By Denis Bright
Jessica van Vonderen’s interview with Premier Miles on 2 February 2024 was a launch pad for a more in-depth analysis of Queensland politics. Good critical news reporting as provided by ABC News introduces those structures of power and influence. From timber panelled offices at Parliament House and 1 William Street, cabinet ministers and trusted advisers steer reactions to topical incidents on our behalf.
As mentioned by ABC news reader Lexy Hamilton-Smith prior to Jessica van Vonderen’s interview with Premier Miles, the Queensland Labor Government is striving to provide cost-of-living relief to Queensland households. The Premier is also under pressure from reactions to climate change, crime and the delivery of health services and other major infrastructure commitments.
Milestones on the way forward are the local government elections across Queensland on 16 March 2024 with by-elections in Ipswich West and Inala on the same date. A good result in the Brisbane City Council election and local government elections in adjacent councils of Moreton Bay, Redcliffe, Redlands and Logan will provide a morale booster for either side of politics. The political stakes are particularly high in the weeks ahead.
Twelve years ago, Premier Can Do Campbell won the Queensland election for the LNP on an epic landslide to Queensland Conservatives with a 13.7 percent swing against Labor after preferences. There was a reduction of 15.6 percent in Labor’s primary vote with the loss of forty-four of Labor’s fifty-one state seats under challenge from the 2010 state election result.
Despite the eminent qualifications of the Treasurer and Financial Minister in the Bligh Government, ministerial advisers had panicked over conservative reactions to the budget deficits incurred during the GFC. Its impact had global proportions, but eyewitness news services focused on local debt issues. These concerns propelled both Premier Campbell Newman and Prime Minister Tony Abbott into Office.
Premier Miles noted that commitment to a 75 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2035 over prevailing emission levels in 2005 is in the best traditions of sustainable economic management and commitment to employment levels in new industries associated with alternative energy, advancement of hydrogen technology and the generation of lower cost electricity. There are commitments to provide cost-of-living relief for every household in Queensland during 2024 with particular emphasis on more disadvantaged households.
Premier Miles also promised a commitment to Tough on Crime Strategies. Such issues will be emphasized by the LNP in the Ipswich West by-election.
Official police data for the Ipswich Police District shows that crime rates as opposed to numbers of crimes have not increased so dramatically since 2000. Terrible incidents are still embedded in this data. However, the trendlines are not as alarming as claimed by the Murdoch Press, Sky News or other sensational media outlets.
There are variations in the rates of criminal offenses.
The Queensland Labor Government is striving for the right balance between responsible Tough on Crime Strategies and generation of local jobs, TAFE training programmes and new infrastructure options.
Communities such as the partially gentrified suburb of West End in Brisbane benefit when the corporate sector takes up Transport Oriented Development (TOD) initiatives at places like Montague Markets in West End, Brisbane are successful private sector initiatives:
Spacious shopping precincts with high profile retail anchors co-exist with professional health services and layers of medium rise housing units.
With significant support from government or its investment agency in the Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) could transform Top of Town in Ipswich to make survival easier for small business outlets. Despite the very best initiatives by small entrepreneurs and family businesses, more support from government and the corporate sector should be able to expand business opportunities.
Fringe benefits from these co-investment initiatives by government and the corporate sector could assist in delivering a new transport terminal for buses and trains to Top of Town, immediate action on the Springfield-Ipswich Transport Corridor, new inner-city social housing for Ipswich and initiatives in flood control measures and landscaping in the vicinity of Timothy Molony Oval closer to the Bremer River. The combined leadership talents of a more progressive Ipswich City Council and the possible arrival of Wendy Bourne as Labor member for Ipswich West with the former Labor member Jim Madden on the Ipswich Council as a representative for Division Four would ensure that those two levels of government are reading from a similar page-book.
Perusal of Treasurer Jim Chalmer’s Monthly Essay (February 2023) also endorses the commitment to New Keynesianism with all the resources available to the federal Labor Government.
In a time of serial disruption – to our economy, our society and our environment – the treasurer argues for the place of values and optimism in how we rethink capitalism:
In late October, just before the Albanese government’s first budget, a journalist I have known for two decades messaged me a quote from one of the earliest Greek philosophers, Heraclitus: “No man ever steps in the same river twice. For it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man.”
The “Washington Consensus” became shorthand to describe recommendations and orthodoxies for developing countries urged by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank – a reference to each institution’s proximity to the other in Washington, DC. Over time it became a caricature for ever more simplistic and uniform policy prescriptions for “more market, not less.” This school of thought assumed that markets would typically self-correct before disaster struck.
It’s clear now that the problem wasn’t so much more markets as poorly designed ones. Carefully constructed markets are a positive and powerful tool. As the influential economist Mariana Mazzucato has explored in her work, markets built in partnership through the efforts of business, labour and government are still the best mechanism we have to efficiently and effectively direct resources. But these considered and efficient markets were not what the old model delivered. And while the 2008 crisis finally exposed the illegitimacy of this approach, no fresh consensus has yet taken its place.
With the support offered by three levels of Labor administration, it is now time for Steven Miles to take the responsible policy plunge to save the State Labor Government from its Underdog Status as identified by the Premier himself in his epic interview with Jessica van Vonderen.
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