Election fallout continues...

"Queensland goes to the polls tomorrow with voters facing a clear choice. They can vote for more of a Beattie Labor government with proven failings, or a stumbling Coalition that has failed to prove anything" - Editorial, The Australian 08 Sept 2006

Rob Borbidge emerged from the land of political failures to heap praise upon the QLD Labor party, labelling it as the most effective political machine in the country. Nothing could be further from the truth - as the quote from the The Australian states, this victory had more to do with the lack of a credible alternative than brilliant performance and campaigning from Labor. The QLD Coalition went into this election with heavy media coverage of two major issues: the failure of a National - Liberal merger, and the Liberal party dumping its leader Bob Quinn days before the next election was to be called. Springborg and Flegg once again failed to demonstrate credibility and capability in the form of an alternative government. When there is no alternative, you stick with what you've got - it is as simple as that. The small changes in vote percentages could be attributed with the capitulation of the One Nation vote and redistribution of its former supporters to the other parties. Without this change, the percentages would have been almost exactly the same as the last election.

"What I think went wrong is that the Opposition parties, the Coalition parties, made themselves the issue...what has happened here is that we took the focus off the Labor Party and made ourselves the issue, and of course the people of Queensland reacted accordingly."

- QLD Senator Santo Santoro

Several papers, including the Sunday Mail, are feeding speculation that Springborg may be dumped as Nationals and Coalition leader. Bruce Flegg is only safe because leadership aspirant Michael Caltabiano was given his marching orders after an ingloriously short time in Parliament. The problem for future campaigns for the Coaliton is now the fact that they have failed to captialse on such bad performance by the Beattie Government - a lot of soul searching and reinstigating confidence in both Coalition parties is needed.