Campaign to save the Mary River enters new phase.

Arkin Mackay

As the dust settles from the state election, and we settle into a new term of Labor government, I want you to know that this in no way spells the end of the campaign to save the Mary River. In many ways, this election outcome may be better for the long-term protection of the river… if the LNP had won office, they would have stopped Traveston Dam because of an election promise… since Labor retained governance, we have the opportunity to take the campaign all the way to the federal government and lobby to ensure that the proposal is stopped for good on strong environmental grounds.

The election results have yielded some interesting messages for the government to ponder - the loss of all seats around the area of the dam proposal; a strong green vote state-wide; the loss of Andrew McNamara (State Minister for the Environment); and the loss of approximately 7 Brisbane and Gold Coast seats that the Save the Mary River campaign group lobbied in the leadup to the election. This campaign does have a strong voice because it is founded on solid data & fact, inarguable logic, and the conviction of so many people to save the Mary River.

Anna Bligh’s victory speech was interesting in that it focussed strongly on the economy and Labor’s commitment and responsibility to lead Qld out of danger. If Labor is serious about being the party to lead us through tough economic times, then they have an obligation to scrap their Traveston Dam plan, which accounts for 40% of their budget blowout so far. While the global economy falls down around us, it is irresponsible, at best, to spend over $1.7bn on a big leaky hole!
Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we step up the campaign. There will be new letters to the key players in the state government for you to sign & send online, a continued push to have the downstream impacts of the dam investigated, and more…

If you’re not already a member of the Save the Mary group, now would be a great time to join! Go to http://www.savethemaryriver.com/drpl/contact.

LNP bashed by bush heritage in capital city


Andrew Fraser
March 23, 2009

THE Labor Party has maintained its stranglehold on Brisbane with the failure of Darling Downs farmer Lawrence Springborg to appeal to a city audience in Saturday’s state election.

There may have been a swing to the Liberal National Party in every Brisbane electorate, but it managed to pick up only two additional city seats.

While this doubles the LNP’s previous representation of only two seats, the ALP still holds 30 of the 34 seats in the Greater Brisbane area.

The swings to the LNP in Brisbane were highly erratic, ranging from virtually nothing in the must-win seat of Chatsworth to 9.3 per cent in the northern seat of Everton.

The most substantial swings against the ALP in Brisbane were in seats where they could afford it. In the outer southern suburban seat of Algester, for example, the ALP suffered a swing of 8.7 per cent, but still holds the seat with a substantial margin of 9.2 per cent.

In the inner eastern suburb of Bulimba, the ALP had a swing against it of 8.9 per cent, but still holds it by a margin of 7.4 per cent.

In the seat next to Bulimba, Chatsworth, there was virtually no movement between the parties and the ALP is likely to retain a seat it held with only a margin of 0.4 per cent.

The other two seats in which there was a very low swing against the ALP were in Redcliffe and Pumicestone, both on Moreton Bay. The ALP had been expected to suffer badly in these seats due to the oil spill off the coast last weekend.

But in Redcliffe, held by the ALP with a margin of 5.9 per cent, there was a swing against Labor of only 0.7 per cent, while in Pumicestone, held by the ALP by a margin of 5.5 per cent, the swing was only 0.4 per cent.

These two results suggest the oil spill was not a big vote loser for the ALP, despite the LNP using the response of the Bligh Government to the disaster as an example of why it should be voted out of office.

The LNP’s campaign against the closure of the Royal Children’s Hospital seemed to also be a factor in big swings against the ALP in Brisbane’s northern suburbs.

The only electoral casualty related to this issue was the ALP’s Boony Barry in Aspley, where Liberal Kylie Davis obtained a swing of 7.2 per cent to take the seat comfortably.

But Labor also suffered big swings against it in two other northern seats, with a swing of 9.3 per cent in Everton where outgoing Education Minister Rod Welford was replaced by Anna Bligh’s former chief of staff, Murray Watt, and in Stafford, where incumbent Stirling Hincliffe suffered a swing of 7.2 per cent.

Queensland University of Technology political scientist Clive Bean said the ALP had concentrated its campaign on seats that it had to retain and worried less about seats it held with a large margin.

“There’s also a personal factor involved - some voters in safe seats feel that they can deliver a protest vote against the Government knowing that it won’t actually change the Government, but those in marginal seats feel that they can’t do that,” he said.

But Sunshine Coast University political analyst Scott Prasser said the Brisbane result showed that it was virtually impossible for the conservative parties to win the state capital with a leader from the country.

“For the Liberal National Party to get through in Brisbane it needs to have a Liberal at the helm,” he said.

“If you spend any time with Lawrence Springborg you’d know he’s not a hayseed, but he wasn’t able to get that through to the electorate,” he said of the leader once dismissed by former state Liberal leader Bruce Flegg as “a farmer from the Darling Downs”.

Go-ahead for $2bn Traveston dam plan

Greg Roberts
March 23, 2009

THE Bligh Government will push ahead with its plan to build the Traveston dam, despite suffering some electoral pain from the controversial project.

The Government also confirmed it would proceed with plans to pump recycled sewage and trade waste to Brisbane’s Wivenhoe Dam when southeast Queensland storage levels fell to 40per cent.

Former sustainability minister Andrew McNamara blamed the Traveston dam for his defeat in the seat of Hervey Bay, which is downstream of the $2 billion project. “We have resolved the question of whether the dam is a vote-changing issue - it certainly is,” Mr McNamara said. “It was a very big factor in how people voted.”

The dam was blamed for Labor’s loss of the Sunshine Coast seats of Kawana and Noosa at the 2006 election.

The Greens yesterday demanded the Bligh Government scrap the dam after claiming that their preferences delivered a raft of seats to Labor.

The Greens’ overall vote of 8.2 per cent was their highest in Queensland. Greens spokesman Drew Hutton said 10 Labor MPs, including Treasurer Andrew Fraser and Water Minister Craig Wallace, owed their seats to Greens preferences.

Queensland ALP director Anthony Chisholm said Greens preferences had delivered the seat of Everton to Labor and could be decisive in four other undecided seats.

Veteran Nationals senator Ron Boswell said the preferences deal that delivered Greens preferences to Labor in 14 key seats demonstrated that the two parties were “one and the same”.

Government presses ahead with dam

Gabrielle Dunlevy and Steve Gray
March 23, 2009

The Queensland government will push ahead with a controversial dam project despite its environment minister, who represents one of the affected areas, losing his seat in Saturday’s election.

Hervey Bay MP Andrew McNamara was the only minister to lose his seat, and admitted the proposed Traveston Crossing Dam was one of the issues counting against him.

Dam opponents said there were also swings against the government in Brisbane seats where they campaigned, as well as an increased vote for the Greens across Queensland.

Glenda Pickersgill, president of the Save the Mary River Coordinating Group, said Premier Anna Bligh needed to heed the message from the election.

“It’s certainly not a mandate to continue more of the same.

“We’re calling for a renewal and the first thing to look at is the Traveston Crossing Dam,” she said.

Ms Bligh agreed the support for the dam in the affected area was low, but maintained it was needed.

“What’s clear is that a number of people live in and around where the proposed Traveston Crossing Dam will go are opposed to it,” Ms Bligh told reporters in Brisbane on Monday.

“I don’t think there are any surprises in that, it does require significant impost on that community.”

But Ms Bligh said the dam was still needed for the future water needs of the growing region.

“I also understand that there is equally strong support for it in the southeast corner,” she said.

“People understand it’s not that long ago we came dangerously and perilously close to running out of water in the most populated part of our state and I’m not going to let that happen again.”

The $1.7 billion project to dam the Mary River was announced by the Beattie government in 2006, when southeast Queensland was gripped by drought.

The Mary River is home to the rare Mary River cod, Queensland lungfish and the Mary River turtle, and the proposal has angered local landholders and conservationists.

In November, Ms Bligh attempted to defuse the heated debate over the dam by announcing a delay in further work for at least two years.

Anti-dam campaigners now plan to focus their efforts on the federal government, which must approve it.

Media Release from Senator the Hon Ian Macdonald

Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia
Liberal Senator for Queensland

23 March 2009


GREENS LEADERSHIP HYPOCRISY A FACTOR IN THE ELECTION

The hypocrisy of the Greens‟ political party leadership in directing preferences to a Government that is determined to build the Traveston Crossing Dam, showed through in Saturday‟s Queensland election.

Queensland Liberal Senator, Ian Macdonald, who had exposed the Greens’ hypocrisy in the Senate last week said that in all but two electorates where The Greens allocated preferences to Labor, the Greens’ primary vote actually went down.

“Voters who care for the environment understand that the Greens leadership is being hypocritical in on one hand campaigning against the Traveston Crossing Dam but on the other hand giving preferences to Labor, who have a clear intention to construct the dam.”

“Of the 14 anticipated marginal seats where the Greens directed preferences to the ALP, all but two showed a significant decline in the Greens vote, from what they achieved at the last State election.”

“For example in Redcliffe, the Greens’ vote fell from 10.8 per cent to 5.8 per cent, and in Ashgrove, the vote fell from 15.85 per cent to 11.43.”

“And in the „Traveston Crossing Dam seats’ the LNP vote soared whilst votes for both the Greens and Labor didn’t match.”

“The LNP won the electorate of Hervey Bay, which will be vitally affected by the construction of the Traveston Crossing Dam by defeating the incumbent Environment Minister.”

“In the electorate of Gympie, where the dam will be constructed, the LNP vote increased by a massive 15 per cent, whereas even with half the candidates who previously contested the seat, the votes for The Greens and the Labor Party only had modest 1.7 per cent & 2.3 per cent increases respectively.”

“But unfortunately in the four seats still in doubt (at 11.30am) the Greens preferences (all given to Labor) could result in giving Labor a comfortable majority in the House and heightening the prospects of construction of the Traveston Crossing Dam.”