Comments on: Brough wins by largest margin that I can remember

By: Arjay

Arjay — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 19:54:43 +0000

It seems that Doug is pre-occupied by power bases.Has it ever occurred to those in power like Doug that it is not all about the power of his gonads.
It is not self evident to many pollies outside the realm of Mal Brough,that the people of Aust want pollies to do things for the common good?
We’ve had three decades of decadence and missed opportunities, and still the egotists like Doug want to argue the finer points of their pecking order in a country in serious decay.

By: Doug

Doug — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 18:02:52 +0000

The main issue driving opposition to the merger in its present form is the proposed dismantling of Ryan’s domination of the Queensland Liberal Party.
Now that Brough has accepted the Presidency of the party and he has made it clear he is in favour of a merger, he has to balance the fine line of following through with his backers’ requirements (maintenance of the per capita representation of Ryan compared to the current distributed representation model of 5 delegates per SEC.), whilst at the same time ensuring the Libs are no swamped by the Nats.
The Liberal party’s convention branch delegate provision for one delegate per 10 members of the branch would ensure Ryan’s power continues but in the larger scheme of things would provide overwhelming power to the Nats. In good faith the Nats have accepted this and that is why they agreed to the SEC delegates model accepting their larger numerical position.
Mr Brough stated that he is concerned about the following areas of the current proposed Constitution (his words not mine):
1. Grandfathering of existing members up to 2020 in the case of some Senators;
2. No requirement for preselectors to be on the electoral role;
3. 3 layers of bureaucracy with SECs, FECs and State Council (not to mention Regional Councils); and
4. State Executive involvement in plebiscites being increased from 33% to 50%.
He has not stated his position yet on the entitlement provisions for Convention, nor on the power arrangement for State Executive or its make up.
So let’s see what happens… will the Ryan powerbase maintain its control? Could the delegate entitlement be a deal breaker? I doubt it because the Nats have agreed to the model that would deliver them less power at Convention. A return to the present Liberal constitution’s provisions would in effect allow them to take the Queensland Division of the Liberal Party over by reverse.

By: Graham Bell

Graham Bell — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 04:30:20 +0000

[ooops. that should have been the "comments" below].

By: Graham Bell

Graham Bell — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 04:27:23 +0000

Graham:
By the titles of the “comments” above it looks like last cenury’s “brilliant” political operators are maintaining their usual standard of debate with people whose opinions are not exactly the same as their own …. or their masters’. Some things never change.