When my newsagent told me that they had been served with a resumption notice to allow for a new busway I assumed it was for a road widening and might involve some of their carpark. They are on Old Cleveland Road at Coorparoo, which is one of Brisbane’s major arterials. “No,” Chris told me, “it involves the whole of the shop. “This is at the rear of us.”
That couldn’t be a serious proposal I thought, as I paid the bill, and filed it to follow-up later. Well, apparently it is, as revealed in today’s Courier Mail. There are two options being considered. One of which involves resumption of hundreds of houses and some parkland, construction of tunnels and flyovers, and possibly the relocation of my local newsagents. If you have broadband, or are very patient, you can download the map from here (pdf 1.72mb).
The design looks like it is meant to work in with the designation in the South-East Queensland Regional Plan of the Coorparoo area where I live as a TOD (Transit Oriented Development), which is defined as “Mixed-use residential and commercial areas, designedto maximise the efficient use of land through high levels of access to public transport”.
That means that Coorparoo will become a high-density residential node, which will involve some high-rise apartment blocks, if the desired densities are to be reached.
All of this is quite problematic for the local Labor member Gary Fenlon, and hence for his boss, Peter Beattie.
Fenlon originally won the seat appealing to NIMBYs with a campaign on local traffic issues, which included retention of an archaic and dangerous railway level crossing. (Declaration: I was the Liberal candidate at the time.)
At the next election he held the seat, despite a transport issue involving making the local rail line dual-gauge to accommodate large interstate diesel trains.
This proposal is more disruptive than anything proposed before, and coupled with the TOD will make Coorparoo unrecognisable from what it is now.
Fenlon lost Greenslopes in 1995 when Wayne Goss was still popular and there were no substantial local issues. At the same election, Goss also lost some seats that were impacted by a traffic issue – the so-called “Koala Road”. (Declaration: I wasn’t the Liberal candidate that time – I was running the Liberal Party state campaign.)
These proposals have got to make Greenslopes a potential win for the Liberal Party. They could also have flow-on impacts on the neighbouring seat of South Brisbane, just as the Koala Road had some flow-on effects more broadly than just the affected seats.
Now would be a good time for the Liberals to preselect a candidate for Greenslopes – they should be able to attract a high calibre field with this issue in the open. (Declaration: I have no interest in the preselection!)

The latest fashionable scare is the idea that our cities will run out of water. I say “fashionable” not because I don’t think there is a genuine issue, but because I think it has been typically over-stated.
However, water may be at even more of a premium if the CSIRO is successful with one of its latest projects. This press release outlines how:

A team at CSIRO Manufacturing and Infrastructure Technology has developed a small device that can extract enough hydrogen per day from water to power a family car for up to150kms. This work is an important part of CSIRO’s Energy Transformed Flagship research program into positioning Australia for a future hydrogen economy.

The system currently works off mains power, but they are working to adapt it to use solar and wind power instead.
While the vision of our suburban houses sitting there with their roofs photosynthesising electricity from sunlight and turning it into hydrogen to fuel our cars is attractive to me, I can’t help think that solving one potential problem – a shortage of oil – might not exacerbate a present problem – there’s not as much water around as we might like.

Before John Howard handed out $320 million of taxpayers money for a partial upgrade of the notorious Ipswich Motorway he should have done some homework to what the impact might be.
Had he done so, he would have kept the cheque in his pocket for seldom has such a significant handout attracted almost universal disapproval…even from his political friends and allies.
About the only person who is pleased is the Federal Liberal MP for Blair, Cameron Thompson, who has single-handedly run interference on the total upgrade of one of the most dangerous roads I have ever driven on…and I have driven on mountain “highways” in Papua New Guinea, and “freeways” in Egypt.
And John Howard would have been well advised as part of his homework exercise to have a talk to Rob Borbidge, or even Wayne Goss, distinguished former Premiers of Queensland. Or, better still, he might have really crossed the political divide and had a chat to Molly Robson, the former Labor MP for Springwood.
Had he done so, he would have realised that the “alternate proposal” being pushed by Thompson is fraught with political danger…the same “danger” that just about obliterated the Goss Government in 1995.
And if he had spoken with Rob Borbidge he would have been told in no uncertain terms that the upgrading of an existing motorway is not only more sensible politically, it is the best way to meet a major infrastructure need in the shortest possible time.
One of the best freeways in Australia today is the Gold Coast Motorway. It was started by the Borbidge Government and completed by the Beattie Government in what must have been record time.
And it was achieved by a widening and reconfiguration of the old Gold Coast Highway…the alternative being the Goss Government’s proposed entirely new highway that caused it so much political angst.
This time around, the political boot is on the other foot. It is the State Labor Government that is sensibly proposing a total widening and upgrade of the existing Ipswich Motorway, and a Federal Liberal-National Government that is considering some hair-brained alternative that bears a close resemblance to the “koala highway” that wiped out a group of State Labor MP’s a decade ago.
And the State Liberal and National Opposition is siding with the Beattie Government, as is the Liberal Lord Mayor of Brisbane.
How can it possibly be that one irrelevant Federal backbencher is able to single-handedly derail the much needed upgrade of a dangerous road that has already caused untold tragedy for too may families?
John Howard’s political antenna is one of the best in the business. The arrival of the new Airbus aircraft on Saturday morning must have caused it interference…there is no other possible explanation for a total political blunder.
Most of the Ipswich motorway is in the electorate of the Member for Oxley who has diligently fought for its upgrading.
But there will be a redistribution of Queensland Federal Seats in the coming months, and, given the growth occurring in the Springfield/Forest Lake areas, the Member for Blair might find himself representing significant more of the city of Ipswich, with the Member for Oxley representing the huge growth corridor that has to be seen to be fully appreciated.
If that happens, then the Member for Blair might find his folly leads to the same outcome Molly Robson achieved – political oblivion.
But if the Federal Government persists with this nonsense proposal he won’t be the only victim.
The inevitable consequence of a northern bypass road to supersede or supplement the Ipswich Motorway is a massive spill over of traffic into Brisbane’s western suburbs…and new pressure to build the politically hazardous western ring road.
That will present the Member for Ryan with a massive political headache. And it will be a political godsend for Peter Beattie and be a massive dent in the overconfidence of the State Liberal Party.
All because of one meddlesome backbencher who has inexplicably been allowed to hijack an issue that ought to be determined by a State Government negotiating with a Federal Government on the basis of what is best for motorists, and what is the most fiscally responsible way to achieve that.
And he is someone who should know better, for he was, after all, in the employ of the then Liberal Leader, Joan Sheldon, when she and Rob Borbidge reaped a political harvest from the Goss Government’s 1995 political blunder that bears eerie similarities to today’s events!

Premier Peter Beattie is showing signs of extreme hubris (that translates from the Greek as “big-headedness”). Our research says that one result of the health crisis is that voters see through his style. So they are not going to warm to his latest stunt – paid advertising of the government’s performance on crime statistics because, according to The Sunday Mail “the crime figures were ‘not as well covered as we would have liked’ by the media”. Stick by your dials for Radio Nova Pete.
He’s down, and the state opposition is in a position to capitalise on it, particularly the state Liberals. Except for their own ramshackle state and lack of competent leadership.
I went to the Liberal Party convention on the weekend for a couple of hours – the first time for a few years. The first thing that I noticed was how many faces I recognised, the second how grey we are all becoming, and the third, how few of us there are. There were some Young Liberals in the room, but I suspect that I was still below median, let alone mean, age. That’s not a good demographic profile for a “party of the future”.
My first conversation was with a senior parliamentarian. “What’s the public message out of this convention?” I asked. “I’m not sure,” he replied. Since 1981 or ’82 when Gary Neat became State Director the invariable rule with state conventions was that they would project a tailored public relations message. It was a good rule, but apparently holds true no longer.
But party conventions do project a message by default if not design. So the lack of a set-piece meant that Howard’s bungled announcement of a mere $320 million to solve one of the most intractible traffic problems in the south-east corner – the Ipswich Motorway – dominated. The money is insufficient, and worse, the announcement was made without any forewarwning of the local libs who were flung into damage control. Apparently the first they knew was when journalists called them for comment! Talk about traffic accidents.
The reason for the lack of public relations focus probably lies in the extreme autism of the state liberals. The sub-text of the convention was the struggle by out-going state president, and now state MLA, Michael Caltabiano to become Queensland’s first liberal premier.
The party organisation has been busy polling to gauge Michael’s public standing, compared to Bob Quinn’s. Why bother? As our WhatthePeopleWant research, done jointly with the local ABC shows for free, Caltabiano’s well ahead with the public. But so what, Quinn’s the leader at least until the next election, and will be unless the party room decides otherwise?
Which is why the real action wasn’t at the convention at all, but out in the branches where preselections will be determined. The story there appears to be that the joint pre-selection process agreed with the Nationals is a face-saving device. The deal has already been done to sacrifice three seats to the National Party and vice-versa, and the determinant of which seats to sacrifice for the Liberals is whether the likely Liberal candidates are Quinn or Caltabiano supporters. Because joint pre-selections are made up of small numbers of Liberal and National executive members, they are open to manipulation – one or two members defecting from either party can make the difference and as Caltabiano controls the executive, he also effectively controls these preselections.
The only really significant business contracted by the party over the weekend were changes to the constitution which would make it easier to discipline dissidents, and to determine who should, or should not, be allowed to even present to a preselection.
If Premier Pete can conquer his own bouts of self-obsession and concentrate on his opponents, despite their wins in two by-elections, the Liberals will still be playing with themselves in their own corner after the election, not occupying the treasury benches. Which is Caltabiano’s best chance of becoming premier eventually.

November the 11th is an important day for me. It is Armistice Day, the day when the last great European War formally ended, and it is my oldest son’s birthday. It is also the anniversary of the sacking of the Whitlam Government, which compared to the other two is trivial.
I’ve been listening to the coverage of the 30th Anniversary of the dismissal this morning, and dreading the coming 35th, 40th and no doubt 45th and 50th anniversaries. I’m with Lindsay Tanner who said in The Australian yesterday that it is time to move on. That we still commemorate it is tribute to the determined tribalism of the Labor Party and its will to punish enemies over time and across generations. The style of the coverage is also a demonstration of the shallowness of much of the media. All the focus is on Kerr and Fraser, but none on Whitlam. If it was indeed a constitutional crisis (for my part the Kerr part of it seemed to work reasonably well) it was one caused by Fraser and Whitlam, particularly Whitlam’s imperial determination to govern without parliament, à la Charles II.
But the greatest pity of all of this is that at a time when national security is again a real issue, an opportunity to reflect on a real war, such as the Great War of 1914-18 is being obscured by reflections on the faux war of 1972-75. Inquiry into the former might help us understand the present, while reflection on the latter is really a retreat from the present.
But then, the most important thing today is, Happy Birthday Andrew.

Mike Kaiser is the former state secretary of the Queensland ALP, former member for Woodridge and current chief of staff to Morris Iemma, the Premier of NSW. As far as I know he has nothing to do with Jayant Patel, the so-called “Doctor Death”, who set-off the Bundaberg Hospital inquiry. The Kaiser my headline refers to is Kaiser Permanente, one of the largest Health Management Organisations in the US, which is the target of http://www.kaiserthrive.org/. This organisation employed Patel – Dr Death – before he came to Australia. This article from The Oregonian, reproduced on the website, suggests a cover-up of Patel’s misdemeanours by the HMO because he was so profitable – sound familiar?
Dylan refers to Bob Dylan, and yes, that is the Bob Dylan who we all know and love. This quote from the Orange County Weekly reveals his part in the saga:

If you thought there was a great hue-and-cry a year ago when Bob Dylan licensed his song “Love Sick” for a Victoria’s Secret commercial—he even appeared in one of the spots—then the hubbub over Dylan’s latest business venture is certain to raise an even bigger stink: “The Times They Are A-Changin’” used to push the utter fabulousness of Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s largest health maintenance organizations. Naturally, as an HMO with over 8 million members, Kaiser is a lightning rod for controversy. In June, the California Department of Managed Health Care fined Oakland-based Kaiser $200,000 for disclosing the private medical records of approximately 150 patients, which had been posted on a publicly viewable web site. In 1999, Kaiser was successfully sued by several groups over its “In the Hands of Doctors” advertising campaign, which gave the false impression that Kaiser doctors were in full control of patient health decisions, and not a Kaiser corporate boardroom. In 1997, a California Supreme Court investigation found Kaiser’s complex patient complaint procedure unfair, a ruling that stemmed from the case of Wilfredo Engalla, who claimed that Kaiser doctors misdiagnosed him with colds and allergies for years before finally informing him he had terminal lung cancer (Engalla died the day after the arbitration process was completed)…But it’s also a tough call as to what’s worse—that duplicity, or the fact that “The Times They Are A-Changin’”—pretty much the most defining song of the 1960s—is now a jingle?

Whose reputation is next? Premier Pete?

With the arrest of 17 people on terrorism charges none but the wilfully obtuse could claim that John Howard invented the whole terror threat so he could wedge the ALP and get his terror legislation up. It’s hard to believe in a conspiracy when the investigating authorities are the police forces of two Labor states.
Hopefully it will make more Australians realise exactly what the war on terror is. For a start, it is not optional, we’re all in this whether we like it or not. It’s also not something that can be cured by pulling out of Iraq. As the French riots are the latest evidence to show, Islamic unrest is a global phenomenon which is not coupled to any particular war. It’s viral, like bird flu, and while some specific events may have led to outbreaks, such as the invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq, or the very existence of Isreal, it was always going to break out, independent of specific events.
After the London bombings when Jason Gillespie suggested the Australian cricket team might not play there because it was too risky I suggested readers send him a white feather. I think Gillespie, and any others who think that way, now have a bigger problem than how to find a mattress big enough for all that down. That problem is, Where is it safe enough to play cricket?
For centuries Australia has relied on the tyranny of distance to keep us safe from our enemies. Now there is no distance, and it’s still a dangerous world.