The results of the Queensland election are still coming in but
it is clear that it has been a landslide victory for Campbell Newman and the
LNP. Newman’s opponent in the hotly contested seat of Ashgrove has graciously
conceded her seat after serving as the youngest ever state MP for 3 years. With
73% of the vote counted, Newman has a substantial lead of nearly 4000 votes, in
an electorate with nigh on 31000 voters. Currently, state-wide, the Liberal
National Party hold 78 seats to the ALP’s 7. This utter whitewash finally puts
an interesting cap on what was a fairly dull election campaign. There was no
intrigue, and a minimum of scandal. The mud-slinging was fairly reserved and
minimal. All in all, it was an unentertaining affair. But the severity of the punishment
that the ALP received tonight is still staggering, coming in as the most
decisive electoral victory in Australian history, as the state braces itself
for 3 years under the governance of a party with such an overwhelming
parliamentary majority that they could conceivably legislate euthanising the
homeless if they felt like it. The burden is now on him and his cabinet to not
do anything stupid, cruel or damaging to the state’s image, economy or people.
In Premier-elect Campbell Newman’s gracious victory speech,
he spoke of the heavy responsibility he and his new Legislative Cabinet felt to
the people of Queensland. One can only hope that he meant not just the victory
but the massive scale of the victory, and the power that affords the Liberal
National Party as a whole. I don’t doubt for a second that he’s sincere when he
speaks of responsibility. My personal doubt is to whether his government can
live up to the responsibility remain united, as factional in-fighting has taken
its toll on the LNP over the last few years.
But when all is said and done, this election has some of the
hallmarks of an invasion. A very formal and vaguely boring invasion, but an
invasion all the same; it seems curiously akin to a bad movie where townsfolk
start falling under a hypnotic daze and become fanatically conservative and it
spreads like a disease until everyone in the country has that creepy Stepford
Wives mojo going on and it’s up to some sassy, back-talking, punk kids to save
the day but in the end they find out that it’s not a disease but an alien
invasion and everyone’s been replaced by shapeshifting insectoid aliens
pretending to be human until they could assimilate themselves into the higher echelons
of society and government in an elaborate plan to enslave us and turn our planet
into a giant intergalactic septic tank.
…What was I talking about? I’m sorry, I got bored and
started making up my own story. Oh, that’s right. Election night 2012 and our new
alien overlords. Got it. Hail Newman.
Karl Anderson 25 Mar 2012, 02:09AM
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