Queensland elections

It was maddening to hear a number of mainstream and lesser media organs come out observing that the Labor Party lost the recent Queensland election because of ex-Premier Anna Bligh's and ex-Treasurer, Andrew Fraser's counterintuitive and unpopular insistence on going ahead with privatisation and population growth policies, when you spent time recording the efforts of a man who continually tried to raise these issues and was preparing to run for election as an independent on these very matters in a major Brisbane seat. James Sinnamon was engaged in a long running campaign to raise the media profile of the Queensland public's right to choose on population and privatisation, when a terrible road accident removed him from active political life. Reviewing Laura Tingle's "Great Expectations in Quarterly Essay, June 2012, brings home the awful consequences of not having Australian political alternatives to canvass the selling off of institutions. See "Tingle shoots blanks despite great expectations." See also ABC markets new privatisation grab of public assets

James is on film grilling the then Queensland State Treasurer, Andrew Fraser about his failure to consider the financial and political costs of encouraging massive population growth in Queensland, and giving an election speech where he predicted the selling of Queensland Rail and Port among other assets. And he ran a battle on candobetter.net with the Queensland ETU, which he challenged to run an effective anti-privatisation program. James was planning to run against Arch Bevis in Mount Coot-ha in 2010, but instead spent months in hospital with severe head injuries after being knocked off his bicycle by a four wheel drive on a rarely frequented byway. James's removal from candidature on the issue of privatisation seems truly ironic because Bevis, who had held onto his seat through hell and high waters for years, finally lost it to the Liberals, simply because neither the Greens nor the Socialist Alliance nor the Democrats could bring themselves to offer the public an alternative on the obvious issues of privatisation and population policies in Queensland. James intended to run against Andrew Fraser in 2012 in the Federal election, but sadly, he was still in rehabilitation interstate.

It's a shame that apparently no-one thought to stand in any recent state election campaign explicitly opposed to the zombie economists' policy of privatisation. It seems as if Queenslanders' emphatic repudiation of privatisation at the 2012 state elections and the repudiation of privatisation in the 2011 NSW elections has at least helped to cause the Victorian Government to re-think some of its plans to sell-off the few public assets that Kennett didn't flog off.

In March the Baillieu Government announced that it intended to flog off the Port of Melbourne, but changed its mind anticipating the drubbing that the Queensland Labor Government of Anna Bligh was about to face on 28 March as a result of its privatisation policies. Whilst the sell-off of public assets seems to have slowed down, the sale of other Australian assets to foreign interests has gathered steam, including the sale of farmland to Qatar. [1]

More recently, the Baillieu Government has talked about charging tolls on public roads. James Sinnamon, May 2012.

Public institutions and services embody civil rights for Australians; their loss impacts on democracy as well as quality of life

Australians do not have a Civil Code that grants them rights defensible at law, unlike France and almost all European polities except for the United Kingdom. Australian rights were contained in public institutions that administered goods and services for Australians and were answerable to Australians. Such institutions were Telecom, a regulated banking industry and various Ports, Roads, Railways, public housing, electricity, gas and water. They were provided and maintained in exchange for income tax and subsidised, regulated payments. All such assets have either been diminished or completely sold off in trends that began during the Hawke-Keating era. (In some cases underfunding began earlier. Public housing is an example, where Primeminister Menzies, in the 1960s, began to reduce funding for public housing and to encourage private development, at the same time as he encouraged higher immigration.) When these insitutions and assets have been sold off, the rights they fulfilled have been abrogated or have completely disappeared. Now the services they provided can only be purchased and adequate basic resources including shelter, heating and water are now unaffordable to a widening group of Australians.

It was maddening to hear a number of mainstream and lesser media organs come out observing that the Labor Party lost the recent Queensland election because of ex-Premier Anna Bligh's and ex-Treasurer, Andrew Fraser's counterintuitive and unpopular insistence on going ahead with privatisation and population growth policies, when you have worked hard recording the efforts of one Queenslander independent who continually tried to raise these issues democratically and was willfully ignored by the mainstream media and the Queensland State Government.[2]

Until 18 May 2010, James Sinnamon was engaged in a long running preparation to raise the media profile of the Queensland public's right to choose on population and privatisation. A small portion of his efforts is recorded in four films on YouTube, of which the first is Part One of Privatisation and the Right to govern.

In Privatisation and the Right to Govern, (Parts 1, 2 and 3) Sinnamon goes one-to-one with the Queensland State Treasurer, Andrew Fraser, about Fraser's failure to consider the financial and political costs of encouraging massive population growth in Queensland.

In James Sinnamon's Privatisation Speech -Dave Zwolenski Launch, James predicts in detail the selling of Queensland Rail and Queensland Ports among other public assets.

James also ran a battle on candobetter.net with the Queensland ETU, challenging them to run an effective anti-privatisation program. They didn't like being shown up. See "If the unions get off their knees, privatisation can be stopped" and "ETU raises white flag in fight against Queensland fire sale - Why?" and "Labor wrecker of 2007 claims union anti-privatisation campaign a threat to re-election of federal Labor.".

Why James Sinnamon did not run for government in 2010 and 2012 on the privatisation issue

As mentioned above, James was planning to run against Labor's long-reigning Arch Bevis in Mount Coot-ha in 2010. Instead James spent months in hospital with severe head injuries after being knocked off his bicycle by a four wheel drive on a rarely frequented byway on May 18th. As noted, the ALP's Arch Bevis, who had held onto his seat through hell and high waters for years, finally lost it to the Liberals. The main reason was probably because neither the Greens nor the Socialist Alliance nor the Democrats could bring themselves to offer the public an alternative on the obvious issues of privatisation and population policies in Queensland. In failing to offer this alternative, all parties participating contributed to what Laura Tingle documents in "Great Expectations," Quarterly Essay, June 2012, as the bipartisan sacrifice of institutions by governments in Australia, leading to government loss of power to deliver government to the people in Australia. See http://candobetter.net/node/3003/.

James had also intended to run against Andrew Fraser in 2012 in the Federal election, but sadly, he was still in rehabilitation interstate.

Candobetter.net was James's creation as a tool in his long-run political reform program which had specific and broader aims. One of those aims was to bring real debate into Australian politics. It still is. James is still the owner of Candobetter.net and still contributing, although at a reduced rate and quantity. We continue to hope that he can return to a more active role in politics.

It was also ironic recently to read at http://www.workersliberty.org, on 2nd of April 2012 an article entitled "Queensland-labour-movement-should-call-refounding-conference," the following:

"Queensland ETU billboard poster. The ETU was the only union to campaign boldly against privatisation. But it did so in a way that was bound to be counter-productive politically, rather than by rousing the labour movement to overturn Bligh."

Ironic because James Sinnamon's campaign against privatisation had been ignored by Worker's Liberty, although he had been a long time activist on privatisation. It was also noticable that Workers' Liberty kept the mention of privatisation a long way down the article, preferring to precede it with motherhood stuff.

As mentioned above, James Sinnamon had challenged the ETU to lift its game on privatisation again and again, where Workers Liberty had remained completely silent on the issue. And, according to the record James kept, the ETU's campaign was anything but bold. Here is a link to the articles he wrote on the matter. ;
"ETU raises white flag in fight against Queensland fire sale - Why?" and
"Labor wrecker of 2007 claims union anti-privatisation campaign a threat to re-election of federal Labor"

Below is the transcript of one part of a three part film where James Sinnamon interviewed Andrew Fraser about privatisation and the costs of population growth. It is called, "Privatisation and the Right to Govern." Here is a link to the film.

Towards a better history of what really happened

SINNAMON: (continued from above) The second alternative that you haven't responded to is population growth.

Now, my letter from Anna Bligh read, said, that we are paying for ... um... we are selling the assets in order to pay for infrastructure that is necessary to cope with population growth.

Now it is the */choice/* of Queensland Government and Commonwealth Government to deliver the greater population. Back in 2005, Peter Beattie put in an advertisement in the Courier Mail newspaper that asked people to move interstate- move from interstate into Queensland. He never told the people that four or five years down the track, we were going to be paying for extra population growth by selling off the family silver.

FRASER: Well, James, in fact, the biggest population flows, rather than interstate migration, are, in fact, from overseas migration.

SINNAMON: That's right ...

FRASER: So, let me finish my point, please ...

FRASER (continues): and secondly from increase in the natural birth rate. And, I do not believe, as a nation, that we need to have Checkpoint Charlie set up at the Tweed River. It's not only unconstitutional; it's unAustralian. Secondly, I don't support having birth limits for Australians who want to start a family and the reality is that population growth is not a pre-determined government policy, but, the challenge is for us to deal with the population flows which are occurring. So we can't stop people from coming over the border from New South Wales and Victoria. The Federal government sets the migration policy. People are free to move about within Australia, and, thirdly, I don't support a population limit in terms of birth limits, so there is a challenge that needs to be dealt with.

SINNAMON: Both you and Anna Bligh came out after Kevin Rudd made the statement in favour of Australia's population increasing to ... um...I think the figure was 40 million by 2050 or something like that.

You both said, that 'We can meet the challenge' ...

And it's obvious - the newspapers - every day of the week - are full of stories about how the Queensland government has failed, completely failed to meet the challenge of past population growth.

Our streets are a schmozzle. We are being told that our rates and our electricity rates must go up; we must pay more for water, because we have to build more infrastructure to pay for the additional numbers that the Queensland government has deliberately encouraged to come here.

Now, if - ah - and then back in - when the auditor general's report came out and you - it slammed the Queensland government's management of health, management of transport, Anna Bligh stood up and said, "It's not my fault, it's the fault of population growth." And yet, when there's a raging debate about increasing Australia's population by another 60 per cent, both you and Anna Bligh came out and publicly said that we can rise to the challenge.

Other people who are responsible, who care about our future, recognise that there are limits to what water, what we can pay for, said, "This is not on, this has to be stopped." The fact is that the Queensland Government, at every point, has encouraged population growth and it hasn't told the public, 'if we grow the population of Queensland, then you've got to pay for that population growth with selling off the family silver.'

FRASER: The reality that we have to face, James, as we said very clearly in the public arena, is we have to make choices. There's not - There's a finite resource out there in terms of the ability to raise debt. You don't accept that; you agree with more and more debt. I don't. That's the starting point to the debate.

SINNAMON: No, I don't agree with more and more debt. I think there has to be a limit too. So I propose one way to limit ...

FRAZER: What's your limit?

SINNAMON: Stabilise population. And if we are paying [by] selling off our public assets ...

FRASER: Do you support cutting the migration intake, banning interstate migration, and capping the birth rate?

SINNAMON: I say start with stopping international immigration. I say that, if the Federal government is so irresponsible that they want to increase our population by 60 million, then our state governments have responsibility to say, "Hey, we are having to flog off our assets to pay for this."

We are ... and we had to find the money to build desalination plants because there won't be enough water for people to drink, if we don't ... I mean ... we need that point of leadership. Now, a few councils, like the Sunshine Coast council are trying very hard to put a population cap up there. The Queensland government is bent over backwards to make sure that that doesn't work. You know, they're over-ruling their ... um... Instead of supporting those councils they are using every possible opportunity, including this advertisement back in 2005 to actually encourage more people to come here.

You know, it's clear that the Queensland government has created the problem that it now says it has to solve by flogging off our assets. Which are opposed by 84 per cent under Beatty so that people were never asked about in the first place. They were never asked about population growth. They were never asked about flogging off our assets.

FRASER: [Note distortion of terms] I'm happy to have a public debate about whether or not people think we should cap the birth rate orwhether we should put Checkpoint Charlie up at the Tweed River. I happen to think that the community won't support it.

And neither do I. And neither does the government.

SINNAMON: Do you think that it's excusable to actually encourage population growth as well? I mean, we're not talking about "CheckpointCharlie", we're just simply saying that the population has increased to astronomical levels that already raise ...

FRASER: I think we need to be honest about what controlling population growth means, and that means migration controls ...

SINNAMON: That's right, yes.

FRASER: That mean's Checkpoint Charlie, and that means, capping the birth rate, and I don't support it.

SINNAMON: It means that ... okay... well, basically we disagree, don't we? I say any community has a right to say what numbers come in tot his community. I'm saying that, if the community has to go bankrupt, as you are basically saying we are...

You're saying, you're basically telling me, and Anna Bligh has said, that we have to sell-off the family silver, we have to pay for ever-higher electricity rates, we've got to pay more water ...

We've got to basically throw the Mary River people off their farms, and so on and so forth. It's just never ends - to pay for population growth.

#transcript3" id="transcript3">Privatisation and the Right to Govern - Part 3

Go to #part3">embedded video.

SINNAMON (from before):Now I think that the community are entitled to have those alternatives put to them.

FRASER: James, you and I have very different views on this and you exercised your democratic right to stand as an independent candidate in the last election and put those views into the arena. I also stood as a candidate and others did and others are welcome to in the future and I'm happy for the debate tocontinue from here on in, but I don't agree that the propositions you're putting forward are supported by the broader community.

SINNAMON: Well, what do you say to the fact that 84 per cent of the people oppose privatisation, and that they felt - 66 per cent felt - that they were misled in the last election?

FRASER: What I've said - what I'll say to you - is what I've said all day every day, and that is, we had to make a choice; none of the choices were easy: cutting wages, freezing wages, less teachers, less doctors, less school cleaners, when population's increasing. Or you can make a decision about those things that government has done in the past, but, needs to make a choice about whether we choose to fund new rolling stock and new railway lines for BHP and Rio Tinto or, whether we put it into schools and hospitals and other resources that only governments would provide. We're not selling - ah - the timber business as the whole land ... we're selling the right to mill the trees... They're sold anyway, so they're getting the right to mill the trees. That's what we're proposing to transact there. Those are just the elements of what we are doing in making a decision about doing those things that we need to do ... and those things that are the priorities of government. And, when it comes to it, investing in hospitals, investing in schools, investing in disability services, are all the things that we believe, as a Labor government, ... are the priorities over building infrastructure for commercial interests that are able to do it themselves. That's the essential choice that we had to make and it's the one we made.

SINNAMON: Are you going to stop encouraging population growth? Are you going to come out and tell the public, tell the government, that we are ...

FRASER: #NotEncouragingPopulationGrowth" id="NotEncouragingPopulationGrowth">We're not encouraging population growth, we're just dealing with the natural consequences.

SINNAMON: Why not tell the Queensland public that we are paying for the past population growth ...um... with selling our public assets and inall sorts of ways? And why don't you get up and say to the Queensland public that, if this continues, then, what prospect do we have of having anything left in another fifty years time?

FRASER: Well, the problem with your analysis, James, is that it doesn't accept the fact that we're proposing to put $15 billion worth of assets onto the market, from an asset base of more than $200 billion... and by the time we finish, the asset base will be over $250 billion. So, this year alone, we're building an $18 billion dollar infrastructure program which supports building the asset base. Now, the debate we're having here is about $15 billion, which represents ... ah... a component of just one year'sinvestment that we're undertaking. So, everything that we are proposing to put to the market facilitates the capital expansion of the state. Building more assets, each and every day, each year, into the future. And that's the bottom line.

Comment: If this were true, then it would count as a substantive argument for privatisation. As result of selling $14 billion worth of assets, the Queensland Government's asset base is increased from $200 billion to $250 billion. Part of the reason for this would lie in the fact that more infrastructure assets are needed for Queensland's increased population, anyway. MUch of the money is being openly raised by increasing the charges for services as discussed above, so would not be dependent upon asset sales. All the same the figures Fraser has provided don't seem right and need further scrutiny.

SINNAMON: Okay. This letter in the Courier Mail, Friday, said that you haven't yet released the business case for privatisation. When do youintend to do that?

FRASER: We've put the rationale into the broader public arena.

SINNAMON: The general business case, the actual hard figures that actually show the sort of thing the figures of John - Professor John Quiggin's been asking for. When do you intend to do that?

FRASER: Well I debated Mr Quiggin on radio on Friday.

SINNAMON: For five minutes. For all of five minutes. Hardly a debate, I would have thought.

FRASER: Well, I certainly was ... ah... happy to debate him. The reality is we've had to make this decision and all those ... ah... figures are in the public arena, all the entities have reported as government-owned corporations, and ultimately ... and ultimately, you proposed a different policy and platform at the elections, which didn't gain the support of the people. You're entitled to put your views, James, and I'm entitled to put mine.

SINNAMON: Yes, I that's a bit [??vague]. I think that if people realised that privatisation was up for ... was an issue at the last election it would have been a very different story. I don't think you would be treasurer today if people realised that you were going to sell off $14billion of their assets. And I don't think Anna Bligh would be Premier.

FRASER: Well, you're entitled to put your views, James, and you're entitled to ... ah... proceed with them. That's your perfect entitlement as a citizen and I respect that. I've allowed you to film and record this interview. Use it for whatever political purpose you like into the future.

SINNAMON: Just one other question, Andrew, if you're wrong, if you're proven wrong, and our leaders have been proven wrong every time about privatisation, particularly the privatisation of the retail arm of electricity ... where we were promised cheaper electricity. If you're proven wrong, four or five years down the track, just as the Federal government was proven wrong about privatisation of Telstra, what recourse will they have? How do we get out of the mess that will have been created, that most people believe will happen?

FRASER: James, ultimately, I believe that what we are doing is the right thing to do ...

SINNAMON: How do we ... You're not answering my question ...

FRASER (continues from above): and that what we are doing is the correct thing to do, and that's what's decided to do.

SINNAMON: How do we, what recourse do we have? We have no recourse against Peter Beattie who privatised Ergon without ourpermission ...

FRASER: The recourse as ever, is daily media scrutiny, the parliament, and election. That's the way it's always worked in Australia.

SINNAMON: We've had no recourse against Peter Beattie, who sold off the assets against our wishes and we're all paying higher electricityprices. We believe that the same will happen.

SINNAMON (continues): What recourse will we have when it all goes pear-shaped, as people believe?

FRASER: I'm happy to be accountable for all my decisions, James.

FRASER: Thanks for meeting.

SINNAMON: Yeah. Just as Peter Beattie is accountable today. You know, he's headed off and we're in hock because of the decision that he made today and we'll be [indecipherable] ...

FRASER: Well, I disagree with you. You're entitled as a political candidate to put your view and I'm entitled as a political candidate to put mine.

SINNAMON: Why won't you hold a referendum on this? People ... 84 per cent of people are against it, why can't people have the final say on privatisation? You haven't swayed me.

FRASER: Because we're elected to make decisions. We're elected to make the tough decisions.

SINNAMON: People oppose that decision. They have consistently opposed that. They have opposed every privatisation. 70 per cent ofpeople opposed the Telstra privatisation. I believe that you know that they would have opposed you and would have voted you out if they were aware that you ... if they had had any hint that you were going to privatise, and I think ...

FRASER: Well, James, you're advancing a contradictory thesis that ... um...that one time you're saying I did say that in the election campaign, and the second time ... the second part of your question is that I didn't. So you need to decide which accusation you're going to make against me and the government.

SINNAMON: No, I believe that you're [??indeciferable] ...

FRASER: You're a political candidate and you're entitled to your views. I need to progress, so thanks very much for coming along.

SINNAMON: Okay, well thank you for your time.

#DebateRequest" id="DebateRequest">Appendix 3: Correspondence concerning my request for a debate amongst candidates contesting Mount Coot-tha electorate

James Sinnamon took from Andrew Fraser's reply, that the 'candidate's forum' would be something approximating a debate. It turned out not to be. I was first speaker on the night and given only 10 minutes. No opportunity was provided for me to respond to Andrew Fraser's 'rebuttal' of my arguments against privatisation in my own speech.

His many other attempts to get Andrew Fraser to properly debate privatisation and the issues at stake in the elections can be found in "Open letter to Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser asking that any planned privatisations be put to the public at forthcoming elections" of 17 Feb 09, "Andrew Fraser's three different responses to a question on privatisation" of 17 Mar 09, "Brisbane ABC suppresses alternative candidates in state elections despite listener dismay with major parties" of 30 Apr 09.

NOTES

[1] Editor: This article adapts a comment by James Sinnamon to this site on 9 May 2012. That comment was adapted from one that James Sinnamon unsuccessfully attempted to post in response to article "Zombies reach Australia," on johnquiggin.com. He writes: 'Point 7 of that site's discussion policy (which I hadn't read) states: "Comments with large numbers of links will trigger spam filters and be rejected automatically". So it was deleted. Whilst this is understandable I still think this is unfortunate. The strength of the Internet is for material, particularly material arguing opposed viewpoints to be directly linked or else linked to from a single document, thereby allowing readers to more easily consider the comparative merits of contrary arguments. Solon and JFK would have surely agreed. That is why my articles and comments often contain a number of links. (At least I have been able to post a shorter comment from that page containing a link back to here.)'

[2] John-Paul Langbroek also challenged privatisation, calling for a public referendum on it. Perhaps that is why he lost the leadership of the Liberal Party with, incredibly, a total outsider with the same policies as the Queensland ALP, taking it over.See John-Paul Langbroek and why the Liberal National Party won't survive unless Labor Governments reform

What you won’t hear from Labor or Liberal spokespeople about the causes of the Queensland election result.
Cost of living has been given as a major cause of Labor's loss in the Queensland elections 2012, but the real reasons for these rising costs are skirted. The Liberals have even tried to pin these costs on taxes that have not yet been used. See also James Sinnamon's articles about privatisation and population policy in Queensland and how he tried to call the government, the unions, and the Greens to account on these well before the 2012 elections.

By Dr John Coulter, 28 March 2012
(Headings and illustration are by Candobetter editors).

Most surveys and commentaries have identified ‘cost of living’ pressures as one of the main factors leading to the collapse in Labor support in Queensland. But few commentators have sensibly analysed the reasons for rising living costs and some have mistakenly dismissed the clear link to Federal Government policy. Many Liberal commentators have wrongly tried to blame rising living costs on taxes which have not yet been implemented.

Objective evidence that living costs are rising

Queenslanders’ perception that living costs have been rising is supported by objective evidence; these rising costs apply across Australia and have been evident for some time. Ross Garnaut’s climate change update published in March 2011 pointed out that electricity prices had risen by 32% in real terms between 2007 and 2010 ‘well ahead of the general increase in prices and faster than growth in the average wage’(1). Household electricity prices have been rising faster than those in other advanced economies since 2007.

Electricity more expensive

Garnaut identified the cost of upgrading the electricity network as the ‘single largest cause of price rises’ accounting for about 68%. His Report recognised especially the low voltage distribution network which was requiring enormous expansion in order to service a rapidly increasing number of consumers. Thus Garnaut established that population growth was a major factor driving up electricity prices. He predicted that these costs would continue to rise presumably because governments continue to pursue polices of high population growth.

Water more expensive

What is true for electricity is also true for water. ABS data show a 10% increase in household water costs between 2008-9 and 2009-10, three times the average CPI and with very wide variation between states and regions. In a 2011 ABC news item Queensland Urban Utilities says the hike is necessary to pay for the $9 billion south-east Queensland water grid, an area of rapid population growth. Population growth has led NSW, Victoria, South Australia and WA to build desalination plants producing very expensive water.

Infrastructure does not pay for itself

And so it goes with a wide range of infrastructure services. New people, whether they be Australian born or immigrants, need roads and hospitals, schools and police, sewage and rubbish collection, electricity and water. The cost of these services is not instantaneously borne by these new people; they are borne by existing citizens or, as more frequently happens, infrastructure falls behind need and existing citizens suffer worse services. Roads, schools and hospitals become more congested.

Infrastructure does not last forever. It has been estimated that across all infrastructure, approximately 2% must be replaced each year just to maintain the existing level of service. Two years ago Australia’s population was growing at 2% per year meaning that we had to spend twice as much on infrastructure just to keep pace with population growth (2). In that year Infrastructure Australia estimated that we needed to spend $730 billion or approximately half our annual GDP just to get the country’s infrastructure up to scratch (3).

Privatising public assets to pay for population growth and still not managing

Fortunately, Australia’s rate of population growth has declined somewhat but is still running at 1.4%. Thus we must continue to spend 70% more on infrastructure, just to stand still, compared with what would be needed with a stable non-growing population. Anna Bligh sold public assets in an unsuccessful attempt to match new infrastructure requirements to population growth. She failed on both counts.

Australia does not need to grow its population. We are in a situation in which the costs of population growth outweigh any benefits. Those who do benefit are some of the business interests that make large donations to the two big parties. Herein lies an explanation why, with the exception of Kelvin Thomson (4), none of the Laborial members who have commented on the Queensland election have identified population growth as the reason for large cost of living increases and the demise of the Bligh Government.

Public are right that life is becoming harder in Australia

A second reason lies in the way the main economic indicator of progress and success (GDP growth) misleads and is used by governments to deliberately mislead. Most government spokespeople and most economic commentators use the glib euphemism ‘Standard of Living’ which, when linked to rising GDP, is used to imply that we have never had it so good. GDP is measured in dollars. It makes no distinction between money spent on things that positively improve life and money spent on avoiding the costs of growth. For example, as cities grow and more people live further from their place of work, the additional costs of transport add to GDP. These are costs masquerading as benefits. The increased costs of electricity and water mentioned above add to GDP. When better based, more comprehensive measures of economic progress are used, such as the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), we see that the latter has been falling further behind GDP since the mid-70s (5). In short, we really are becoming worse off!

It follows, the perception that the cost of living has risen steeply is well based. Life is becoming more difficult. Will the Liberal and Labor parties learn these two lessons: move to curb population growth and start using much better measures of social and economic progress? Until they do the electorate will become ever more angry, more disaffected by hollow political rhetoric and will continue to throw out governments that cannot deliver, governments that are steering toward the wrong goals.

References:

1.

Professor Ross Garnaut, Transforming the electricity sector, Climate Change Review Update 8,tinyurl.com/garnaut-review8
2.

Dr Jane O’Sullivan, http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10137&page=0
3.

Infrastructure Australia, June 2011 Report to COAG Communicating the Imperative for Action
4.

Sky News's AM Agenda on 26 March 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_18xEcPAPk&list=UUHJgaKR3Glj9bQW4VHYr35A&index=1&feature=plcp
5.

Dr Phillip Lawn, Senior Lecturer Environmental Economics, Flinders University, Personal Communication

Grounds are that the government failed to inform people during the last Queensland State elections of their intentions to privatise Queensland assets to the value of $15billion.

If you are a Queensland resident and Australian citizen, please sign the petition.List of Queensland e-petitions http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/EPetitions_QLD/CurrentEPetitions.aspx?LIndex=1

CURRENT E-PETITION
http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/EPetitions_QLD/CurrentEPetition.aspx?PetNum=1360&lIndex=-1
Subject:

Call for immediate resignation of the Queensland government and new
elections

Eligibility: Queensland Citizens
Sponsoring Member: Dorothy Pratt MP
Principal Petitioner: James Sinnamon
PO Box 86
RED HILL QLD 4059

Posting Date: 02/12/2009
Closing Date: 02/03/2010

TO: The Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland

Queensland citizens draws to the attention of the House the Queensland public, the rightful owners of $15 billion worth of assets which are to be sold, were denied any say over this because of the failure of the Queensland government to reveal those plans during the course of the elections. We consider the stated intention of the government to proceed with the sale in the face of opinion polls, which show at least 80% public opposition, to be amongst the most serious breaches of public trust imaginable.

Your petitioners, therefore, request the House to call upon the Queensland government to resign immediately to give the Queensland public a chance to elect a new Government which can gain its trust. Your petitioners also warn any private investors considering buying the assets, not to do so and call upon a future State government which does enjoy the trust and confidence of the Queensland people not to honour any such contracts for the sale of assets.

Madame the Mayor of Ambazac delivers her vote against privatisation of the French Post Office

In Australia we are watching the erosion of public services by changes to their statute ('authorities', 'corporations') turn into an avalanche of privatisation. The unions, who, by organising a general strike, could stop this rot almost immediately, bluster ever so quietly and shuffle symbolically.

We have seen outrageously undemocratic proceedings in the NSW parliament and in the Queensland elections.

In the first, Morris Iemma was finally toppled when the Labor Party which had placed him in power sacked him due to his perseverative campaign to privatise State Electricity despite the obvious disagreement of his party and the public and his own earlier promises. The unions and the ALP were remarkably slow and weak to resist this. The NSW Greens showed more leadership. In the end, the ALP did resist, but the person they replaced Iemma with - Rees - has persisted with privatisation moves and has gone ahead with other policies (here, for example) and here and here, quite shocking in nature and alien to Australian values.

In the second, the recent Queensland election (2009) the government consistently masked its policy and denied its intention to privatise more public assets. See "Queensland Elections". This democratic aberration met with almost no reporting from the mainstream media or resistance from other political parties. Even the Queensland Greens have been very weak on the privatisation of public assets in Queensland.

French democracy healthier than English-speaking countries' democracy

In France, democracy is doing much better. We bring this news to you to show you that the whole of the industrialised so-called "developed world" is not as enthralled by savage capitalism as Australia, America and Canada. The French (and most Western Europeans, except of course the down-trodden English) also don't suffer from politically engineered overpopulation and high immigration. [1] Yes, the French Revolution actually accomplished something useful and long-lasting between 1789 and 1846.

French Citizens organise nationally against road to Privatisation of the French Post Office

[Source: French News on France2 4 October 2009, 2000hrs]

In France the Government gave its assurance that, despite a mooted change of legal status, the French Postal Service (La Poste) will remain 100% public.

The Left doubted this and, at the beginning of October 2009, organised, with citizens, townhalls and unions, a national citizens vote via a National Committee against the Privatisation of the Post Office - ""Comité nationale contre la Privatisation de la Poste." See below for the signatories to the committee organising the citizens' vote.[2] Many or all of these votes were conducted in the local post offices themselves.

In the tiny village of Ambazac (Haute-Vienne) near Limoges, the 88 villagers voted 85 to 3 against privatisation of the Poste. The mayor delivered her own vote against privatisation publicly. She also said, "It would be unreasonable for a President of the Republic and a government to ignore the People's voice. In the rural region there are so many people who rely utterly on the public postal services."

The local postie took heart at the concerned and conscientious public reaction, which he could see taking place, since the ballot box was on the counter of the local post office.

All over France citizens voted in villages, towns and cities in this way.

French New Anti-Capitalist Party calls for Referendum on Privatisation

Responding to the news that already more than 2 million people had voted on the night of 4 October, Olivier Besancecot, spokesperson for the Anti-Capitalism Party (Le Nouveau Parti Anti-Capitaliste) in France called for a referendum based on the enormous participation in the activist-organised citizens' vote: "If there are many more than a million people who have shown the way on that issue then we have a right to a referendum as to whether people want to change the status of the post or not."

The dominant political party in a multi-party government, the UNP, said, via its spokesperson, Frederique LeFebvre, that it was all a beat-up and that the UNP was never going to privatise and that if there were a referendum, no-one in France would vote for privatisation.

The French socialist alliance mobilised against privatisation where Oz left weak and ambiguous

Unlike the left in Australia, the Socialist Party in France, along with the Unions and other political parties and presences of the Left has gone solidly to bat against privatisation of French assets.

If you can understand French, the
Video interview with Alexandre Canet, spokesperson for Rouen Socialist Party tells you that the Socialist Party (Parti Socialiste) has worked with other parties on the Left, with unions, and with local town halls to organise a citizens' vote on this matter.

The spokesman states (along with French subtitles) that "The change of statute represents a move towards privatisation, which would cause a deterioration in services."

Change of statute represents move towards privatisation: History of Privatisation process in Australia

The Hon Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG*, went to the trouble in 2006 to warn Australians about the dangers of privatization removing important government functions to a position beyond the laws made to administer them fairly.

Kirby said “The ‘commercialisation’ of the public sector means that isolating the activities and decisions of government from those of the private sector is becoming a more complicated, and sometimes, seemingly, an impossible exercise.”(p.3)

“The exercise of public power is fundamentally different in character to the making of a decision in a purely private context. Decisions are then being made on behalf of the people, typically involving the use of money raised from, and power derived from, the people. Higher standards of accountability and responsibility are therefore attached to the decisionmaker. Public power imports public accountability, including before the courts.” (p.4)

“This reduction in accountability is a result of removing control over day-to-day actions and decisions from the relevant Minister and government departments to private sector bodies whose ultimate legal responsibility is to their shareholders, rather than to the public interest more generally.” (p.6)

He goes on to describe the outcome of a series of cases involving the High Court where the law encountered problems in getting public accountability. This problem arose in NEAT Domestic Trading Pty Ltd v AWB Ltd (2003) 216 CLR 277. It involved officials of the Wheat Board who had refused six applications from another trader(NEAT) to export bulk wheat. The AWB had acquired through its creation by government, the power to prevent by veto bulk wheat exports from Australia. It could do this by withholding approval. The power to approve or veto exports normally belongs to a government body because it is a legal power. As such it is normally reviewable and controllable through the courts. That is, the judicial representatives of “we the public” can ensure that Australian trade is conducted fairly.

The outcome of this case was that Australians had lost the power to control the nation’s wheat exports by giving that power to this private body.

Source.

NOTES

[1]Note that, in Australia where there is another extraordinarily far-reaching undemocratic policy to politically engineer population growth on behalf of the corporate commercial sector, one man has stood up to this fatal policy - Kelvin Thomson.

[12] CFTC Postes et Télécommunications • Confédération CFTC • Fédération des Activités Postales et des Télécommunications CGT • CGT Finances • CGT Banque de France • Confédération CGT • Confédération Nationale du Travail CNT- PTT • Confédération Paysanne • FO Communication • FNEM FO Fédération nationale de l’énergie et des mines Force Ouvrière • Confédération FO • SUD Crédit Foncier • Fédération SUD PTT • FSU Fédération Syndicale Unitaire • SUD Caisses d’Epargne • Union Syndicale SOLIDAIRES • Fédération CNT-PTT • ACU (Association des communistes unitaires) • Alter Ecolo • Alternative Libertaire • ANECR Association Nationale des Elus Communistes et Républicains • CAP 21 Citoyenneté, Action, Participation pour le 21ème siècle • Club Gauche Avenir • CNCU Coordination Nationale des Collectifs Unitaires pour une Alternative au Libéralisme • Debout la République • Fédération des élu/es Verts et Ecologistes • La Fédération pour une alternative sociale et écologique • Fédération Nationale des Elus Socialistes Républicains • Gauche Unitaire • GUE/NGL Composante française du groupe de la Gauche Unie européenne/Gauche verte Nordique • Les Alternatifs • Les Objecteurs de Croissance • Les Verts • Mouvement de la Jeunesse Communiste • Mouvement des Jeunes Socialistes • MRC Mouvement Républicain et Citoyen • NPA Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste • PCF Parti Communiste Français • Parti Communiste Ouvrier Français • Parti de Gauche • PRG Parti Radical de Gauche • PS Parti Socialiste • République et Socialisme • Action Consommation • AFOC Association Force Ouvrière des Consommateurs • AITEC Association Internationale de Techniciens, Experts et Chercheurs • Amis de la Confédération paysanne • Confédération Paysanne • AC Agir contre le Chômage • APEIS Association Pour l’Emploi, l’Information, et la Solidarité • ATTAC • CNR Conseil National de la Résistance • Convergence des Collectifs de Défense et de Développement des Services Publics • DAL Droit au Logement • Fondation Copernic • INDECOSA CGT • IPAM Initiatives pour un Autre Monde • Jeunes Laïques et Solidaires • Jeunes Radicaux de Gauche • Marches Européennes • M’PEP Mouvement politique d’éducation populaire • Réseau Européen des Missions Publiques • Résistance Sociale • UFAL Union des Familles Laïques • UNEF Union nationale des Etudiants de France • UNRPA Union Nationale des Retraités et Personnes Agées

The following has been adapted from a leaflet (see attached as pdf file, 48K) handed out at the protest against privatisation outside the Queensland state Labor Party conference on Sunday 7 June 2009.

In what sort of 'democracy' can the clear wishes of the public be repeatedly ignored as they have by the Queensland 'Labor' Government since 1998?

Since Labor won office the following assets have been sold:

• The SGIO (1998);
• The Totalisator Agency Board (TAB) (1999);
• The Dalrymple Bay coal loader (2001);
• The retail arms of the Energex and Ergon electricity companies (2006);
• The Golden Casket state lottery agency (2007);
• Cairns, Mackay and Brisbane airports(2008);

Except where Peter Beattie broke his election promise to retain half ownership of the the SGIO (State Government Insurance Office, now known as SunCorp) the public were never consulted.

In the 2009 state elections, Queenslanders were once again denied their democratic right to decide the issue of privatisation by Anna Bligh's silence.

Public outcry against privatisation ignored

In recent weeks, the Queensland public has resoundingly rejected privatisation in letters to the editor, on talkback radio and online forums. 91% of respondents to a poll run by the Courier Mail answered 'no' the question "Should public assets be sold to balance the budget?'. Workers, threatened by privatisation, have protested, some even going on strike.

Anna Bligh has disregarded this outcry and, instead, obstinately pushed ahead, stating her intention to ignore the State Labor Party Conference should the vote go against privatisation.

Why privatisation can be stopped

Anna Bligh is not (yet) the ruler of a police state and can be stopped. However, for this to happen, we must be every bit as determined as she is. Many unionists and ordinary members of that public have shown that they have that determination:

"It is clear that successive Labor governments since Goss have grossly mismanaged this State's finances. It has no mandate to sell State Assets, The Government holds these as trustees for the people of Qld. It is time for The People; nearly 50% of whom did NOT vote for Labor to take to the streets and, dare I say it, support the Unions in their fight against this corrupt Labor Government."

"I hope you can sleep at night Ms Bligh and Co. as people that will be effected by this won't. And if the unions don't oppose this they will be doomed as well."

"... these assets belong to the QLD public and she has no right to sell any of them. Money hungry private sector companies will snap up our assets and then make us pay dearly. The unions need to try everything in their powers to stop these sales and as a GOC worker I will be more then happy to strike over this."(previous comments from Courier Mail online reader's comments page.)

"I'm not a union man, but if they are seriously planning to stop privatisation, they have my support." (from Courier Mail letters page, 5 Jun 09)

A prolonged campaign ...

Clearly many are looking to the unions to act decisively against the privatisation threat, yet, instead, some union officials are talking of a drawn out industrial campaign that could last up to two years.

This is insane!

If the union movement cannot win public support now, then when can we ever hope to win?

If decisive action is not taken early and, instead, the industrial campaign is drawn out, this will surely only make our fight harder.

If the privatisation legislation is carried by Parliament and the the Government has entered contracts with private companies, financial advisers, investment brokers, banks, etc, are we more or less likely to change the Government's mind with industrial action?

And how are we expected to maintain our drive and enthusiasm for two years?

... or decisive action now?

In fact, it should be possible to win the fight against privatisation without a single union member needing to down a tool for even an hour.

The Queensland Union movement could deliver to the Government a simple ultimatum: Either (A) withdraw completely the privatisation legislation or (B) agree to put the privatisation legislation to the people of Queensland through a referendum, or else face an immediate sustained campaign of industrial action and public protest until the legislation is withdrawn.

The union movement should also demand that Fraser and Bligh justify privatisation in a televised debate before the Queensland public.

Could any Government other than, possibly, the Burmese military junta dare proceed in the face of such an ultimatum?

What you can do

• Attend protests against privatisation outside Parliament House at 9:00am on Tuesday 16 June, the day that the Budget that is to contain the privatisation legislation, is to be put to the Queensland Parliament. Note: not on Monday 15 June as previously advertised;
• Contact your member of state Parliament, Labor, LNP or independent and ask him/her to vote on the floor of Parliament for a bill requiring that the privatisation be put to a referendum;
• If you are a member of the Labor Party, demand the disendorsement of each and every MP who votes against the Labor Party's anti-privatisation policy;
• At election time vote for candidates opposed to privatisation;
• Attend union meetings and support any industrial action against privatisation
• Write letters to the newspapers, phone talkback radio and state your support for this campaign on online forums.
• Stay in touch with others opposed to privatisation, including the author of this leaflet.

About James Sinnamon, the author of this leaflet

I am a community activist, concerned about democracy, workers' rights, economic justice and, above all, the parlous state of the world's environment.

I stood as an independent candidate in the state elections in order to give voters an opportunity to oppose privatisation at the ballot box, but was ignored by Queensland's pro-privatisation newsmedia, including even the ABC.

I administer web sites and write articles for those web sites about my concerns. These include candobetter.org and citizensagainstsellingtelstra.com. I encourage others, who share my concerns, to also contribute to those web sites.

I can be reached by e-mailing james[AT]candobetter.org of by phoning 0412 319669.

What you can do to prevent the theft of your property:
Sign the petition against privatisation;
Attend protests against privatisation at 9:00am on on Tuesday 16 June, the day that the Budget that is to contain the privatisation legislation is to be put to the Queensland Parliament. Note: not on Monday 15 June as previously advertised.

Brisbane's local ABC radio morning presenter Madonna King failed to use knowledge that she had in her hands that would have demolished Queensland Premier Bligh's excuse for not raising the issue of privatisation during the recent state elections. When I tried to phone the ABC to put this knowledge directly to the Premier, I was cut off.

See also: ABC's response in "ABC dismisses complaint claiming privatisation not 'newsworthy' in 2009 Queensland elections" of 10 Jun 09, "Brisbane ABC suppresses alternative candidates in state elections despite listener dismay with major parties" of 30 Apr 09, "Queensland Government has no mandate to privatise" of 27 May 09.

On the morning of Wednesday 28 May I heard Madonna King interviewing Queensland Premier Anna Bligh over her suddenly announced plans to privatise Queensland's publicly owned electricity generators, ports, railways and other assets.

When Madonna King asked Anna Bligh why she had not discussed her plans to privatise during the recent elections, the Premier claimed that the issue had not occurred to her.

For the Premier to have claimed that such a critical issue as privatisation would not have entered her head during the course of the election campaign would have truly been stretching he credulity of the ABC's listeners.

Almost certainly the real reason for her omission was that she knew that privatisation was overwhelmingly opposed by the Queensland public as even the editorial of Tuesday 26 May in the virulently pro-privatisation Courier Mail acknowledged:

"Predictably, (Premier Bligh and Treasurer Fraser) made no mention of this during the recent election campaign. This means they have either just come up with this idea in the face of worse-than-expected revenue figures, or, as is equally possible, they decided to wait until they were re-elected before unveiling a strategy that, if carried out, will almost certainly result in job losses."

In fact. Madonna King knew perfectly well that I, as a candidate, had attempted many times during the course of the election campaign to get both Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser to come clean with the Queensland electorate regarding privatisation during the course of the campaign. Indeed, only the previous day I had sent her a copy of a letter I had sent to the Courier Mail. In that letter, I wrote:

"I stood as an independent candidate against my local member and State Treasurer precisely because I believed that the electors of Queensland were entitled to express their opposition to privatisation at the ballot box.

"In fact, even before the elections were announced, I sent an e-mail on 17 February to both the Premier and Treasurer asking that any planned privatisations be put to the public at forthcoming elections. My letter was ignored.

"My repeated challenges to Anna Bligh, Andrew Fraser as well as Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg to defend privatisation in a public debate during the subsequent campaign were also ignored."

So, there could have been no possible excuse whatsoever for Premier Bligh not to have not mentioned the issue of privatisation during the elections, but in spite of having been repeatedly supplied this knowledge by me, Madonna King failed to put it to the Premier.

I attempted to phone the talkback line on 1300 22 612 in order to put this to the Premier.

When I phoned, I told them that I wanted to ask the Premier why my letter of 17 February was ignored and put to her that she therefore had no mandate to privatise.

I was thanked for my call, but after a few seconds, I was cut off.

I tried to dial again but found the lines engaged.

As I had already been treated poorly by the ABC during the course of the recent election campaign, it seemed likely to me that I had been deliberately cut off. So, during the day, I attempted to ring the ABC in order to establish whether or not this was the case. I left a message asking that I be called back, but was not contacted. I then posted the following letter to the ABC's feedback page:

"Hi,

"I'm trying to ascertain whether or not I was deliberately cut off, when I phoned in this morning to put a question to Premier Anna Bligh on the issue of privatisation.

"I wanted to ask her why she ignored my e-mail which asked her, prior to her calling the election, if she would inform Queenslanders of any plans to privatise any more of their assets during the election campaign.

"As Ms Bligh was trying to claim that the issue of privatisation had never occurred to her during the course of the campaign, I thought that this would be of utmost interest to your listeners.

"However, shortly after I was thanked for my call, I was cut off.

"I need to know whether or not this was deliberately done.

"So could someone please call me on ... so that I can know, from now on, whether or not I am welcome to express my views on Brisbane ABC local radio, in particular, Madonna Kings's Morning Show?

"I have already left a message to be called back and have tried unsuccessfully to dial 130022612 in order to be able to discuss this.

"Thank you.

"Yours sincerely,

"James Sinnamon

"Independent pro-democracy candidate
Mount Coot-tha electorate
Queensland State elections, March 2009
http://candobetter.org/QldElections"

See also: ABC's response in "ABC dismisses complaint claiming privatisation not 'newsworthy' in 2009 Queensland elections" of 10 Jun 09, "Brisbane ABC suppresses alternative candidates in state elections despite listener dismay with major parties" of 30 Apr 09, "Queensland Government has no mandate to privatise" of 27 May 09.

In response to the Queensland state Government's threat to conduct a "Shock Doctrine" style asset fire sale, James Sinnamon, who stood as an independent anti-privatisation candidate in the recent Queensland state elections wrote the following e-mail to the Murdoch-owned Courier Mail newspaper, which pointed out the Queensland Government had not gained any mandate to sell any publicly owned assets. Copies were sent to every state member of Parliament including Treasurer Andrew Fraser and Premier Anna Bligh.

Dear Editor,

In your editorial "Asset sales welcome but timing poor" (26 May) you wrote, "Predictably, (Premier Anna Bligh and Treasurer Andrew Fraser) made no mention of (their plans to sell off publicly owned assets) during the recent election campaign."

I stood as an independent candidate against my local member and State Treasurer precisely because I believed that the electors of Queensland were entitled to express their opposition to privatisation at the ballot box.

In fact, even before the elections were announced, I sent an e-mail on 17 February to both the Premier and Treasurer asking that any planned privatisations be put to the public at forthcoming elections. My letter was ignored.

My repeated challenges to Anna Bligh, Andrew Fraser as well as Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg to defend privatisation in a public debate during the subsequent campaign were also ignored.

I consider this treatment of myself and the Queensland electorate, whom they know full well to be overwhelmingly opposed to privatisation, unacceptable.

They must either immediately abandon these plans, or else call new elections so that the issue can be properly decided by the Queensland public.

At the very least they must be forced to properly justify the case for asset sales in a comprehensive televised public debate.

James Sinnamon,

Independent pro-democracy candidate
Mount Coot-tha electorate
Queensland State elections, March 2009
candobetter.org/QldElections

Update: (27 May 09) A Courier Mail online poll, published on 27 May had 91% of respondents answer 'No' to the question, "Should the state Government sell public assets to help the Budget?", with only 9% in favour. However, if past experience is anything to go by, the expressed wishes of even its own readership will scarcely cause the Courier Mail editors to bat an eyelid in pushing their pro-privatisation ideological barrow.

#letters" id="letters">Update: (27 May 09) Although the Courier Mail published a number of letters concerning privatisation, all opposed, mine was not included. The letters are:

Air of panic in a cash-strapped state

THE discussion by Treasurer Andrew Fraser and Premier Anna Bligh about the possible sale of public assets illustrated that they are in panic mode about the state's finances.

Off-loading assets, through the short-sighted polices of the Government, would leave a financial hole to trouble future generations of Queenslanders.

My comment: A good letter, but it may be possible to draw the implication from the letter, as it has been published, that the writer would not mind so much if assets when the price is better. This is what Andrew Fraser is claiming that he intends to do.

WHY would anyone think that getting rid of our stockpile of resources in an economic crisis is a good idea?

Did we not learn anything from the privatisation of Telstra? Gee, know, let's sell all of our assets, even though they are profitable and some of the only bargaining power we have left, federally, so we can continue spending money on fruitless pursuits and living in debt. Be realistic. We are not going to have improved health, transport, or education systems because we sell public assets. It's another short-term solution to save face in the public's eye. The Government does not have our interests at heart.

My comment: The Courier Mail and all the Murdoch newsmedia fully supported the Telstra privatisation and virtually every other privatisation. It clearly cares little for the wishes of even its own readership, who overwhelming oppose privatisation. It's online poll, published on 27 May had 91% of respondents answer 'No' to the question "Should the state Government sell public assets to help the Budget?"

NOT long ago the State Government was talking about borrowing massive amounts of money for infrastructure. Now Bligh and Fraser are talking of selling off assets to fund infrastructure. Why the sudden change of strategy?

They both should be honest and tell the public of Queensland the reason is not because it is a better strategy but that they can no longer borrow the money because of the drop in the state's credit rating. This means that they now have to pay an additional 2 per cent interest and even then no-one wants to lend them the cash.

The people of Queensland have a right what is going to appear in the Budget when those running the state are getting so desperate.

My comment: Whilst this writer is clearly opposes privatisation, he/she seems to accept because of the financial crisis, that there is no alternative but to sell. In fact, if corporations invariable borrow to buy publicly owned assets, why should a state government be any less able to borrow in order to prevent the sale of assets? A still better solution would be for the government to create its own bank and use it to lend it the necessary money. This is what the US state of North Dakota does. As a consequence, that state has a budget surplus and an economy that is much healthier than the economies of most other states.

HOW dare Bligh and Fraser even talk of selling state assets without asking the people of Queensland.

They are merely the temporary custodians of assets which we, a taxpayers, have spent years paying for. If they want to leave the future of our essential services to the whim of some corporate profiteer, they should ask the people, the real owners of the assets if they agree to the sale. Let's have a referendum.

My comment: My letter called for new elections, but a referendum would not be a bad idea.

IF the State Budget deficit id funded by the sale of public assets such as power stations, highways, water supplies and ports, how does the Government propose to fund future budget deficits once these public assets are gone?

Surely the time has arrived for a bit of belt-tightening instead.

My comment: Belt-tightening is always preferable to selling off them farm, but let's make those profiteers who got us into this mess tighten their belts the hardest.

THAT Premier Anna Bligh would consider a sales of some of Queensland's assets shows that not only has she run out of money, but also ideas. The only certain outcome is that the cost of income will increase significantly.

See also: "Open letter to Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser asking that any planned privatisations be put to the public at forthcoming elections" of 17 Feb 09, "Brisbane's local ABC radio fails to hold Anna Bligh to account over privatisation" of 28 May 09, "Brisbane ABC suppresses alternative candidates in state elections despite listener dismay with major parties" of 30 Apr 09.

Brisbane's local ABC radio station 612 disregarded its own listeners' expressed dissatisfaction with both the major parties when, during the 2009 Queensland state elections, it refused any air time to local independent candidates. Instead, virtually all the available time was given over to candidates from the governing Labor Party or the Opposition Liberal National Party, who even according to the ABC's own listeners, provided little useful information.

See also: ABC's response in "ABC dismisses complaint claiming privatisation not 'newsworthy' in 2009 Queensland elections" of 10 Jun 09, "Courier Mail, ABC back Department of Main Roads land grab" of 29 Mar 09, "Why the Brisbane Mayoral elections should not have been 'boring'" of 23 Mar 08, "Courier Mail provides 'boring', yet unbalanced, coverage of Brisbane City Council elections" of 17 Mar 09.

See also: ABC's response in "ABC dismisses complaint claiming privatisation not 'newsworthy' in 2009 Queensland elections" of 10 Jun 09, "Courier Mail, ABC back Department of Main Roads land grab" of 29 Mar 09, "Why the Brisbane Mayoral elections should not have been 'boring'" of 23 Mar 08, "Courier Mail provides 'boring', yet unbalanced, coverage of Brisbane City Council elections" of 17 Mar 09.

#PopulationElectionIssue" id="PopulationElectionIssue">Population-growth-driven chaos observed by ABC, but ignored as election issue

On Friday 20 March 2009, the last day of the hectically brief Queensland state election campaign, a listener phoned Brisbane ABC radio 612 to say:

"It would be a lot better if the Queensland Government would stop inviting people to come to Queensland."

The following morning, on the day of the actual elections, Tony Eastley, ABC radio's national AM program presenter, reported:

"... Transport is increasingly a problem because of the huge population that's coming to south-east Queensland. Thousands and thousands of people arrive each week in south-east Queensland to take up employment, searching for something new in their lives, and the infrastructure in those places has really struggled to keep pace.

"When we were down there the other day there's always road work going on, there's always something happening, and I think people just genuinely get frustrated. Anyone listening to this program who lives in a city knows that there's an ongoing battle between what you want and what you get in cities as far as infrastructure goes."_#main-fn1">1

The fact that the Queensland Government had deliberately encouraged the population growth that had needlessly resulted in the "ongoing battle between what you want and what you get," as Tony Eastley had put it, and fully intended to continue doing so_#main-fn2">2, should have been a hot issue in the election campaign.

However, the Queensland Opposition is every bit as committed to the reckless encouragement of population growth as the Government,_#main-fn3">3 although this has not prevented it from taking cheap political shots at the Government for the problem of traffic congestion mentioned by Eastley and other problems that simply would not exist but for past population growth.

The Queensland Greens, on paper, stood opposed to population growth, but said nothing about it during the election campaign._#main-fn4">4

So that only left myself, and possibly a few other independents, who were prepared to speak out against population growth. None were approached by the ABC as far as I could tell. Even though I had sent a lot of material on population growth, the ABC ignored the issue or ignored me.

This meant that the majority of Queenslanders opposed to population growth, were kept ignorant by the ABC of how to express those views at the ballot box.

#InformationNeeded" id="InformationNeeded">Voters' wishes for information on alternatives to the two major parties ignored

During the elections there was abundant evidence of voter dissatisfaction with both the ruling Labor Party and the Opposition Liberal National Party. Population would have been one of many factors.

On 6 March, the Courier Mail newspaper's Galaxy Poll showed that 56% of voters did not believe that the Labor Government deserved to be re-elected. 57% of voters did not believe the Opposition Liberal National Party (LNP) deserved to win. Immediately prior to the date of the elections, two weeks later, on Friday 20 March, the same poll showed that attitudes had barely changed. 57% of voters believed that the LNP did not deserve to win and 57% believed that Labor did not deserve to win.

These poll results were confirmed throughout the election campaign by many listeners' calls to the ABC's local Brisbane Radio station 612.

One listener objected to the LNP because they supported Uranium mining, but he said he didn't like the Labor party either. Another said she would be voting for the LNP, but not because she liked the LNP, only because she saw it is preferable to Labor. Still another stated, "None of them are any good."

One listener stated that he wanted to vote for a good independent and explicitly asked that more information be provided.

The fact that most of their listeners had expressed dissatisfaction with the major parties did not deter the ABC from devoting nearly all the available election coverage to those same major parties -- usually state government ministers and shadow ministers -- and to almost no-one else.

Of what was said on air by the major party spokespersons, one listener complained, "they come on and waffle on and on." That they had indeed waffled on, and that the ABC had wasted its listeners' time was further confirmed immediately after the elections.

On the Monday 23 March, at least two listeners phoned in to say that the ABC had provided them with insufficient policy detail about the major party candidates. One of them stated that she consequently voted for Anna Bligh only on the basis of her having been depicted well in a personal light in interview with her husband (referred to also below).

#DisdainForIndependents" id="DisdainForIndependents">Open ABC disdain for independent candidates

It was incumbent on the taxpayer-funded ABC to encourage any independent candidate who overcame Anna Bligh's engineered time constraints and had information ready for the voting public despite often limited campaign budgets. Instead, one ABC presenter effectively ridiculed an independent candidate before her audiences on one occasion, when, on Friday 20 March, the day before the elections, a morning presenter_#main-fn5">5 told listeners of an independent candidate who had only managed to release his policy statement the previous day. Then she remarked:

"They're leaving their pitch until a little late, aren't they?"

No useful information was given to the audience about that candidate.

#RequestsIgnored" id="RequestsIgnored">Requests for air time ignored

In fact, one candidate, namely me, had provided the ABC with plenty of information, and in plenty of time, but the ABC presenter neglected to tell her audience this.

I was not given air-time and the information I made available was not used, in spite of its clear relevance to concerns expressed by ABC listeners during the election campaign.

Although I presented it to the ABC through e-mails, media releases, text messages, telephone calls and even a printed brochure, delivered to the studio on Saturday, one week before the elections, no information was passed on to the public. Nor did the ABC give me any opportunity to put that information to voters myself. If any other candidate also campaigned actively for those policies, they certainly got no exposure either.

The total return on all my efforts was only two tiny instances of exposure (see, also, below):

• When I phoned in around 8.00am on Monday 9 March, I was able to introduce myself as an independent candidate for Mount Coot-tha and then announce a 'meet the candidates' night for my electorate scheduled for Monday 16 March;
• After the 10:00am news Friday 13 March, Madonna King put to Andrew Fraser a question on my behalf: Would he commit himself to not privatising any more Government owned assets? His response to that question, which I considered unsatisfactory, was accepted without further pursuit.

#SpuriousJustifications" id="SpuriousJustifications">Spurious justifications for refusal of air time

On the two occasions I spoke to ABC staff to request more time, they protested that I had had more than a fair amount of coverage. They argued that they could not allocate air-time to every independent candidate.

However it was Anna Bligh's decision_#main-fn6">6, and not mine to hold an early election of less than four weeks duration.

So, far from compensating the electorate for Anna Bligh's own decision, the ABC lavished her and other Labor candidates with air-time. At the same time the ABC seemed to go out of its way to ensure no Greens or independents like me, might challenge her policies with substantially new or different ones.

The ABC even found time to broadcast an interview with Anna Bligh's husband Greg Withers, who, unsurprisingly, depicted Anna Bligh sympathetically, but gave no useful policy information._#main-fn7">7

Thus the ABC, the nation's public, tax-paid broadcaster, utterly failed to disseminate vital information to taxpayers on the core business of government - a state election. It did not just fail; it seemed to present an obstacle to a real election choice.

Much of the little time scheduled for election coverage was often taken up with other stories of little practical relevance to ordinary voters. For instance, one session discussed an article by Murdoch journalist, Glen Milne, in the Australian,_#main-fn8">8 which advocated that Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman join the campaign on Lawrence Springborg's side. Whilst the article may have held interest for LNP strategists, it is clear that these sorts of programming decisions prevented many of the ABC's listeners from being able to arrive at informed decisions when they voted.

Why didn't the ABC schedule enough time to interview all the candidates? In fact, that is the policy of the ABC's local Adelaide Radio Station. On 22 Mar 09 the following was posted to a forum discussion:

"Here in South Australia, we enjoy the award winning ABC 891 Adelaide who make a feature of giving all the independents adequate time to present their policies and issues.

"Listeners obviously appreciate being fully informed, a fact which seems to have gone over the heads of ABC 612."_#main-fn9">9

If it could be done in Adelaide, then why not also in Brisbane?

#MyApproaches" id="MyApproaches">Madonna King refuses to hold Labor Government to account for public asset fire sale ...

As part of my efforts to obtain air time on the ABC, I sent a number of ABC presenters, including Madonna King, copies of an e-mail concerning privatisation, which I had sent to Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser (see #appendix3">Appendix 3).

The e-mail pointed out that a large number of publicly owned assets had been privatised since the Labor Party won government in 1998, but that those privatisations had not been put to the Queensland public at election times, nor had the public been consulted in any other way. I concluded the letter as follows:

"If the public had been consulted, none of these privatisations would have occurred and the Queensland public would have been spared the harm caused to them.

"I therefore ask that you give, to the Queensland public, a categorical assurance that you will not privatise any more assets during the coming Parliamentary term.

"If you are not prepared to give such an assurance, then privatisation is an issue at stake in these elections and should be openly discussed.

"Accordingly, I would ask that, as a candidate opposed to privatisation, you justify your stance before the Queensland public in a debate_{#main-fn10">10} with me.

On the following day, Friday 13 March, when I heard that Andrew Fraser was to be interviewed by Madonna King, I created the text message which follows as fast as I could and sent it off as the interview was proceeding:

"James Sinnamon, Independent for Mount Coot-tha asks: Why weren't Qld public consulted about privatisation of Brisbane, Mackay Cairns airports, Energex, etc?"

It turned out that Madonna King had already decided to put a question to Andrew Fraser on my behalf as James Sinnamon, an Independent candidate for Mount Coot-tha. She asked him:_{#main-fn11">11} would he commit himself to not privatising further Government-owned assets?

Andrew Fraser responded by telling listeners that he had already sent me a letter in response to my question.

In fact, no posted letter ever arrived and I only received an e-mail later that day, which means that it could not have been sent at the time Andrew Fraser claimed. The e-mail actually arrived three and a half weeks after I had first e-mailed my question to Andrew Fraser._{#main-fn12">12}

Any impression audiences may have received that Andrew Fraser was in this case responsive to the concerns of his detractors, would have been misleading, in fact.

Mr Fraser then claimed that the Government had no plans to privatise more assets and that he was ideologically opposed to privatisation.

Nothing further was asked by Madonna King concerning privatisation.

None of the many other facts contained in my e-mail, my text message, or my web site, were put to Andrew Fraser. The fact that he neither made the firm commitment I was seeking, nor agreed to defend his stance in a public debate, was not pointed out to the audience. The interviewer did not confront him with the general failure in the previous election to consult the public about the privatisations which had followed, including Mr Fraser's own enactment of airport privatisations. Nor did she put to him that the public overwhelmingly opposes privatisation.

To my knowledge, that was the only time during the whole election campaign, that I am aware of, that the ABC ever raised the issue of privatisation with the Labor Government, although the ABC's listeners did raise it themselves on a few occasions.

After I received the promised letter from Andrew Fraser, I found its contents differed significantly from his account on the ABC. At one point the letter stated:

"We will only ever agree to such sales where there are demonstrable benefits to the Queensland community."

This was clearly different to Fraser's stated claim that he had "no plans to privatise" and it obviously fell even further short of the assurance I had been seeking.

At the end, his letter stated:

"We ... will not pursue an ideologically driven agenda of privatisation."_{#main-fn13">13}

Again different to Mr Fraser's claim that he was "ideologically opposed to privatisation".

I believe that I was entitled to air time on the ABC, to rectify that misinformation.

However, my subsequent e-mailed requests for more time were also ignored.(see Appendices #appendix8">8 and #appendix9">9)

My e-mail to Andrew Fraser and Anna Bligh (see #appendix6">Appendix 6 ), CC'd to Kellie Riordan and Madonna King, pointing out Mr Fraser's self-contradiction and re-affirming my challenge to debate him on privatisation, was also ignored by all recipients.

#ElectricityShambles" id="ElectricityShambles">... but proves capable of asking hard questions when she chooses to

In contrast to her lightweight handling of Andrew Fraser on privatisation, the following week, on Wednesday 18 March, Madonna King showed that she could, when she applied herself, nail politicians down with their own words.

A listener called in to ask if Anna Bligh was prepared to apologise to electricity consumers for promising them that electricity charges would not go up as a result of privatisation of Energex - the retail arm of the state's electricity service, when, in fact, they had faced massive hikes, with the caller's own annual electricity having risen by $450.

Anna Bligh did not apologise. Instead, she claimed that she merely promised that no-one would have been any worse off than they otherwise would have been (which, if it had been made at the time, would have been regarded as the meaningless guarantee that it was). She attributed much of the increases to the need to build more electricity infrastructure (which would have been unnecessary if she had not encouraged #PopulationElectionIssue">population growth, although she neglected to mention this).

Madonna King confronted Bligh with the question:

"Are you absolutely sure that you didn't say that it would be cheaper?"

Anna Bligh responded:

"I didn't say that."

The next day, Anna Bligh's words from Hansard of 28 Sep 2005 and which had been looked up by a researcher from the LNP were quoted by Madonna King:

"Most importantly, it does not matter where you live, nobody--not one Queenslander--will be worse off under the government's proposal."

So, whilst no evidence that Anna Bligh had explicitly told the Queensland public that electricity prices would be cheaper was found, her guarantee that nobody would be worse off had been unconditional and it would have appeared that Queensland consumers were, after all, entitled to the apology that had been asked of Anna Bligh.

Over the following days, the ABC rightly reminded its listeners of this.

If Madonna King could have held Anna Bligh to account on that one issue, then why not on others, and why not also with Andrew Fraser on the issue of privatisation, when she had all the information provided by me at her finger tips?

The fact, that the link to the question put to Andrew Fraser about privatisation the previous week, which should have been blindingly obvious, was not pointed out to the ABC's audience, contributes to the impression that these rare examples where politicians are asked truly hard questions are part of a token, rather than systematic approach.

#GoalPostsShifted" id="GoalPostsShifted">The ABC shifts the goal posts

On the morning of Monday 16 March, I received a mobile phone voice message from Kellie Riordan, the ABC Radio's news director. The message advised me once again that they could not give me any more time than I had already been given. However, if I sent them anything that could be considered newsworthy, I might stand a chance.

I sent an e-mail back (see #appendix9">Appendix 9) restating that I believed that I was entitled to time, anyway, in the circumstances, but that I would do my best to provide material that was newsworthy.

The following day, I sent a media release "Andrew Fraser's three different responses to a question on privatisation" (see #appendix10">Appendix 10) to Kellie Riordan and other ABC staff, but they still did not report it and they still failed to give me air time.

During the rest of that last week before the election I sent to the ABC's Brisbane radio station:

• On Wednesday, an e-mail to Madonna King asking for air time in response to listeners' expressed dissatisfaction with major party candidates (see #appendix11">Appendix 11);
• On Thursday, an e-mail asking that they publicise a survey sent to all candidates I could reach and the responses to which had been published on my web site (see #appendix12">Appendix 12).
• On Thursday, a text message sent at the time Lawrence Springborg was being interviewed: "Could u ask Mr Springborg if he would agree to respond to my survey at candobetter.org/qldelections/survey ? James Sinnamon ind 4 mt coot-tha"
• On Thursday, an e-mail to Lawrence Springborg challenging him to defend the pro-privatisation view that he had espoused in an interview in a public debate (see #appendix13">Appendix 13), which was CC'd to the ABC;
• On Friday, a media release about my challenge to debate Lawrence Springborg (see #appendix14">Appendix 14);

All of these communications were ignored. None were used in any news broadcasts as far as I am aware and no air time was given to me as a result.

#SurveyIgnored" id="SurveyIgnored">Survey ignored

The survey mentioned above was to inform voters of candidates' attitudes towards the issue of privatisation and population growth, mentioned previously, as well as:

• Premier Bligh's plans to triple Queensland's already record levels of coal exports by 2030 entailing the destruction of agricultural land and nature refuges;
• the construction of a second massive Chinese-owned aluminium smelter in addition to the existing smelter at Gladstone;
• making access to affordable housing and water a human right; and
• a government sponsored full-employment program.

The list was not comprehensive, but, nevertheless covered a good many more important issues that I believe the Queensland public had a right to be informed about before they voted.

Evidently, the ABC did not agree.

I had set it it up to make it as easy as possible for any voter to quickly work out where each candidate standing in his electorate stood on each of these issues. I included a table with an entry for each candidate in each electorate. Where a candidate would not have been able to simply provide a 'yes', 'no' or 'undecided' to any of the questions, a further column included a link to another page containing comments.

By the morning of 19 March I had received responses to the survey from some of the Greens and Independents and had published them. Although not one major party candidate had answered and although the ground covered by the survey was far from complete it was a start and provided an opportunity for voters to gain more vital knowledge of the candidates' policies. Had other politicians been encouraged to respond to the questionnaire and had its existence been made known, it would have filled a major deficit in electoral policy information.

As I have said above, I sent an e-mail (see #appendix12">Appendix 12) to Madonna King and other presenters on Thursday 19 April, advising her of the survey. I also asked that the ABC use its influence to prevail upon the major parties to respond and, on the following day, a text message was sent whilst Lawrence Springborg was being interviewed.

Even the fact that on Thursday morning the ABC's own listeners had, yet again, expressed their dissatisfaction with the major parties and had asked for information on alternative candidates, as I pointed out in the e-mail, failed to galvanise our public broadcaster.

#DaveZwolenski" id="DaveZwolenski">Dave Zwolenski's campaign material also not good enough for the ABC

Dave Zwolenksi stood as an independent candidate in the same electorate in which I stood. He campaigned on the more limited, but, nevertheless, important platform of total truthfulness and openness in our politicians. During the campaign he produce some polished and original material included a media release, posters and a YouTube video.

In the YouTube video, he appeared in a succession of scenes in the Mount Coot-tha electorate, each progressively closer to the Queensland Parliament, itself not far outside the electorate. In each successive scene, he takes off more and more clothes. In the final scene, he removes his pants and stands stark naked, although with an electronic equivalent of a figleaf in from of him, in front of the Queensland Parliament as a metaphor for the openness for which he was campaigning.

This campaign was also totally ignored by the ABC as well as by nearly all of the rest of newsmedia._{#main-fn14">14}

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that the ABC never seriously intended giving substantial air time to me or any other independent candidate. Had they had the courtesy to say so at the outset, then I could have used the time I had spent trying to get air time on the public broadcaster more productively elsewhere.

#VotersRightsDenied" id="VotersRightsDenied">ABC's election coverage denies voters the right to hold elected representatives to account

Democracy was famously defined by US President Abraham Lincoln during his address following the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 as "government of the people by the people for the people."

In Australia, in the early 21st century, democracy has been effectively redefined by the mass media to mean something far more limited. It has come to mean no more than the right of the electorate to decide, every three or four years, which of the two major parties, promoted by Australia's corporate elite, may make the sweeping decisions they claim via the mainstream media to be in the electorate's best interests.

In the intervening period between elections, voters have practically no right to influence what the elected government can and cannot do.

Even during the elections only a small subset of policy areas is ever discussed. In the 2004 federal elections, as examples, Prime Minister John Howard made no mention of his plans to savagely attack the wages and conditions of ordinary workers with his so-called "Work Choices" legislation, and discussion of his plans to fully privatise Telstra was almost completely avoided. In the 2009 Queensland state elections, the issues covered were mostly limited to fiscal management, health, road transport (but not public transport), water, and power supply and only within very restricted parameters.

In effect, this means that the public are usually left with very little to choose from between the major parties when they reach the polling booth and are largely ignorant of candidates, like me, who question the status quo.

This practically guarantees that politicians who have poorly served their constituents will continue to be re-elected or, at worst, only be replaced occasionally by one from the other major party who is unlikely to be any better. New candidates stand hardly any chance of being heard, let alone winning.

This is how the ABC has itself largely brought about the circumstances of which its own listeners complain, that is, about how they are ruled by governments that 57% don't believe deserve to rule.

In the past, the ABC in Queensland was rightly viewed as a fierce and independent critic of the state government, particularly during the Bjelke-Petersen years. However this is no longer the case. The ABC is no longer part of the solution. It has become part of the problem.

#appendix1" id="appendix1">Appendix 1: E-mail of Fri 6 Mar 09 to Kellie Riordan requesting air time

Subject: Air time on ABC 612 for independent candidate for Mount Coot-tha?

Dear Kellie Riordan/Anna Reynolds,

Could you tell me what my prospects are to have air time on the ABC in these coming two weeks?

I am essentially available at any time.

Whilst I am slow off the mark, you will find some information about my campaign at http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha http://candobetter.org/QldElections.

There's more about me on my home page, included below.

Throughout the years I have been interviewed on radio, mostly on the issue of privatisation of Telstra(1). I also stood as candidate for Lord Mayor and was interviewed once last year in the studio at Lissner Street.

If you know of anyone else you think may be interested, please let me know. Also, please feel welcome to pass on my contact details to such people.

Best regards,

James Sinnamon
Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
james -dot- sinnamon |AT| gmail -dot- com
0412 319669
http://candobetter.org/james

1. Some information (although now largely dated) can be found at http://citizensagainstsellingtelstra.com.

#appendix2" id="appendix2">Appendix 2: E-mail of Tue 10 Mar 09 to Madonna King requesting air time

Subject: Please give more air time to discuss election issues of substance

CC'd to Kellie Riordan, Richard Fidler and Spencer Howson.

Dear Madonna King,

I believe that yesterday's discussion on whether or not Lord Mayor Campbell Newman should enter the Queensland election campaign could have been better spent discussing issues of substance at stake in the elections.

In my view far too much air time and newspaper column inches has been given in recent years to topics which, whilst of interest to members of the LNP and Labor Parties, hold far less interest to members of the broader public.

I am an independent candidate contesting the seat of Mount Coot-tha. I am standing, in part to raise, before the broader public, issues of critical importance which I believe are at stake in this election, but which are not being adequately covered by the newsmedia.

These include:

* Privatisation, of which my electoral opponent Treasurer Andrew Fraser has been principle architect.

* The run away housing unaffordability crisis, which is literally impoverishing many Brisbane people, including even well-paid professionals (such as a surveyor who lives near me who had to cancel his annual flight back to Europe because of recent rent increases).

* The destruction of businesses in Inner city Brisbane also due to excessive rental increases. Only the weekend before last week the Baboa Art Gallery, which had operated on Latrobe Terrace Paddington for only two and a half years had to close its doors because its rent had doubled in that time. On Monday last week I walked by to see the interior of the Gallery, carefully constructed by its operator Joan Winter only two an a half years earlier already destroyed by workmen in preparation for the next tenant.

Since early 2008, virtually a whole retail community further down Latrobe Street closer to Given Terrace has been similarly wiped out by rent increases, actively encouraged by local real estate agents.

I could not recognise a single business that had been there when I wrote and talked of it during the Brisbane City Council elections as Lord Mayoral candidate (See "Rent gouging threatens Brisbane inner city retail community" at http://candobetter.org/node/360).

* Population Growth, which is the principle driver of all our social, environmental and economic problems (including housing unaffordability).

* The despoliation of Queensland's natural habitat (see "Coal mine threatens Queensland Nature Refuge" at http://candobetter.org/node/1129) and the rest of the world by Queensland's mining industry. (see "Why I am contesting the Queensland state elections as an independent").

* etc., etc, etc.

I think if you or other ABC presenters can find the time to interview me about these issues and others I have raised in my article "Why I am contesting the Queensland state elections as an independent" at:

http://candobetter.org/node/1121
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

... your listeners will be very grateful.

yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
http://candobetter.org/james

#appendix3" id="appendix3">Appendix 3: E-mail of Thu 12 Mar 09 to Premier Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser

Subject: Independent candidate seeks assurance from Government against any further privatisations

CC'd to: Madonna King, Kellie Riordan, Spencer Howson, Annie Guest, Lawrence Springborg and others.

Dear Premier Anna Bligh and Treasurer Andrew Fraser,

In the letter I sent to both of you on 17 February, before the elections were called I asked for "your firm assurance that if you do intend to privatise any (publicly owned) assets that you state your intention to do so to the public before the forthcoming elections, or, alternatively, that you will put any planned privatisations to the public at referenda."

I have still not received that simple assurance.

I ask this because I believe that, in a democracy, the public should be consulted by their elected representatives about all questions that will affect their lives, particularly decisions the (claimed) need for which can be easily foreseen.

However, as you are both surely well aware, the Queensland public has never been consulted about any of the numerous privatisations that have occurred since your Government came to power, starting with the full privatisation of the already partially privatised State Government Insurance Office (SGIO - now called SunCorp) in 1998 against a specific election promise made by former Premier Peter Beattie.

Had the Government retained ownership, or at least partial ownership, then at least one insurance company could have been directed by your government not to have resorted to the unconscionable business practices that have been described on the Madonna King radio show over the last two days.

Other privatisations, which have been imposed on the Queensland public since
then include:

* The remaining government stake in Brisbane airport in 2009

* Cairns Airport in 2009

* Mackay Airport in 2008

* The Qld Government's stake in the Emu Downs wind farm in Western Australia in 2008;

* The Enertex (not be confused with Energex) gas business in 2008;

* The Golden Casket state lottery agency in 2007;

* Ergon Gas in 2006;

* Energex, the retail arm of Queensland's electricity generation utility in 2006;

* the Dalrymple Bay coal loader in 2001

* TAB in 1999

I believe all have been detrimental to the public interest and some, including the privatisations of Energex, Ergon, the Dalrymple Bay coal loader and the SGIO, as discussed above, have been indisputably disastrous.

If the public had been consulted, none of these privatisations would have occurred and the Queensland public would have been spared the harm caused to them.

I therefore ask that you give, to the Queensland public, a categorical assurance that you will not privatise any more assets during the coming Parliamentary term.

If you are not prepared to give such an assurance, then privatisation is an issue at stake in these elections and should be openly discussed.

Accordingly, I would ask that, as a candidate opposed to privatisation, that you justify your stance before the Queensland public in a debate with me.

Yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
http://candobetter.org/james
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

#appendix4" id="appendix4">Appendix 4: E-mail of Thu 12 Mar 09 requesting air time

Subject: The prospects of air time discuss privatisation, population growth, climate-changing coal exports, etc.

Dear Kellie,

I tried to phone today to find out whether or not I was likely to get air time on ABC 612 in the coming days.

I believe that the issues I want to raise are of immense interest to the Queensland public.

It seems to have been implied that because I was heard once on the radio at Breakfast show I should not be heard again before the elections.

If that is what has been decided, then I think that that would be a mistaken decision, that is, unless you are giving air time to other candidates, who are raising the same issues which I am trying to raise (see below) -- which I would welcome.

Whatever, I want to see all the candidates are properly scrutinised by ABC journalists on all the questions I have raised so that at least ABC audience will properly informed of the choices before them at these elections.

I trust that you will do what you can to bring this about.

So, could you phone me on [...] to discuss this?

Yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
http://candobetter.org/james
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

#appendix5" id="appendix5">Appendix 5: E-mail of Fri 13 Mar 09 to Kellie Riordan

Subject:Re: The prospects of air time discuss privatisation, population growth, climate-changing coal exports, etc

Date: 13/03/09 02:02 pm
CC'd to: Madonna King

Dear Kellie,

Further to yesterday's e-mail, I would still like to know whether or not it will be possible to have air time on Brisbane local radio in the coming days.

I appreciate that Madonna King put my question to Andrew Fraser this morning, but it seems to me that she left him off the hook far too easily.

His response that he had no plans to privatise electricity and that he was ideologically against privatisation should have been easily anticipated by anyone familiar with this issue.

Points I had made in my correspondences which could have been used but were not put. Even a text message I sent to Madonna King could have been easily use to follow up but was not. That text message was:

"James Sinnamon, Independent for Mount Coot-tha asks: Why weren't Qld public consulted about Brisbane, Mackay Cairns airports, Energex, etc?"

Consequently, our politicians, who should be being held properly to account in this period are getting off far too lightly making the current elections a pale imitation of true democracy.

I suggest once again, you give time to candidates like myself to candidates who are raising the issues of real concern.

Another candidate you should get in contact with is Robert Huston, Greens candidate for Mount Ommaney who wrote a short article which I posted on my web site.

"Qld Greens: 'competitive' market a calamity for electricity consumers" at http://candobetter.org/node/1139

He can be reached at mount.ommaney[AT]qld.greens.org.au 0428 XXX XXX

I am sure he would be happy to speak to you.

Yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

#appendix6" id="appendix6">Appendix 6: E-mail of Fri 13 Mar 09 to Andrew Fraser

Subject: Categorical assurance against privatisation has not been given by Andrew Fraser

Date: 13/03/09 04:45 pm

CC'd to: Madonna King, Kellie Riordan and others

(Subject was: Response)

Dear Andrew Fraser,

The letter I have received from you is not the categorical assurance against privatisation that I was seeking from you.

Furthermore, it significantly contradicts what I recall that you told Brisbane listeners on Madonna King's Breakfast show this morning.

This morning, according to my recollection, you said that there were no plans to privatise any more of Queensland's assets and that you were ideologically opposed to privatisation.

In contrast, your letter states:

"The Queensland Government's record on the Sale of Government. We will only ever agree to such sales where there are demonstrable benefits to the Queensland community."

Further along, in marked contrast to my recollection of your statement that you were ideologically opposed to privatisation, the letter merely states, "We have not and will not pursue an ideologically driven agenda of privatisation."

So can you please make clear to me whether you are ideologically opposed to privatisation or just merely not ideologically in favour of privatisation?

Either way this doesn't provide the categorical assurance I was seeking.

I therefore repeat my challenge to you, and to other candidates, who appear to favour privatisation during the next term of Parliament, including, it would seem, the opposition leader Lawrence Springborg, that you publicly debate the issue of privatisation with a candidate opposed to privatisation, such as myself.

I will also be asking all candidates for categorical assurances that they will oppose privatisation during the course of the next Parliament. I trust that the ABC, the Courier Mail and other newsmedia will make the responses known to electors so that they can be fully informed when they cast their votes.

Yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
http://candobetter.org/james
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

#appendix7" id="appendix7">Appendix 7: E-mail of Mon 16 Mar 09 to Kellie Riordan advising that anti-privatisation Greens candidate Robert Huston would like air time

Subject: Robert Huston, Greens Candidate for Mount Ommaney confirms that he would like air time

Date: 16/03/09 12:21 am

CC'd to Madonna King.

Hi James,

I would be happy to talk to local radio about the disaster of electricity supply management.

Regards

Robert Huston BVSc. BEnv.Sc. MPhil.
Greens candidate for Mt Ommaney
...

#appendix8" id="appendix8">Appendix 8: E-mail of Mon 16 Mar 09 to Madonna King requesting air time to counter Andrew Fraser's misleading statements of Friday

Subject: URGENT: request air time to correct misleading statements by Andrew Fraser broadcast on Friday

Date: 16/03/09 08:51 am

CC'd to: Kellie Riordan and others

Dear Madonna King,

Further to my e-mail on Friday, I request that I be given air time on your program to correct the misleading and incomplete response, given by Andrew Fraser, the sitting member for Mount Coot-tha in response to my question.

That question which attempted to establish whether or not Queenslanders can expect even more of their assets to be privatised in the next term of Parliament. How Andrew Fraser's answer misled your audience was explained in an e-mail, sent to Andrew Fraser (included also below), which was cc'd to you:

"Furthermore, (the letter) significantly contradicts what I recall that you told Brisbane listeners on Madonna King's Breakfast show this morning.

"This morning, according to my recollection, you said that there were no plans to privatise any more of Queensland's assets and that you were ideologically opposed to privatisation.

In contrast, your letter states:

"'The Queensland Government's record on the Sale of Government. We will only ever agree to such sales where there are demonstrable benefits to the Queensland community.'

"Further along, in marked contrast to my recollection of your statement that you were ideologically opposed to privatisation, the letter merely states, 'We have not and will not pursue an ideologically driven agenda of privatisation.'"

I believe that your audience is entitled to have this misinformation corrected.

This is all the more urgent as I am a candidate who represents the overwhelming opposition of electors both in Mount Coot-tha and the rest of Queensland to privatisation. That popular rejection of privatisation has been repeatedly defied, in practice, by both the Labor Government, in particular, the Treasurer Andrew Fraser and the LNP opposition, which, in Government, has conducted its own privatisations and, in Opposition, has voted for all the Government's privatisation bills, should be treated as a serious election issue.

I am the only candidate in Mount Coot-tha, and one of very few across the state, who has attempted to give this critical issue the prominence it deserves.

I am happy to be interviewed on my own or together with Andrew Fraser.

In my view, to not agree to my request for air time in these circumstances would amount to withholding to Brisbane electors, information about a vital issue at stake in these elections.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,
James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
...
http://candobetter.org/james
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

(Subject was: Response)

Dear Andrew Fraser,

The letter I have received from you is not the categorical assurance against privatisation that I was seeking from you.

(See #appendix6">Appendix 6 for the rest of this included e-mail.)

#appendix9" id="appendix9">Appendix 9: E-mail of Mon 16 Mar 09 to Kellie Riordan in response to voice message

Subject: Robert Huston, Greens Candidate for Mount Ommaney confirms that he would like air time

CC'd to: Madonna King

Dear Kellie,

Sorry I missed your call just now. I will try to keep the phone closer to me from now on, but a return number would also be helpful.

I don't think your response addressed my concerns, so my request for air time still stands. I have shown that Andrew Fraser misled your program's listeners and did not fully answered my question, so on that grounds alone I believe I am entitled to air time.

If there is insufficient time to allow such misinformation to be corrected and to force candidates to adequately answer questions of electors and other candidates, let alone for views, which enjoy overwhelming public support such as opposition to privatisation to be put, then this election is a farce and the ABC should be telling that to its listeners.

However, as I wrote before, the ABC programmers could help by focusing more on substantive issues rather than pondering whether or not it would be a good idea for Campbell Newman to help Lawrence Springborg.

I would also suggest that whilst the story about Anna Bligh's husband Greg Withers was not altogether without interest, given the time constraints, of which you complain, that should have been left until after the election.

I will, as you suggest, send news items, but you must appreciate that it is more difficult with few resources and not enough time.

Thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
...
http://candobetter.org/james
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

#appendix10" id="appendix10">Appendix 10: Media release on privatisation sent to Kellie Riordan and others

Andrew Fraser's three different responses to a question on privatisation
Media release of 17 Mar 09

Queensland voters, who overwhelmingly oppose privatisation, have a right to know which candidates can be relied upon to block any further sell-offs of public assets, said James Sinnamon, independent candidate for the Brisbane inner-north-west seat of Mount Coot-tha.

"The privatisation of the Cairns, Mackay and Brisbane airports, the Golden Casket, Energex and Ergon during the last term of Parliament, demonstrate that privatisation was an issue at stake in the 2006 state elections," said the independent candidate, "yet where were the electors told of this?"

(For the rest of the media release, see "Andrew Fraser's three different responses to a question on privatisation" of 17 Mar 09.)

#appendix11" id="appendix11">Appendix 11: E-mail of Wed 18 Mar 09 to Madonna King asking for air time in response to listeners' dissatisfaction with major party candidates

Subject: If listeners are dissatsifed with major parties, why aren't others given air time on your program?

Date: 18/03/09 11:39 am

CC'd to: Kellie Riordan, Richard Fidler

Dear Madonna King,

As you have just heard from your own listeners, a lot of electors are extremely dissatisfied with what both major parties have to offer.

So, why are candidates, who stand for something different and, on many issues,such as privatisation and population growth, actually represent the majority view, getting so little air time on your program, and on the ABC in general?

Yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
...
http://candobetter.org/james
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

#appendix12" id="appendix12">Appendix 12: E-mail of Thu 19 Mar 09 to Brisbane ABC local radio staff asking that survey be publicised in response to listeners requests for more information

Subject: Please advise listeners of my online survey sent to all candidates

Dear Madonna King, Richard Fidler, Kellie Riordan, Annie Guest et al,

I have heard a number of listeners saying to Madonna King on her program that they are dissatisfied with the major parties and that they want more information about policies.

Could you please advise your listeners that they can find answers to much of the information they seek printed in results to a survey on my web site.

Late last night and this morning I sent out survey questions concerning privatisation, population growth, the environment and full employment to every candidate I was able to e-mail. That survey is included below.

As I write, I am receiving responses. I am publishing the results at:

http://candobetter.org/QldElections/survey

I am also publishing any more detailed comments I have received.

Could you please advise your listeners of this survey and do you think you could use your good influence to prevail upon candidates from the major parties to respond to my survey?

So far, none have responded.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
...
http://candobetter.org/james
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

#appendix13" id="appendix13">Appendix 13: E-mail of Thu 19 Mar 09 challenging Lawrence Springborg to debate privatisation

Subject: URGENT: Please justify your pro-privatisation stance in a public debate

Date: 19/03/09 02:37 pm

CC'd to: Madonna King, Kellie Riordan, Richard Fidler, Annie Guest and others.

Dear Lawrence Springborg,

If you intend to privatise any more of public assets I believe you have an obligation to satisfy Queensland voters that this is justified.

To date this has never happened and all privatisations have been overwhelmingly opposed by public opinion.

All privatisations, without exception, have been public policy disasters and any further privatisations undertaken by a further LNP Government or a future Labor Government are almost certain to be no different.

I therefore challenge you or any other LNP candidate to justify in a public debate before the election your refusal to rule out any more privatisations, or, else commit yourself to not doing so until you have obtained the specific consent of the Queensland public.

My past challenge to Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser (or any other Labor candidate) to publicly debate their pro-privatisation stances also still stands.

yours sincerely

James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
...http://candobetter.org/james
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

#appendix14" id="appendix14">Appendix 14: Media release of 19 Mar 09 challenging Lawrence Springborg to debate privatisation

Subject: Media Release: Lawrence Springborg out of step with the public on privatisation

Date: 19/03/09 06:44 pm

CC'd to Madonna King, Richard Fidler, Kellie Riordan, Annie Guest and others

Lawrence Springborg out of step with the public on privatisation

James Sinnamon, independent for Mount Coot-tha
Media Release, Thur 19 Mar 09

During an interview on Brisbane ABC local radio's Madonna King show, today, Lawrence Springborg told listeners that he has 'no objection' to the further sell-off of publicly-owned assets.

However, Mr Sinnamon pointed out that only the day before, Mr Springborg's Liberal National Party had rightly taken Premier Anna Bligh to task for misleading electricity consumers by promising that no electricity consumer would be worse off as a consequence of the privatisation of Energex.

(For the rest of the media release, see "Media release: Lawrence Springborg out of step with the public on privatisation" of 20 Mar 09)

#footnotes" id="footnotes">Footnotes

#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-fn1-txt">↑ "AM's Tony Eastley live from Brisbane on polling day" in ABC radio's AM archive of 21 Mar 09.

#main-fn2" id="main-fn2">2. #main-fn2-txt">↑ In "Have your say" in the Village Green section of the Courier Mail of 21 March, Lavinia Wood also commented on Premier Anna Bligh's deliberate encouragement of population growth when she commented on the draft South East Queensland Regional Plan 2009-2031:

"No one but the developers thinks that bringing an additional 1.3 million people into a region that is already under stress is a good idea. Yet the South East Queensland Regional Plan is driving this agenda, touting a target of 4.4 million by 2031."

See, also "Exposing Queensland Government population growth duplicity" of 1 Apr 09.

#main-fn3" id="main-fn3">3. #main-fn3-txt">↑ See, also, my letter to Lawrence Springborg within the article "Lawrence Springborg responds to Brisbane Save The Mary River Questionnaire" of 10 Mar 09.

#main-fn4" id="main-fn4">4. #main-fn4-txt">↑ During the 2007 Federal elections, Greens Queensland Senate candidate Larissa Waters, who also stood in 2009, as a Greens candidate in Mount Coot-tha, in which I stood, advised me that the Greens had judged that raising the issue of population growth could make the difference that could cost her the Senate seat. As it turned out, Larissa Waters did not win a Senate seat anyway. This raises two questions:

1. Why is opposition to population growth judged by the Greens to be an electoral liability? and
2. Even, if it is, then when is a good time for the Greens to begin educating the public in order that opposition to population growth eventually does not become an electoral liability?

In regard to the first point, all opinion polls show that population growth and immigration are unpopular, so why the Greens apparently believe that a stance against population growth would harm them is not obvious. In regard to the second point, the Queensland Greens are noted for doing very little outside election campaign periods, so, if they are reluctant to raise the issue at election time, then when do they ever intend to educate the Queensland public about their opposition to population growth.

#main-fn5" id="main-fn5">5. #main-fn5-txt">↑ I can't recall whether the presenter was Madonna King, the mid-morning presenter or Kellie Higgins-Devine who, for that week, replaced Spencer Howson as the early morning presenter. However, it was definitely one of the two.

#main-fn6" id="main-fn6">6. #main-fn6-txt">↑ Anna Bligh's stated reason, that early election speculation was destabilising our economy, seemed disingenuous. If that had truly been her concern, she needed only to reaffirm her March 2008 promise to serve her full term. Instead, she remained silent whilst early election speculation was fueled by the Courier Mail from at least November of the previous year. (See also "Courier Mail misreports water recycling to demand early election" of 5 Jan 09.) So, by by her own logic, Premier Anna Bligh had allowed needless harm to be caused to Queensland's economy for at least two and a half months.

When she did call the election on the morning of Monday 23 February, water from devastating floods was receding in the north of Queensland, which still faced threats of further cyclones. Both these factors made it harder for many candidates to campaign and harder for some to vote.

The very night on which she called elections, TV stations began broadcasting Labor Party election advertising in slots which had to have been booked well in advance.

#main-fn7" id="main-fn7">7. #main-fn7-txt">↑ The ABC also sought to interview Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg's wife, but she declined.

#main-fn8" id="main-fn8">8. #main-fn8-txt">↑ "Springborg's hope lies with can-do Campbell" by Glen Milne in the Australian of 9 Mar 09.

In any case, Milne's prediction that Newman's intervention would help Lawrence Springborg badly misfired. Newman turned out to be considerably less popular than Milne believed him to be and his association with the LNP's campaign appears to have turned Brisbane voters against the LNP. As one ABC listener pointed out on the morning of Monday 23 March:

"When I saw (Campbell Newman's) photo in an advertisement with Lawrence Springborg, I knew it was 'all over Red Rover.'"

In the 2008 Brisbane City Council elections in which I stood against him for Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Campbell Newman earnestly promised not to increase rates beyond the rate of inflation. He broke that promise only weeks later and imposed savage rate hikes on high rise dwellers. For this and a number of other reasons he now appears to be widely disliked in Brisbane. On the night of the elections he headed towards the Brisbane tally room in order to share the limelight with the Lawrence Springborg, whom he assumed would win. However, before he reached the tally room, he learnt that voters had turned against the LNP and he ordered his driver to turn around.

#main-fn9" id="main-fn9">9. #main-fn9-txt">↑ Forum discussion #comment-231829">"My election night" on johnquiggin.com on 22 Mar 09.

#main-fn10" id="main-fn10">10. #main-fn10-txt">↑ Whilst some may judge a relatively unknown independent candidate to have been audacious in challenging the state's leading politicians to publicly debate privatisation, no other candidate had done so and no journalist, as far as I am aware, had confronted the Government over this issue. So as far as I am aware, this was the only attempt to hold our Government leaders for having sold off publicly owned assets without the consent of the owners of those assets.

#main-fn11" id="main-fn11">11. #main-fn11-txt">↑ This has already been mentioned in my article "What was achieved by my election campaign?" of 22 Mar 09.

#main-fn12" id="main-fn12">12. #main-fn12-txt">↑ See Open letter to Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser asking that any planned privatisations be put to the public at forthcoming elections of 17 Feb 09.

#main-fn13" id="main-fn13">13. #main-fn13-txt">↑ This has been covered in the article "Andrew Fraser's three different responses to a question on privatisation" of 17 Mar 09.

#main-fn14" id="main-fn14">14. #main-fn14-txt">↑ The only substantial coverage that either Dave Zwolenski or I received during the course of the campaign, was from the University of Queensland-based community radio station, 4ZZZ. Dave was interviewed twice by 4ZZZ, whilst I was interviewed once for 5 minutes.

This brief article is in response to the following #comment-232844">comment made during forum discussion on John Quiggin's blog on 31 Mar 09 in respons to my article "Courier Mail, ABC back Department of Main Roads land grab" of 29 Mar 09:

"As for the comments on population growth, I partly agree. Population growth is the problem. However the boom in immigration was under Howard not Rudd; Rudd has reduced the numbers. AFAIK Australian state governments do not have the power to halt interstate migration, which is the cause of population growth in Qld, not overseas immigration. The cause of interstate migration is almost invariably job supply; thus people tend to leave SA and Tasmania and migrate to QLD and WA. Beattie and Bligh are guilty of taking credit for something they neither caused nor can control."

The article also draws on material used in the section "End Queensland Government encouragement of population growth" in the article "Why I am contesting the Queensland state elections as an independent" of 9 Mar 09. - JS, 1 Apr 09.

In fact, imigration Minister Chris Evans has ramped up immigration to levels even higher than they were under Howard, and that is taking into account the recent much ballyhooed reductions.

The simple fact is that Queensland's runaway population growth occurs because Premier Anna Bligh and, before her, Premier Peter Beattie also wanted it to happen.

If they wanted to, they could easily have raised their voices loudly to demand that Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, end his record high immigration levels.

Bligh and Beattie could also have acted to stop immigration in the time of Howard. Just simply alerting the public to the fact that Howard had so massively ramped up immigration whilst pretending to be tough on 'border security' would have gone a long way towards stopping it, but, instead, they said nothing.

If anyone insists that state Governments are powerless to influence federal Government policy, just remember how Beattie and the other 'Labor' premiers got their way on the GST and the Australia -US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA).

By negotiating with Howard over the implementation of the GST when its fate was still in the balance, Beattie did more than any other individual to sabotage the growing popular opposition to the GST in 1999. In 2004, Beattie and the other Labor Premiers pre-empted any opposition to the rotten AUSFTA by loudly insisting that it be signed as the Federal Labor Party was trying to decide its position.

So, just as the Queensland Government can cause outcomes against the public interest at the Federal level when it chooses, it could add its decisive weight to calls to bring about the end of high immigration if it had the political will to do so.

But, instead, Bligh and Beattie did everything possible to bring about run away population growth and have been playing the Queensland public for fools whilst doing so.

On many occasions they have basked in the glory their supposed 'achievement' of having increased Queensland's population (see, for example, full page Qld Government advertisment of 8 Dec 2005 in the article "Why I am contesting the Queensland state elections as an independent").

But on other occasions, when confronted with the problems caused by population growth -- hospital waiting lists, the water crisis, traffic congestion -- they turn around and blame population growth as if this had not been their own policy.

I asked Peter Beattie personally at a public forum to discuss the water crisis in 2006 whether he would acknowledge that population growth had caused the water crisis and would he use his voice to try to stop it.

He firstly thanked me for having asked such a 'good question', but failed to answer it. He said, contrary to what he had said on many other occasions, that he wished that so many people would not come here. But that quickly morphed into his arguing that we needed more skilled people. By the time he finished he seemed to be saying that we needed at least another million migrants to cope with the problems caused by previous population growth!

Beattie and Bligh are either stupid or something worse.

I believe that much of the explanation for this is to be found in my article "How the Growth Lobby Threatens Australia's future" of 24 January 2009. It is published here and on Online Opinion. The article largely based on Sheila Newman's 2002 Masters Thesis "The Growth Lobby and its Absence : The Relationship between the Property Development and Housing Industries and Immigration Policy in Australia and France " downloadable here.

Survey of candidates' stances on privatisation, population growth, the environment and other issues at stake in the Queensland elections

To go straight to survey #results">results for any electorate, click on the letter from those following, with which the name of that electorate begins: #A">A #B">B #C">C #D">D #E">E #F">F #G">G #H">H #I">I #K">K #L">L #M">M #N">N #P">P #R">R #S">S #T">T #W">W #Y">Y

I have been attempting to get clear answers from the major parties on some of these questions for some time now, but so far unsuccessfully (see, as examples "Independent candidate seeks categorical assurance against privatisation from Laurence Springborg" and "Andrew Fraser's three different responses to a question on privatisation"). Although it is very late in the campaign, have sent this survey will be sent to all candidates in order to give them all an opportunity to tell Queenslanders wher they stand on these questions.

The questions are:

#q1" id="q1">1. Oppose privatisation: Will you give electors a categorical assurance, if elected, that either you will oppose any further sell-off of public assets, such as Queensland Rail, water infrastructure, electricity generation and distribution infrastructure, ports, airports, schools, hospitals, etc., or you will not support any sales until such time as the Queensland public have shown support for privatisation through a referendum or public opinion polls?

#q2" id="q2">2. Oppose population growth: If elected, will you act to end the Queensland Government's current policy of actively encouraging population growth. Will you make it a policy goal to stabilise Queensland's population as close as possible to current levels and act to prevent our population from doubling from 4 million in 2005 to 8 million by as early as 2031?

#q3" id="q3">3. Oppose high immigration: If elected, will you act to make the Queensland Parliament prevail upon the Federal Government to dramatically reduce its current record high immigration program?

#q4" id="q4">4. No increase in coal exports: Will you oppose any further increase in the rate of extraction of climate-changing coal? Will you oppose Premier Anna Bligh's stated intention made in July last year to triple Queensland's already record levels of coal exports by 2030?

#q5" id="q5">5. Save the Felton Valley: Will you oppose coal mining in the Felton Valley agricultural region south west of Toowoomba?

#q6" id="q6">6. Save Bimblebox: Will you oppose the destruction of the Bimblebox nature refuge by a planned massive open-cut coal mine?

#q7" id="q7">7. No second aluminium smelter: Will you oppose the construction of a massive, polluting, global-warming, Chinese-government-owned aluminium refinery planned to be built on the wetlands to the north of Bowen?

#q8" id="q8">8. Stop rent gouging: Will you take effective action to protect domestic renters and businesses from excessive rent increases?

#q9" id="q9">9. Housing a human right: Would you support European-style legislation that would enshrine access to decent affordable housing as basic human right for all Queenslanders?

#q10" id="q10">10. Water a human right: Would you support legislation that would guarantee access to water as a basic human right for all Queenslanders?

#q11" id="q11">11. Government-sponsored full employment: Would you support, at the state level, the implementation of the Center of Full Employment and Equity's (CofFEE) program to provide full employment in socially and environmentally useful programs for all Australians needing work, fully costed at $9 billion per year?

#FurtherInformation" id="FurtherInformation">Further Information

#q1">1. Oppose privatisation

For further information, please see "Andrew Fraser's three different responses to a question on privatisation" of 9 Mar 09, "Qld Greens: 'competitive' market a calamity for electricity consumers" of 13 Mar 09, "Independent candidate seeks categorical assurance against privatisation from Laurence Springborg" of 11 Mar 09, "Open letter to Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser asking that any planned privatisations be put to the public at forthcoming elections" of17 Mar 09, section "End privatisation - stop the liquidation of Queensland" in "Why I am contesting the Queensland state elections as an independent" of 9 Mar 09, other articles about privatisation, "Costello blasts Dalrymple Bay privatisation" of 21 Mar 05.

#q2">2. Oppose population growth

"Population surges past 21.5 million" in the Courier Mail of 18 Mar 09, section "End Queensland Government encouragement of population growth" in article "Why I am contesting the Queensland state elections as an independent" of 9 Mar 09, "Lawrence Springborg responds to Brisbane Save The Mary River Questionnaire" of 10 Mar 09, "How the Growth Lobby threatens Australia's future" of 24 Jan 09, "Redland City to pay with increased water charges for population growth" of 19 May 08, "More chickens of population growth come home to roost in Queensland" of 14 May 08, other articles about population.

#q3">3. Oppose high immigration

"What cut in immigration?" of 17 Mar 09 by Andrew Bolt, "Will Rudd Government's high immigration program turn Australia into Argentina?" of 19 Jul 09 other articles about immigration.

#q4">4. No increase in coal exports

Section "Labor's coal exports - a crime against this and future generations of humanity" in article "Why I am contesting the Queensland state elections as an independent" of 9 Mar 09

#q5">5. Save the Felton Valley

Note: I have already filled in the responses for all the Greens and the LNP candidates as 'y' to this question. The Greens position against mining in the Felton Valley has been well known for some time, whilst the Friends of Felton have reported that the LNP recently announced that it will proteect the Felton Valley from mining. See also friendsoffelton.blogspot.com.

#q6">6. Save Bimblebox

"Coal mine threatens Queensland Nature Refuge" of 9 Mar 09, www.bimblebox.org.

#q7">7. No second aluminium smelter

"Burdekin Greens candidate: break neck industrialisation threatens Bowen region environment" of 13 Mar 09.

#q8">8. Stop rent gouging

"Rent gouging threatens Brisbane inner city retail community" of 8 Mar 08.

#q9">9. Housing a human right

"Shared accommodation a necessity and no longer a choice for many in Brisbane" of 30 Apr 09.

#q10">10. Water a human right

"Canadian author warns of looming global water supply catastrophe" of 16 Jun 08, www.fairwateruse.com.au,articles on water.

#q11">11. Government-sponsored full employment

See "Full regional development report" (PDF 3.1M ) and other documents downloadable from CofFEE web site.

#results" id="results">Survey Results