Recent entries
- Legacy
- Holiday Camp
- Preferential voting
- Commissioner launches coast crackdown
- Stronger Than Grief
- "He's a dog..."
- System failure
- School terror project
- RSS Syndicate this blog (XML)
What we're talking about
- Phil of Springwood on "He's a dog..." @Bigfellah, with your permission, I would like to add that I thank you sincerely for acknowledging my success at being a ... more
- Bella on Preferential voting FIRST PAST THE POST ~ is not as democratic as you may like to think.In a preferential system every registered voters final ... more
- steve on A few facts on illegal boat people Hey Wendy - I'm an immigrant - I've lived here for 40 years and have learned to ignore people with attitudes like yours but ... more
- James Weir on A few facts on illegal boat people Wendy, I'm surprised anyone lives in Adelaide. Even the Welsh born redheads are getting out of the place. more
- Phil of Springwood on "He's a dog..." @Bigfellah. Again in typical Socialist Fashion, you are denying me my right to form an opinion. Mr. and Mrs. Newton ... more
- Meg on "He's a dog..." I believe that any ordinary person who assaults women would have been charged and jailed not sent to rehab. Has Matthew ... more
- Wendy on A few facts on illegal boat people Look around..In Adelaide now, you cannot spot an Aussie. Everywhere you look its Chinese/Asians, Indians and Pakistani's. ... more
- bigfella on "He's a dog..." Hi z,The point is: How the heck would Phil of Springwood know what sort of parents Bert and Patti were to their son? For all ... more
- z on Bob Brown Lazarus Where is the costings that they demand of everyone else, thier 5 minutes of fame will be up shortley more
- Shanelle on System failure The whole system is stuffed. I have been apart of it for 10years now and still im confused. Im in a bad place at the moment ... more
- James Weir on Barnaby Joyce How many Clem 7's would you like in your Super Fund, Barnaby? It lost $1.5B in it's current reporting period. Only Govts can ... more
- Steve Martin on "He's a dog..." Rebecca Wilson as per normal is just plain out of touch.The hitting of women is wrong but personalising this with "he's a ... more
- Ronny Of Brighton QLD on Preferential voting MichaelIve just come back from a holiday.That bloke Dean Jaensch Siad that if someone(call Him RONNY) had 40% he said 60% of ... more
- z on Preferential voting the way it is working at the moment is the first loser joins with 2nd loser and so on untill they beat the winner, so a ... more
- brisman on Bob Brown The guy is not green he absolutley red through to the core. His environmental visions are shallow and don't serve ... more
- z on "He's a dog..." bigfella, Phil of Springwood is not talking from so called flippantly expertise, Ivory tower stuff but more from commonsense ... more
- robert goodchild on Support our Diggers the sticker Idea is great.I would happily part with $20 for one and would like to see the profit go to families who have ... more
- Phil of Springwood on "He's a dog..." Hey Bigfella, back again so soon after your mobs magnificent defeat by the Tories, I thought you and the rest of your Left ... more
- z on "He's a dog..." Hey Phil, why don't you say what you really mean more
- bigfella on "He's a dog..." Congratulations to Phil of Springwood,We've become accustomed to his astute political and social commentaries based on ... more
The Ministers' Secret Luxury Dinner?
Queensland should be riding high on demand for our minerals from China and other countries.
We should be raking it in.
Western Australia is.
Queensland, however, seems to be stuck in a rut of bureaucracy that is slowing us down. And to me, it’s a problem with the culture of our government.
It’s come to a bit of a head with the front page of today’s The Courier Mail newspaper. Link
I think it’s great news that senior ministers in the Bligh government have met with Australia’s richest woman Gina Rinehart. I’m surprised that The Courier Mail’s focus is the “secret luxury dinner” between ministers and Ms Rinehart, but no doubt the culture of secrecy, former ministers convicted for corruption, success-fees, lobbyists and consultants making money from mates has driven The Courier Mail’s suspicions.
The Premier is right to expect more, not less of these sorts of meetings.
Ms Rinehart wants to invest $16.5 billion in the state. She’s faced so many bureaucratic roadblocks in approvals for the project that she demanded a meeting with the Premier.
To the Premier’s credit, senior ministers were dispatched to meet with Ms Rinehart to find out what was holding up the project. No doubt the Premier has been motivated at least in part by the reality that her government’s finances are now mired in debt. The Premier knows she needs every cent in extra income she can raise.
Ms Rinehart’s project will create real wealth, real jobs, a real rail line and substantial royalty payments to the Queensland Government.
The bureaucracy in Queensland seems incapable of approving this sort of project. This is the same bureaucracy led by Mike Kaiser as chief of staff for the Premier’s Department. They are hopelessly politicised and driven to please their political masters.
It’s a bureaucracy trained to produce statements that focus on trendy issues. Green jobs, climate-friendly projects and social infrastructure. Nasty incursions like rail lines, mines, ports and “dirty” brown jobs are an anathema to it.
After more than 20 years, the senior ranks of the bureaucracy in Queensland are well adjusted to the political views of their elected masters. Green – tick. Greenhouse-gas-emission-reduction – tick. Mines, rail lines, ports and “dirty” jobs seem to almost automatically rate a furrowed brow and delay after delay after delay.
The Queensland Government has gotten away with it for the past few years. But year after year it’s been spending more than it’s earned, and now we have an $85 billion debt to show for it. That debt is driving up the price that Queenslanders pay for everything – rego, fuel, electricity, water, rates and the flow-on through the entire economy
Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer have money to spend. They’ve had enough of the bureaucracy. Their investors capital could go anywhere in the world. Gina Rinehart has given the Bligh Government a second chance, the government should act quickly to take it.
But at a deeper level its time for cultural change in Queensland. It’s time for Queensland to start to recognise where its wealth and standard of living come from. We need a government and a bureaucracy whose culture is focussed on making investments happen – not on stopping them.
Blog comments
-
There are some thin if the legitimate work as a line there. Most are sites and marketing study for the site owner rich, not you. The only thing is true legitimacy Ebay, selling things you already own
www.onlineuniversalwork.comridwanzero Friday 5 February, 2010 - 7:45 PM -
hahahahaha
BLIAR has been caught out again. FOI has now divulged to a journo who is actually doing his job that she was planning the sale of our bloody assets in 2008. Long before her last lot of lies to get elected.
Now. Just how deeply involved were her union mates. They have justification for a huge shitfight over this. But will they have the balls to take it on? I doubt it.
In my naivety I have always suffered from the delusion that this State had the resources to provide every citizen in it with wealth and the staples of living, at little or no cost. Simply because we are part of it.
How can it be that these bastards have sent us all to the cleaners?
I just can't get my mind around it all. And this is a Labour Party. The workers party.
Shitodear.
And what have we got coming on in opposition?
How depressing.
Wobbly.Wobblyone Monday 1 February, 2010 - 8:44 PM -
Malcolm Turnbull is a Socialist and Rhodes Scholar. The sad fact is that these traitors are on both sides of politicis. Who to trust? Tony Abbott needs to get rid of him and Senators Boyce and Troeth at the earliest opportunity. We should not have to tell him.
Glenis Sunday 31 January, 2010 - 10:01 AM -
Maybe Anna can get some money from M/S Rinehart and she can send some to the Taliban as well.This Labor Govt is getting more corrupt every day.Have a look at the photo the idiot is stuck for words.
p davis Friday 29 January, 2010 - 10:52 PM -
Come on guy give this government their due, don't we all have the same gauge rail line now through out the country after how many years??? This state and government almost makes me wish I could play dueling banjo's.
John Friday 29 January, 2010 - 10:22 PM -
Too complicated for Anna Bligh.
If she can't sell it or tax it she doesn't have a clue what to do with it.
She would be totally baffled by the fact that you can invest in this state and make money.
Typical labour policy, Tax, Sell then Tax some more.
I almost forgot their most important policy.
"Look after your mates and smear the opposition as much as possible."Richard Edwards Thursday 28 January, 2010 - 1:40 PM
