Post-match report: South Australia

Welcome to episode two in the slower-than-anticipated Post-Match Report round-up of federal electorate results, which today brings us to South Australia.

Of the three seats that were highly marginal for the Liberals going into the election, Kingston emerged with the smallest Labor margin following a relatively subdued 4.5 per cent swing. The swing was reasonably consistent throughout the electorate, though slightly heavier at Morphett Vale and the Liberal-voting suburbs to the north than along the coast. Makin produced the third biggest swing in the state, perhaps boosted by the retirement of sitting member Trish Draper, with the 0.9 per cent margin obliterated by an evenly distributed 8.6 per cent shift to Labor. In Wakefield the swing was 7.3 per cent, which was markedly lower than in the small towns in the north of the electorate than in the low-income outer Adelaide centres of Elizabeth and Salisbury.

Only at four of Boothby‘s 42 booths did Nicole Cornes achieve a swing greater than the 5.4 per cent needed to win the seat. All were in strong Liberal areas, including the coast around Brighton and the Adelaide Hills suburb of Flagstaff Hill. Labor’s worst results came in the area closest to the city, with swings to the Liberals recorded at Mitcham, Myrtle Bank, Kingswood and Hawthorn West. The Greens’ vote picked up 3.1 per cent, perhaps benefiting from embarrassment surrounding Cornes’s performance. In Sturt the Labor candidate Mia Handshin picked up a close-but-no-cigar swing of 5.9 per cent that was concentrated in the heavily mortgaged northern end of the electorate, with swings near or above 10 per cent at Dernancourt, Gilles Plains and Windsor Gardens. Pyne now sits on an uncomfortable margin of 0.9 per cent.

The 7.2 per cent swing in Adelaide was slightly higher than the state average of 6.8 per cent, and was driven in remarkable degree by the stronger Labor areas to the north and north-west of the city. The swings in many of these booths cracked double figures, whereas the strong Liberal booths to the north-east and south-east of the city mostly came in at well under half that. Labor’s Hindmarsh MP Steve Georganas also had a much more relaxing election night this time around after prevailing by 108 votes in 2004, picking up a 5.0 per cent swing that was fairly evenly distributed throughout the electorate.

Labor’s biggest swing in South Australia was wasted in the safe Liberal rural seat of Barker, where Liberal member Patrick Secker went to preferences for the first time since 1998 after his primary vote fell from 53.2 per cent to 46.8 per cent. Labor was up 8.6 per cent on the primary vote and 10.4 per cent on two-party preferred. Swings were larger in the bigger centres than the small rural booths: all five Mount Gambier booths produced above average swings, peaking at a remarkable 21.4 per cent at Mount Gambier North. Talk of a swing in Grey big enough to endanger the Liberals was partly borne out by double-digit swings in the seat’s traditional Labor centres of Whyalla, Port August and Port Lincoln. Swings were much more gentle in the many smaller rural and remote booths, dampening the overall shift down to an insufficient but still severe 9.4 per cent.

Alexander Downer’s seat of Mayo followed the statewide trend in swinging to Labor by 6.5 per cent. Particularly heavy swings were recorded at the southern coastal towns of Victor Harbor and Goolwa. Nine years after coming within an ace of winning the seat, the Australian Democrats can now manage only 1.5 per cent. The Greens did well to increase 3.4 per cent to 11.0 per cent, partly assisted by the donkey vote. Another good seat for the Greens was Port Adelaide, where they picked up 3.3 per cent and boosted Labor from a 3.7 per cent increase on the primary vote to 6.8 per cent on two-party preferred. Remarkably, all but one of the 10 booths in Paralowie, Salisbury and Parafield to the east of Port Wakefield Road produced a double digit swing, a trend which carried over into neighbouring Makin. Swings in booths further west varied around the 4 per cent mark.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

557 comments on “Post-match report: South Australia”

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  1. Than average swing for the state was 6.8 Whilst both labor and the Greens has a 3% swing to them I am not sure you can with confidence claim that the Greens boosted the ALP vote. I tend to believe it is the voters that delivered the swings and the parties where the recipients. It could be that the ALP received the statewide 6% swing but 3% of previous ALP supporters votes one Green knowing that they would not be elected. Also what happened to the minor party vote. Across the country there has been a noticeable consolidation of the major party vote. It could be that the Greens may have been the beneficiary of this change/swing of voters support. IE they picked up on the democratic vote. Perhaps William should present the statistical breakdown of the change in minor party support then put it into perspective.

    The fact is governments lose office oppositions never really win.

  2. The councillor for Brisbane City Council who replaced the now Federal Member for Bonner died today after a short term in office.

    Brisbane City’s first indigenous councillor, Robbie Williams, has died suddenly of a suspected heart attack, aged 45.

    Cr Williams joined council in October after Kerry Rea left a vacancy to run in the federal election.

    He was expected to win the newly redistributed ward of Wishart at the forthcoming March elections.

    Shortly before 12pm today, Cr Williams suffered a heart attack at his Holland Park office.

    Deputy Mayor David Hinchliffe expressed his deepest sympathies to Cr Williams’ family.

    “I had known the Councillor for many years and his death is a great loss to us all,” Cr Hinchliffe said.

    “(He) was a proud southsider, a tireless community worker and a dedicated family man.”

    Labor Lord Mayoral candidate Greg Rowell said the news came as a terrible shock.

    http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/brisbane-councillors-shock-death/2007/12/20/1197740454842.html

  3. There is another explanation for the difference in Cornes’ swings. The coastal areas are traditionally Glenelg Football Club supporters and so were more sympathetic to their favourite sons wife. The city areas like Kingswood are just as affluent as the coast but barrack for Sturt, who are Glenelg’s great rival so less inclined to give Graham Cornes’ wife a chance. Just a theory but might be true.

  4. [Warning, extremely off topic], but thanks for the follow up for my Grandma on the previous thread Diogenes.

    She got excellent care by all accounts, they found her an acute care bed within an hour. They were there for 9 hours ultimately. Treatment recommendations [which puzzled me a bit] are to change the manner of dressing the leg wound [less binding], more irrigation which was previously not recommended, and to elevate the leg more often. They have not removed any of the dead flesh [the bit that puzzles me]. The doctors there organised an appointment for today at a circulation specialist to see about an angiogram or something like that.

    Big toe has some days with feeling but some with not. I would have thought that a more positive intervention would be required….

  5. Should have added that the reason this might be semi interesting to others is to demonstrate that the health care system seems to be full of well intentioned people who are doing the best they can with the little that they have.

    In my job and those of many others – ultimately, success in so many fields of endeavour comes down to people, relationships and personalities.

  6. Any idea why the Kingston swing was so (relatively) low? I’d have thought it contained the same sort of mortgage belt territory that swung so heavily in Makin and Wakefield. Is Kingston more of an affluent outer suburban seat – like an Aston or a Greenway??

    Otherwise the result is pretty much as expected: Labor easily won the three highly marginal Lib seats, got big swings in their own marginals, and close but not quite there in Sturt. And Nicole Cornes’ dillness cost her party dearly in Boothby….

  7. Senate watch @ 2 – I’m one of those who really voted Labor, but did it by sending my vote via the Greens to deliver an “Its the environment, stupid” message to both major parties.

    Not that it mattered. Labor’s chances in this seat are slightly better than mine of flying to the moon by flapping my arms, nor, as a climate change action skeptic, do I have much faith in humanity saving itself from ecological suicide. It never has in the past.

  8. Chino- I’m very glad to hear that. The treatment she is getting is correct, as is the pace (which was too slow before the visit to Emerg IMHO). The reason for reducing the binding is to increase blood flow by reducing external compression. Leaving the necrotic tissue is correct unless it is infected, which it seldom is in this type of case. It is not harmful at all and is in fact preferable to removing it (healing a fresh wound needs a good blood flow). The important thing is to see if the blood supply can be improved by looking at the angiogram (can sometimes fix with a balloon, sometimes need a surgical bypass and sometimes any intervention may be risky).
    Her case does demonstrate that almost all individual doctors and nurses do their best, it’s systemic problems like getting a timely appointment which are the hard thing to fix.

  9. Regarding Sturt, and looking at those 10% swings in the northern booths, I think it must reasonably be concluded that the interest rate rise and mortgage security were bigger factors than workchoices here. Perhaps I’m being over optimistic due to local bias here, but depending on Labor’s handling of the interest rate issue I would have some hope that Sturt can still fall in 2010. A small swing to the new govenment then would be possible, and with Pyne still on only 0.9%, he could lose.

    The swing in Barker is remarkable – is there some particular issue there driving that?

  10. Diogenes

    Slightly off topic but relevant to your field of expertise – do you have a view on how to fix the medical system mess now that we have “wall-to-wall Labor governments” as the doom sayers put it?

    I know nothing of medicine but, from my reading in economics, it seems that what has to change is the huge waste of money from the private health insurance rebate. That money was ripped out of public hospital funding and it clearly hasn’t reduced demand on intensive care at public hospitals. Converesly, it seems to me desirable to make people pay some small amount of their care costs, to discourage over sue of services. What do you think?

  11. The media surrounding Cornes even post-election has been extraordinary, I have read at least four if not more columns regarding her staggering loss. A couple in support, a couple in defence (Mr Cornes tried to come out and say that she did her job perfectly as a distraction for the other seats. Which is total crap, Labor was always going to pick up three seats, but I digress.)

    Let this be a lesson to all those in other states on the affect she personally had on the seat. It’s difficult to explain the country town mentality of this state, but I don’t think I read one person from SA give her a chance at all at any stage of the campaign, it was all interstate talk. She was stuffed from about day three of the campaign when she requested nobody ask her tough questions. Actually, she was probably stuffed a few years earlier when detailing how John Howard was a good PM and that she voted for him on multiple occasions. This was a blunder from top to bottom.

    Anyway, as others have said, this really was a predictable result. In a way, it’s a shame that Pyne didn’t get the flick because he really is a knob but such is life. Labor got what it deserved here, there was the potential to take five seats but it was content with the three. Which as it turned out was more than enough to take government, but one suspects that Boothby and Sturt will return to safe status pending a half competent effort by the Libs next election. We will see. On the flip side, Ellis has turned Adelaide from a Liberal seat to a safe Labor seat in but a few years, so watch out from her a decade from now, one suspects she has leadership credentials for the future. She has built a public persona remarkably quickly, I really don’t think anyone needs to look far to figure out how.

    On Kingston: My seat, and I’m not sure why Richardson defied the swing, I actually thought the result was going to be a lot larger than this. My guess is that the Liberal promise to expand the Southern Expressway (which is a non stop road from the South to Brighton near the city) might have held a few voters at bay, that’s about all I can think of. We’re going to be one of the seats to watch in the next election, so that should be fun, although I can’t for the life of me figure out who the candidate will be. Maybe Richardson will come back now that Brokenshire has defected to FF…

    On the senate: absolutely brilliant news on Mr Xenophon getting up, a somewhat remarkable feature given he was simple ‘Group S’ above the line, and the shocking time he had publicity wise in the last week of the campaign. Good stuff.

  12. Sorry for another tangent, but I just saw on the Fairfax paper websites that the Haneef visa appeal decision is due at 10.30am tomorrow morning. I hope someone will have a camera crew at Kevin Andrews’ place – in government or not he has a lot to answer for on that one.

    (Diogenes, sorry, I realise in hindsight that my question about health was a bit silly. There is no simple answer.)

    Night all.

  13. 12 Socrates- I’m hoping that wall-to-wall Labor will help, as will Ruddski’s “buck stops with me”. At least they will blame each other less than before and the litany of excuses will be even more feeble. But how to do it???
    1. More funds, the Feds have been welching on this. Even Abbott agreed with this.
    2. Don’t ever quote me on this but doctors in private practice get paid too much and have little incentive to work in public. After overheads, I get paid about 2.5 times more per hour in private than public, and the work is easier in private. They will never be able to cut Medicare payments to fix this so the only way is to make private insurance more expensive so people drop out. But they will then use the public system so that would need careful consideration.
    3. Reduce expectations- either offer less services (stop doing varicose veins, etc) or introduce a means test for co-payments for care with a safety net.
    4. We have the Sara Lee approach to bureaucracy, layer upon layer, endlessly replicating itself. Get rid of state health departments and run it federally.
    5. Get a few really good top execs and pay them $5M a year to run it. SAs Health budget is about $5B a year and is run by someone on $500000. To get someone really good, you have to pay big bucks.

  14. 13 Max – Nicole’s performance did make national news from time-to-time, not just locally. She probably could have lost the safest of Labor seats! Sturt came so close, a great effort!
    .
    But Nick X? Can South Aussies tell me more about him? Without doing my homework etc – All I saw over east was this hilarious man in a silly hat on a trike, declaiming the evils of pokies, and my impression was fantastic comedy street theatre for Rundle Mall on a Sat morning shopping expedition. But for federal politics? What were you guys thinking?
    .
    Is it that your sick of him in SA politics, but couldn’t vote him out locally, so decided to “promote” him? On the positive side, he is certainly a big improvement on past Independent fed Senators we’ve had (eg Harradine).

  15. An interesting rightist critique of Howard by Michael Duffy, here: http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/howard-played-the-conservative-movement/2007/12/20/1197740461213.html

    ‘There’s a real possibility that people in the future, especially those on the right, will look back on the Howard years as we now view the Fraser ones: as a time of wasted opportunity.’

    I guess this sort of column is always easier to write in hindsight, but it truly seems (the beginning of?) a more of an ideological critique as opposed to the partisan toadying much of the right commentariat has been offering for the decade.

  16. Diogenes @ 15-
    20c worth from a one-time health worker, who moved into fed health policy & admin:
    .
    1. More funds, the Feds have been welching on this. Even Abbott agreed with this.
    . TRUE. Also happened in other areas of CWlth/State SPPs, education, welfare, housing, justice, infrastructure etc and in population health services, like communicable disease prevention. The CWlth/State Disability agreements were also cut heavily
    .
    2. ..doctors in private practice get paid too much and have little incentive to work in public. … the only way is to make private insurance more expensive so people drop out. But they will then use the public system..
    .
    Mandatory Private health for all people, finds many who cannot afford to use it anyway, so still elect to use the public system. Many now forced to pay it, call it their private health “tax”. This group have been silenced for years. Also the age-loading has hurt more and more people.
    .
    Around half of all privately insured still use the public system for *everything*, and a third use it for *most* things. Previously, most people used private health mainly for ancillary services (dental, physio, optical etc). As more and more are forced into mandatory private hospital cover, they can’t afford the top cover tables, so have enormous insurance excesses, which discourages them further from using it, and they can’t afford to pay for ancillary cover on top of it. So they have bad teeth etc, as well as being unable to use private hospital cover.
    .
    It is a myth that more privately insured would reduce pressure on public health systems, it never worked in the past, and it still doesn’t.
    .
    There is no incentive in privatised systems to keep prices down, so is uncapped, it just keeps going up, doctors fees, nursing salaries, private hospital charges, funds admin charges etc etc — there’s nothing to “drive” it down, so it actually drives inflation up, far beyond the general inflation rate on other goods & services. Thats what happens in the USA, their prices charged are obscene.
    .
    Its been undeniably proven worldwide that public systems are much cheaper than private ones, and always have been, because they have “drivers” to keep costs down, they aren’t looking for profit but just to cover costs.
    .
    Read a recent paper in a Canadian Medical Journal, comparing some CV patients in New York City with CV patients in Toronto. For the NYC people, their insurance funds found it much cheaper overall, to fly them them over the border to Toronto public hospitals, with airfares, both pre-op and post-op care, along with classy hotel & travel accommodation thrown into the deal with the Canadians? *sheesh*
    .
    The “old” system worked better, where privately insured had private room treatment in public hospitals. This made overheads and admin cheaper by sharing it. It also meant a small income for public hospitals.
    .
    Also, the “old” system worked well for the self-insured. This suited a lot of middle-income earners, who could consider paying a reduced price by negotiation with their private surgeons, in order to “jump the queue” for one-offs.
    .
    In private health insurance, these people would often chose in-and-out coverage, also called the private health ” Hit & Runs “. They would take out private health cover for specific purposes, wait the waiting period, “jump the queue” for their treatment, then drop-out again.
    .
    This system of self-insurance and ‘hit & runs’, which suited many Aussies for 30-40 years or more, was minimally stuffed-up under Keating (by discouraging private patients in public hospitals – which annoyed the hospitals, as those private patients were a small but valuable source of income)… but completely wiped under Howard.
    .
    3. Reduce expectations- either offer less services (stop doing varicose veins, etc) or introduce a means test for co-payments for care with a safety net.
    .
    Means-testing means more administration and paper-work, as well as fraud audit & surveillance. Do you really want the Medicare Australia auditors (the *spies* we call them) running around hospitals? Bad enough spying on pharmacists in the chemist shops and the doctors in their surgeries 🙂
    .
    Reducing expectations of what is ‘elective’ is a good idea anyway. As a young woman working in hospitals, I used to think “elective” and “surgery” was an oxymoron, who in their right mind would “elect” to have surgery? LOLOL
    .
    Also, outpatient specialist clinics have gone by the way-side in recent years.
    .
    4. We have the Sara Lee approach to bureaucracy, layer upon layer, endlessly replicating itself. Get rid of state health departments and run it federally.
    .
    Ahh..this is where I disagree. State health departments do so much more than just look after hospitals, they have community health, population health and various other health sectors to look after as well, such as HACC, alcohol/drug clinics and coordinating with other state services, paramedics, emergency services, welfare, social workers, justice and police services etc. You still need people on the ground locally, to respond to service-delivery, coordination and planning issues.
    .
    Running it federally, would just most of those admin people would become federal public servants, instead of state ones!
    .
    5. Get a few really good top execs and pay them $5M a year to run it. SAs Health budget is about $5B a year and is run by someone on $500000. To get someone really good, you have to pay big bucks.
    .
    Count me in, I could do with that sort of salary!! *chuckle*
    .

  17. Time will tell with Mr X.
    If he demands largesse for SA for his vote (at the obvious expense of the rest of Oz) then he follows the shallow, small minded examples of Harradine and Fielding who, because a fluke in the numbers, were in a position to demand favours for his state in return for his vote. The Senate is (was) for protecting state’s rights, not for an individual senator to grandstand.
    We’ll wait and see, but given this fellows history I don’t expect much.

  18. Time will tell. As early anecdotal though – yesterday the South Sydney Leagues Club board voted for the Crowe/Holmes a Court proposal to get rid of their pokies in favour of other business developments. Xenaphon was quick to announce he would support them however he could from a federal position.

  19. 22 Rain- Thanks for that excellent post. I should point out that my suggestions were cobbled together quickly in response to a question after I finished watching “Hostel” (BTW the movie proves if it looks too good to be true, it probably is).
    Re co-payments your point is very good and it would be hard to administer.
    Re Sara Lee I was only referring to States dropping out of public hospitals. There are certainly a lot of other functions the DHs perform.
    Re salary. I saw a BBC doco called “Can Gerry Robinson fix the NHS?” which was fascinating. He is a respected industry CEO and went in to a NHS hospital to see what was wrong. He concluded among other things that it needed better quality managers and to compete with private you need to pay for them. Did you know that the NHS is the THIRD BIGGEST EMPLOYER IN THE WORLD!!!
    PS Thanks to Adam and Rudd it is raining in Adelaide

  20. 3. steve

    It is sad that Robbie Williams died, but he was not going to hold onto wishart, Krista Adams was always going to win.

    an interesting point about Williams was that in his maiden speech he said he would have happily run as a liberal, if they had asked him first.

  21. I’m not surprised by Kingston’s small swing form what I understand Richardson was seen as a hard working MP, also the nature of Kingston might be that it isn’t a big swinging seat.

    The big swings in seats like Barker are not really a surprise considering the polling all year said the swing was bigger in safe Liberal seats.

    While Cornes may have made some mistakes I suspect that the Glengle vs Sturt rivalry could be a factor, in saying that Lindsay Tanner is a Essendon support that doesn’t hurt him in Collingwood or Carlton.

    On Boothsby from my understanding of the last SA state election the ALP were a better chance in Sturt.

    Kate Ellis looks nearly unbeatable in Adelaide in the near foreseeable future, is she possibly a future leadership contender, maybe except Rudd will be leader for most of the next 10 years and depending on how his Prime Ministership ends only then can we assess her chances.

    All up no surprises in SA.

  22. Gusface @ 20. A ‘prayer’ is a plea or request. In religious terms it refers to a plea to God, but this is not its only meaning. In legal terms it refers to a plea or request to the court in which a person’s case is stated and sets out the course of action the one making the plea would like the court to take.

  23. The full federal court has dismissed Andrews’ appeal against Judge Spender’s decision to restore Haneef’s visa.

    As he demonstrated numerous times, Andrews is the embodiment of everything that is putrid about the conservative side of Australian politics. No wonder Nelson could find no place for him in the 40 person opposition front bench, despite their denuded numbers.

  24. Seriously, Rudd is having a great run at the moment. Of the non-economic issues that the left have detested Howard over, look at what’s happened since Rudd got in (should point out Rudd can’t take credit for most).
    1. Kyoto-ratified and US back at the table
    2. AWB- ASIC launches prosecutions
    3. Haneef- Andrews appeal rejected again
    4. Hicks- getting out in a week, control order verdict today

    A lot of the stain of the Howard regime is washing out. Bring on the rain!

  25. 26 Is that so? Either my eyesight fails me or some Tory is pulling my leg!

    Chairperson: Further speakers? Councillor WILLIAMS. Councillors, I remind you that this
    is Councillor WILLIAMS’s first speech in this place.
    Councillor WILLIAMS: Thank you, Chairperson. I would like to begin by acknowledging country as
    I’ve heard the Council are taking on that role, and I surely acknowledge this
    meeting today. I would like to acknowledge the Chairperson of the Council,
    Kevin BIANCHI, the LORD MAYOR, Campbell NEWMAN, the DEPUTY
    MAYOR, David HINCHLIFFE, and my fellow Councillors.
    I’m very humble and very honoured to stand here today. As the Brisbane City
    Council Councillor for Holland Park it’s very much not only a privilege but an
    honour. I sincerely would like to thank the Australian Labor Party and I would
    like to give special mention to a number of people whose names I heard today.
    Firstly, would be the State Secretary of the party, Milton Dick. The local
    representative, Judy Spence, who’s not only the local member but also the
    Minister of Police and Corrective Services but also Sports. The previous
    Councillor, Kerry REA, and also other people that are actually in this room
    today, two Councils that border my ward Councillor QUIRK, as well as Adrian
    SCHRINNER, thank you very much.
    But I need to also give special acknowledgement to the actual branch that I come
    from, Mt Gravatt. They have a strong history within the Mt Gravatt area and Mr
    John O’Donohue, who’ actually a member of the Mt Gravatt Trust and a long
    serving member of the Mt Gravatt Trust as well as [indistinct]
    It’s very, very active as well as supportive of people like myself to come through
    the branch and also to [indistinct]. Actually, John has encouraged me to be one
    of the first, not only first indigenous representative on Brisbane City Council but
    also be one of the first state representatives for Bonner at State Conferences and
    that was another honour that I actually represented the federal electorate of
    Bonner, so named after Neville Bonner, who happened to be a Liberal senator.
    So everybody has got their own way. So it’s very, very much an honour to be
    here today, as I said. There are those people that have encouraged me and seen
    an inner strength in me, the inner strength that I have in me they’ve seen and I
    feel and hope that it will not only support me in the role that I do in the future
    but it will also help me. And I’ve already worked with people like the LORD
    MAYOR and I have to acknowledge the LORD MAYOR, the work. Amanda
    over there. I’ll acknowledge the work that she did before she was a Councillor
    but good work, you know, and to the DEPUTY MAYOR.
    The one good thing is working at a community level, you work across different
    sides of parliament and politics. The one great thing is, and I’ve heard and
    listened to a lot, like last Tuesday’s as well as today, and I’ve talked to
    Councillor GRIFFITHS who gave me a few explanations about a different things
    and that, and been to a couple of meetings.
    I’ve heard about different levels of government that people in this house and the
    LORD MAYOR and the DEPUTY MAYOR work with. The great thing that I
    actually do think, and I actually acknowledge the DEPUTY MAYOR said that
    [4240th (Ordinary) Meeting – 6 November 2007]
    – 51 –
    last week that Robbie has actually been involved, not only within the community
    but also at different levels of government.
    I’d have to be pleased to say that I’ve worked with people on both sides of
    parliament and at all levels, good and bad, and we’ve had our wins as well as,
    you know, we’ve seen a lot of changes. I was recently at the swearing in
    ceremony for State Parliament and it was very much an honour to see people like
    I’ve heard talk about Anna Bligh. It was the first time a woman had actually got
    sworn in to as the Premier. It’s very much an honour to be there. It stirs you up
    in the emotional sense.
    One of the great things is I’m very proud of the opportunity I’ve got to work for
    the residents and the families that live in Holland Park Ward.
    For me, it is of great significance. I look forward to working hard in the place
    where my father was—and you are all quite welcome to come there and I’ve
    made the offer to a lot of the Councillors on this side but the offer is on the other
    side too to come, and you’ll see actual photos of my father’s butcher shop that
    was actually there.
    You’ll see the stories and I can tell you the stories from the local area and the
    actual people that were there. The one thing is my father spent a lot of his years
    within the local area and the one good thing, I used to be at St Bernards and then
    at Clairvaux and then Macgregor later on, I used to go through that butcher shop.
    And the one great thing is Mt Gravatt and Holland Park and Wishart, as Graham
    knows, it’s grown, it’s grown a lifestyle within its own. The one great thing is
    I’ve lived there all my life. I’m actually a local. That’s a big, big thing. Yes,
    LORD MAYOR, you’re probably thinking, yes, you’re over that fight, Robbie,
    now.
    Well, I had a look at what was on offer on the other side and as I’m very good
    friends with the LORD MAYOR—and I would say that openly, LORD
    MAYOR, I am very good friends with you and Graham and Adrian—I looked
    on both sides and I said, well, I know David and I know a few of the mob over
    there, I like what’s on this side.
    But one of the things is that—and I see people saying, well, that’s not in
    Robbie’s speech but well, I’m sorry. Robbie likes to ad lib a little bit and one of
    the things is my community actually deserves people like me, and David said it
    last week. It needs to be grassroots people that represents grassroots people.
    We need to come from not only both sides of parliament and the house here. We
    need to represent our people. I see people like Kevin I’ve known for years who
    have been a bit of a mentor for me too. But I see people over that side. I know
    the work that Graham’s done. I know the work of David HINCHLIFFE and Les.
    You have been very, very strong leaders within your own local community
    and I hope I can be that way too for mine.
    One of the big things is life has been very much a journey for me. It’s brought
    me to this where yes, I am the first indigenous Councillor but the first thing is,
    I’m the first indigenous Councillor but I’m sure I won’t be the last.
    Not only as a male, but as a female, they all come through the door behind me.
    I’ve opened that door up now. Maybe if I’m the first for Labor at any level of
    government in Queensland, I hope I won’t be the last and I hope it will
    encourage them to come through; because that’s the great thing with Labor now,
    they’re encouraging indigenous people to get involved.
    I hope the Liberal and the National Party encourage their people to get involved
    too. One of the things is, I’ve been raised, brought up and I represent my people.
    I’m talking about not only people I know and the indigenous people. Everybody
    right across the board.
    Holland Park is a very incredible, diverse part of Brisbane. It covers the suburbs
    of Holland Park, Holland Park West, Mt Gravatt, Mt Gravatt East and
    Mansfield. That part of Brisbane has many young families. It reflects the
    number of schools in the ward. A massive number of schools.
    [4240th (Ordinary) Meeting – 6 November 2007]
    – 52 –
    I strongly believe that the best chance for children being born today is to give
    them a decent education. At Holland Park, we give those children that
    opportunity to start life the right way. Our ward has a large number of primary
    schools, secondary schools, world-class education through universities and
    TAFEs.
    The services that they not only provide our community—and Mt Gravatt and
    Holland Park, but also the greater Brisbane area and they also come from
    interstate, overseas, everything. But I cannot stress how important it is about
    being involved in the community previously.
    Yes, I have been involved with the community, like an organisation I’m
    involved with, and I’ve been involved with a number of other community
    organisations. And the one great thing is I see how important community groups
    are and I’m sure all of you that have been involved with community groups, it
    helps the functional way of our society.
    I cannot stress how much positive influence these community groups make to
    our lives, and many of the sporting groups and senior groups and that that are
    actually in our area are actually very, very active and they help. With this in
    mind, the positive differences you can make in the community by working
    through community groups is unbelievable.
    I encourage people to be involved in community groups. I hear the LORD
    MAYOR, the DEPUTY MAYOR, talk about the importance about
    infrastructure, working with government departments, working with government
    at all levels. We’ve achieved this recently, and I’ll be honest the LORD
    MAYOR had a lot of a big role in this and Councillor QUIRK, I acknowledge
    that because you’re actively—I also acknowledge the DEPUTY MAYOR. One
    thing we’ve done, we’ve created a major thing on the southside of Brisbane.
    Wind her up quickly. Is that better?
    Chairperson: Your time has expired, Councillor.
    Councillor WILLIAMS: Keep going really quickly?
    Chairperson: No, sorry, your time has expired, Councillor.

    http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/bccwr/about_council/documents/council_minutes_6nov2007.pdf

  26. The Howards error is not over yet.
    Have they been arrested yet???
    The criminal gang have to be prosecuted, so as to deter any body repeating such a holocoust upon this earth again.
    The defence benches are ready for the evil cable.
    Let the Trials begin.

  27. Not entirely true John of Melbourne. Burke was sent out with a carefully worded statement claiming that ‘on the basis of the information supplied to us by the government we are prepared to support this position in principle.’

    I admit this is a kind of weak response, but they were also on HWA (high wedge alert) at the time. I am prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt at this stage, and judge them by how they respond to this descision now.

  28. 37 JOM
    Labor agreed to support Andrew’s decision based on the limited evidence that they had access to at the time. It was also an obvious wedge issue that required deft handling.

    It is interesting though that the Gov’t lawyers are stated in the article to be considering whether to appeal to the High Court.

  29. This para from the Haneef judgment tells us something of the twisted morality of the government and its politicised public service:

    “122 The Solicitor-General submitted that the object of the 1999 amendments was to make it easier for the Minister to exclude from Australia persons who might be thought to pose a risk. He submitted that if some entirely innocent people were caught up in the process that was regrettable, but it was simply the price that had to be paid to ensure the safety of the Australian community.”

  30. Has there ever been a more incompetent minister than Andrews? If anyone should have had a protection order taken out on them as they were a threat to public safety, it was Andrews. Haneef was not Rudd’s finest hour by a long shot and he might be a bit reluctant to sink the boot into Andrews. Hedley Thomas on the other hand will have an absolute field day!

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