Part 1: Hubris and
humility
In my earlier post
about tweeting from the tally room, I remarked that the blue avalanche was
going to hit early and hit hard. The determined blue bars of the LNP on each
electorate graph told the story. At 6.20pm I thought it extraordinary, by
6.30pm we psephies were already prognosticating on what a return to a
Liberal-National government would mean. As I write, the poll is yet to be
declared, Bulimba has only just been conceded by Labor’s Di Farmer and we still
have a by-election to be held in outgoing Premier Anna Bligh’s seat of South
Brisbane. Suffice to say that the likely make-up of the new house is 78 seats
to the LNP, 7 ALP, 2 long-standing Independents in Liz Cunningham and Peter
Wellington and 2 for Bob Katter’s Australia Party. In a unicameral parliament
(a psephy technical term for ‘one chamber’; our federal parliament is
bicameral), that’s one heck of a majority.
So, on election night,
given that neither party leader saw it necessary to present themselves at the
tally room for their respective concession and victory speeches, I only had
some audio of Campbell Newman’s victory speech from some salubrious hotel over in
the CBD. Of course he was humble, of course his team would not take advantage
of the overwhelming majority handed to them by the electorate, of course it was
a majority not even the party faithful could have envisaged (OK, except
perhaps, Clive Palmer in one of those TV cameos that makes some Queenslanders
feeling a little less…well…Queenslandish). But Mr Newman was, as he promised,
ready to get to work for Queensland and bring some of his Can-Do council
operations to the state level. Look out Queensland we’re in for a ride here…
A little backdrop:
Queensland politics has always held a fascination for me. Sydney-born, my
family moved to the Gold Coast when I was 9 ¾ years of age. The only remnants
of my Sydney birthright I cling to are my football team, the mighty Sea Eagles,
and Freshwater Beach; by every other measure I consider myself a Queenslander
these days even down to State of Origin (I remember 1980! Besides, I already
owned a maroon and white scarf…). Growing up on the Gold Coast in the 1970s and
in a strongly-Liberal Party household, I recall some fascination even then with
the fact that on a state-level, the Coast was green-ribbon National while
federally, it was blue-ribbon Liberal. Adults around me clearly voted for two
different parties though I suspect the state vote had more to do with the
overwhelming politics of personality—that of Johannes Bjelke-Petersen. We on
the Coast were also blessed with the other half of the ruling ‘diumvirate’ in
Russ Hinze, aka Minister for Everything. Politics was very real for me even
then.
Moving to Brisbane and
university in 1981 saw the beginnings of another political awakening. I didn’t
expect to be terribly political as a student, I just simply wanted to study
Japanese, earn my teaching quals and go out and teach…but a funny thing
happened on the way to teachers college. Of the many things I value about my
education, learning to understand, to listen and to agree or disagree amicably
with others is a trait learned and, in every way, constantly engaged. Emerging
from the family cocoon to see another side of politics was eye-opening. The
early 1980s of course, was what some consider to be the height of Johannesque
hubris and a time when people who cared about democracy and a fair and just
society were under the pump, so to speak, to stand up for what is right.
I look back and think
about that time now with some disbelief. We’ve been kind of relieved that we
can stand in a group of three on Queen Street Mall and chat, without fear or
favour. Street marches and demonstrations, while highly controlled and
over-officiated, at least aren’t completely banned. And our cultural scene here
has flourished over the last few decades (although who doesn’t miss that gritty
underground passion of The Saints and others…). One would hope that social
norms were sufficiently embedded now to resist a return to the past…another
world.
Back to the present:
so it was as I listened to Campbell Newman’s speech, as I watched later the
footage of Clive Palmer, as I caught the bus home from the tally room…I found
myself recalling my student days and the things I learned back then…were they
about to return?
Sunday 25 March I awoke
to a sense of anticipation and trepidation: which way forward I wondered, or
back to the past…whichever way, I thought, it was going to be all the more
important to work at my day job—convincing others of the need to be engaged, to
participate actively in our politics, to discard our comfortable apathy of recent
times.
Monday 26 March and
the curtains of another era seemed to be unveiling. Within hours, two very
political appointments to Director-General positions were announced. ‘So
what?’ …were the cries from one side, what about Anna Bligh’s spouse gaining a
similar sort of appointment upon her accession to premier in 2009. Indeed, yes,
but what wasn’t right then didn't justify repeating the dose twice, this time
around…ah hubris and humility…such fleeting wisps of rhetorical smoke. My
larger life-project, as we old-fashioned academics like to refer to our work,
is to aim to restore trust between the governed and the governors—reinvigorate
the ‘social contract’ such that we can have a polity that works in everyone’s
interest. My sense on this Monday was that my hoped for reinvigoration was off
to a bad start…
In this last week, the
spectre of Joh seems to be lurking a little more earnestly. The news that the opposition
would not be accommodated in the usual rooms in parliament house, but sent
elsewhere, had such a ring of the old ‘Bellevue’ days of yore, I just had to
check my calendar. The crowning ‘achievement’ this week of course was the axing
of the Premier’s Literary Award about which much has been written, and far more
eruditely than I should attempt. Suffice to say that in the new era of hubris
and humility, it was a politically mean decision. In the scale of budgetary
fiscal responsibility, it is but a small amount; and yet its value in what it
says about the importance of humanities and achievements of those who strive to
tell our stories is, or was, far greater. I suspect the cost of refitting the
former opposition offices and accommodating them elsewhere will see the
$240,000 saved in literary awards sucked down a dark hole of renovation
expenditure, and you can bet it won’t be spent on Bunnings laminate and
chipboard…
So, my dear and
patient reader, this is the state of our politics in this state two weeks into
the new era. I’m a little anxious over what I’ve seen so far. I think you need
to be forewarned that my public role over the next three years at least is now
clearly defined…I will be stepping up to implore us all that our politics
matters—it is not about them, it is
about us and what we should do to make it work. It should
be less about Campbell’s can-do and more about our can-do and must-do…we’ve a
lot of do, do, doing ahead of us. Won't you join with me in doing what we can-do?
