{"id":6967,"date":"2012-03-20T22:34:30","date_gmt":"2012-03-20T12:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=6967"},"modified":"2012-03-21T22:48:23","modified_gmt":"2012-03-21T12:48:23","slug":"the-queensland-state-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=6967","title":{"rendered":"The Queensland State Election"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Anna Bligh - campaigning on 'please don't kick *all* of us out of power'<\/p><\/div>\n

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Campbell Newman - can almost taste victory<\/p><\/div>\n

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Bob Katter - totally looney. Also, leader of a political party from Queensland.<\/p><\/div>\n

Like most secular and modern Western countries, Australia has a healthy distrust of right wing political parties.\u00a0 In Australia, the major conservative party is the Liberal National Party (LNP).\u00a0 The party’s members tend to have outdated social views on immigrants, gay people and women that are more aligned with your grandpa or that super Christian kid in your high school.\u00a0 Although the party has their strengths (e.g economic prowess) their leaders tend to struggle to have approval ratings higher than 40%.<\/p>\n

For better or worse, Queensland as a state has voted in a Labor government for the past twenty years.\u00a0 While the state has a lot of proud accomplishments (we’ve got a fast growing economy, low crime and are really kick-ass at sports), under Labor we have also developed the world’s 3rd most expensive public transport system, undergone a soaring cost of living and there is the trifling matter of a $85 billion dollar debt<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Because like most secular and modern Western countries, the major leftist party is never as competent as you’d like them to be.<\/p>\n

So this coming weekend, Queenslanders are heading to the voting booths and all the polls suggest that the LNP are about to absolutely crush Labor and assume power for the first time in decades.\u00a0 Although their fortunes have marginally improved in recent weeks, at one stage it looked like Labor would only hold about 15 out of 89 seats, such is their poor standing with the Queensland public.\u00a0 Now they’re projected to get somewhere around 20-30.\u00a0 Incumbent Labor leader Anna Bligh isn’t even running a campaign on winning.\u00a0 She has effectively conceded defeat already.\u00a0 Instead she is running a campaign of ‘Please don’t kick out everyone<\/em> from Labor.\u00a0 Spare a few of us!<\/em>‘\u00a0 A message that is not really resonating with voters.<\/p>\n

But all is not as straight forward as it seems.\u00a0 For as much as Queenslanders have had enough of Labor’s mismanagement, they also…don’t really like LNP leader Campbell Newman.\u00a0 How much so?\u00a0 Well, right now, there is a very real chance he is going to lose the seat he is contesting in the electorate of Ashgrove to Labor member Kate Jones.\u00a0 So what happens if the Liberals get into power but their leader doesn’t have a seat?\u00a0 No one really knows<\/em>.<\/p>\n

An interesting sideshow to this election is Bob Katter and his Australian Party.\u00a0 Katter is the hard-right conservative candidate (did the nationalistic party name give it away?) who wants to represent regional Australia but mostly makes headlines for his brazenly homophobic rhetoric.\u00a0 He ran an attack ad on Campbell Newman for not being conservative enough<\/em> and questioned Newman’s gay-hatin’ credentials.\u00a0 The ad which was clearly designed to try and evoke revulsion at homosexuals was panned by the media and general public.<\/p>\n