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Recent Queensland Election – Conservative Try-On Exposed

27 March 2009
The conservative forces were hell bent on pushing back against the replacement of Howard’s WorkChoices legislation for the last one and a half years.   They even tried to use the recent Queensland State Election to score more concessions.   Not satisfied with Rudd and Gillard retaining some major aspects of WorkChoices within the new Fair Work Act (passed 20/3/09), the anti-worker elements hoped an Anna Bligh defeat could be used to claim that the Federal Government needed to water down even more, its proposed IR reforms.   If Rudd’s home State went conservative then his whole agenda, especially on IR could be deemed unsustainable.

The Australian newspaper particularly took up the cudgels.  A big supporter of Howard’s WorkChoices legislation, this media outlet went for broke to claim Bligh was on the nose and a goner, while QLD Opposition leader Springborg was the man of the moment.

Just check out the following newspaper headlines:

The Australian Friday 6 March 2009:

“LNP now ahead as Bligh faces swing” -51-49 on a two-party preferred."

The Australian Tuesday 10 March 2009:

“Bligh’s woes put LNP in the lead,” including the claim: “But the biggest shock in the news poll is the voter backlash against Ms Bligh personally”.

The Australian Friday 20 March 2009:

“Borg keeps the spring in his step” – “…with less than 24 hours to go until polling day [the LNP] could pull off a historic election win’”.

When Anna Bligh won comfortably with the loss of a handful of seats (an amazing result for a State government that has been in power for so long), The Australian and Liberal/NP commentators went the man:

The Australian Monday 23 March 2009 (2 days after the election):

“NP fell short at the Brisbane Line – winning the 22 seats needed for a change of government was always going to be a huge ask [and] Springborg “the wrong man for the job”.   The ALP won 51.3% of first preliminary votes – the exact opposite of The Australian’s polling. 

Springborg fell on his sword after the election.   The Australian newspaper went looking for more opportunities to undermine workers’ rights.