastructure taking place - Now, really happening thanks to the efforts of Federal MP Shayne Neumann finalising a deal of over $50million for the Federal responsibility, and Wayne bringing the State Government to contribute $20million - we will have a safer, efficient road system to carry the increased populace.


Nobody is whinging about this Labor achievement and the money spent. This is really Good News for this Sunday morning!

Encore at Fernvale Markets, Brisbane Valley Highway - Sunday 29th January, 6am-12. WEATHER PERMITTING!


P.S. I can't resist adding this 'Horrible Histories" song about Boudicca, for a mood lifting laugh!