The electorate of Brisbane has existed without interruption since federation, and presently covers the north shore of the Brisbane River from Milton through the CBD to Eagle Farm, extending northwards to Stafford at its western end and Hendra in the east. It was the most surprising of the Liberal National Party’s eight gains in Queensland at the 2010 election, as Labor had held the seat since 1931 outside of the interruption of 1975 to 1980, holding on even in the face of the 1996 disaster which reduced Labor to two Queensland seats. The defeated Labor member was Arch Bevis, who had held the seat since 1990 when he succeeded Manfred Cross, whose tenure went back to 1961. Peter Johnson held the seat for the Liberals from 1975 until 1980, when Cross recovered his old seat on the second attempt.
Brisbane’s complexion was changed somewhat by redistributions in 2004 and 2010, the more recent of which cut the margin from 6.8% to 3.8% by adding 26,500 voters at the eastern end of the electorate at the expense of territory out to Ferny Grove and Upper Kedron in the west and Stafford in the north. The former area included Clayfield and its highly affluent surrounds, which have contributed to the electorate’s current status as the highest-income electorate in Queensland. This proved doubly damaging for Labor as the swings around Clayfield were especially strong, in keeping with a national trend in which the air went out of the Howard-era “doctors’ wives” balloon. The effect was to counterbalance a relatively static result in the inner city, contributing to a decisive 5.7% swing to the LNP. The result was also notable for the 21.3% vote for the Greens (compared with a Labor primary vote of 30.4%), whose candidate was former Democrats Senator and party leader Andrew Bartlett.
The LNP victory facilitated a return to parliament for Teresa Gambaro, who had held the northern Brisbane seat of Petrie from 1996 until her defeat in 2007. Gambaro is a member of a family famous in Brisbane for its seafood business, its restaurant being located in the electorate at Petrie Terrace. Nonetheless, Brisbane did not seem an especially strong prospect for her at the time of preselection, which occurred at the peak of the Rudd government’s fortunes in the opinion polls. Gambaro held parliamentary secretary and assistant minister positions in the final term of the Howard government, and has served as shadow parliamentary secretary for international development assistance and citizenship and settlement throughout the current term. She made headlines in January 2012 when she called for migrants to be given hygiene lessons, for which she subsequently apologised.
Labor has preselected Fiona McNamara, an organiser with the Queensland Teachers Union, of which Arch Bevis was also an official before entering parliament. The union is not affiliated with the ALP, but is said to wield influence in the Labor Unity faction. McNamara has been twice unsuccessful as candidate for Peter Dutton’s northern Brisbane seat of Dickson, falling short by 0.1% in 2007 and 5.1% in 2010.
[
Read it to the end, the end is sane.]
Sorry mate… it’s crazy all the way down.
Well BK your reading, comprehension & posting speed is way better than mine at that time. I’m not a morning person.
mysay – 44yrs counts as an achievement.
DL
Do you know much about the candidate Labor has selected for the Brisbane seat.
While the radio station is not totally to blame for the nurses very sad suicide, it is completely foreseeable that the nurse would have been distressed at her involvement.
The media has blood on its hands. It has callous indifference to its effect on anyone.
CTar1
44 years is an achievement. This year I reached 25 years, and I thought that was a long time!!
[This just goes to show what the frenzied media-hyped bullshit that surrounds royalty (and so-called celebrities) can do.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-08/nurse-who-took-kate-prank-call-found-dead/4416348 ]
That’s a spot-on comment BK.
The Australian radio station was just doing what’s been done – a prank call – in similar circumstances many times before. Most of the British tabloid angst would have concerned why they hadn’t thought of it themselves.
The call was probably the last straw, one of many that had been piling up on her and her colleagues at that hospital.
I dare say she copped a ribbing from her friends about it too. Why not “blame” them?
Things like this are the unintended consequences of the media going too far in the search for a confected story.
Then again, the radio jocks aren’t “journalists”, I assume.
On the other hand, that distinction has long lost it’s significance lately. Take Jones, or Hadley, for example.
God damn it! It wasn’t even funny, nor original. Just some “fun” that went horribly wrong.
Is this what “freedom of speech” means, Abbott-IPA style?
The nurse may have been under pressure to resign or may have felt she ought to resign. We’ll find out one day.
Diogenes
Is it really possible to foresee someone taking that course of action?
Puff, an addendum:
Whoops!
I realise that without cccp I get a leave a reply box, I don’t know whether this includes a preview or not.
Certainly I get one with cccp.
victoria – All I’ve been able to manage is one round of 10 and another of 8 and still counting.
You and maysay are well up the batting order.
Don’t know if this has been posted or not: Laurie Oakes on the Zombie Apocolypse
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/there-will-be-an-apocalypse-under-the-government-I-lead/
I’ve never understood the humour in prank calls.
However, the world is full of falsehoods, and it’s the one saving grace I can see for the prank call – a public reinforcement of the notion that healthy skepticism is an important part of daily life.
The radio hosts can’t be responsible for someone’s fragile mental state. If the prank call hadn’t pushed this poor individual over the edge it’s likely some other unfortunate event would have.
Very sad, and the stupid banal unpleasantness of what passes for radio host entertainment deserves a good public dressing down … but they didn’t kill this person.
CTar1
I did not think I would do well in the batting order at all. When OH and I married, I told him that we would see how it would go for five years and then re evaluate. I did not believe that anyone would genuinely want to stay with the same person too long without getting bored or wanting a change. To my surprise, 25 years later we are still getting along okay!
Victoria: no, I don’t know what goes on in Queensland politics (and I’m not sure I want to know, either ;-))
BTW, you know Gillard got it just right on the apocalypse stuff by looking at the way the right is responding.
They know she’s on a winner 😀
Vic
Clearly you can’t foresee her committing suicide but anyone could foresee the distress it would cause her.
The media just doesn’t give a shit.
victoria – Events can be a little surprising as time moves on.
My current and very much ‘keeper’ 8 is my daughters auntie.
‘Things’ happen.
Dio
Unfortunately radio hosts inhabit a different space. They probably dont take into consideration the serious pressures people face in their daily work. For them it is all about getting a laugh
[Destroy the Context @SpaceKidette
Way to go Australian Media Fuckwits. A mother of two is now dead because you know no boundaries! #mediafail
Destroy the Context @SpaceKidette
I don’t buy the ‘unintended consequences’ line. Sure suicide was not expected but loss of job or being admonised very real possibilites. 1/2
Destroy the Context @SpaceKidette
Media have become wilfully blind to the impact on others lives. Happy to throw peoples lives into turmoil for the story or even laughs. 2/2
Destroy the Context @SpaceKidette
Given fact-checking is now a thing of the past in pursuit of ‘breaking a story’ lives are often wrecked without a second thought. #mediafail ]
CTar1
Agreed. Life does often take us in unexpected directions.
DL
Do you know what is going on in SA? 😀
Hearty congratulations My Say! 🙂
Vic
Completely true.
The media attracts scumbags with no conscience.
Victoria
[When OH and I married, I told him that we would see how it would go for five years and then re evaluate. I did not believe that anyone would genuinely want to stay with the same person too long without getting bored or wanting a change. To my surprise, 25 years later we are still getting along okay!]
It is hard to imagine so far into the future. I felt the same, yet, we’ve been together for 37 years and married for 34.
[Alison Fairleigh Just found out that hoax call was pre-recorded & a production team, lawyers & managers all gave the go ahead before it was broadcast.]
Dee
Very true. It is difficult to see too far into the future. It seems so far away, and yet it comes around very quickly at the same time. Go figure.
And a Fantastic effort to you and your OH! Actually if I add pre marriage years, it is nearly 30 years for me. Gee I feel old!!
My Say
Congratulations to you and Mr My Say on 44 good years. xx
Jackol @ 63
Not true. We all have to be responsible for our actions as they bear consequences.
victoria,
Where did you get the Fairleigh info?
Victoria: Ha!
Unfortunately, the answer is nothing. My source tells me that since the polls have tightened, Mr Liberal is now unwilling to go public.
Also, I understand some efforts have been made to encourage him to keep quiet. I have wondered whether this might involve what Chris Murphy has been hinting.
Time will tell, I guess. If it is true the two things are connected and the messages become public at some point then the pressure would be on for the full story to come out.
If the media is consistent, that is 😉
SK
I got it on twitter
So the cost of this so called prank is a woman’s life, two children’s mother, a family’s member, was it worth it to garner a few strained laughs and to be able to sell a few mindless moments.
The media has forgotten that these ‘pranks’, headlines and stories are about people, people that are just trying live their lives the best way they know how. People that have families, personalities, dignity and their own stories, media has no qualms in regard to destroying other’s lives so that they can sell a few moments or inches in their rush for money. But, one bad comment about how they abuse their position or the impacts of what they do and the airwaves and headlines scream of their rights to say and do what they want mediating themselves.
How many more lives are going to be destroyed before there are more controls over these fa&king a*seholes that think they can do and get away with whatever they want.
Thanks Vic!
DL
I was really looking forward to some pressure being put on the MP in question. I have observed his conduct over the past few months. He appears on the face of it to be going about his usual annoying behaviour and modus operandi. Does not seem at all concerned about any secrets being exposed. Mind you I could be reading the whole situation totally wrong!!
SK
Here is the twitter account
https://mobile.twitter.com/AlisonFairleigh
[The nurse may have been under pressure to resign or may have felt she ought to resign. We’ll find out one day.]
To the contrary, apparently the hospital and the Palace were conciliatory and supportive, no comeback at all, according to The Guardian.
She was the lady who first answered the phone and put the call through to the ward, not the nurse who actually gave out the information.
She might have been in real trouble, however, if it had been the Queen and she’d refused to put the call through. Imagine the kerfuffle over that.
What do you do in these circumstances? Perhaps there’d been genuinecalls from genuine royalty over the previous couple of days?
It’s easy to say it’s an inevitable consequence of the media’s propensity to manufacture news. And manufacture it they did. The “story” went worldwide.
Eventually, if you’re a joker, you make a joke that falls flat. Usually there’s no more comeback than red faces, and perhaps an official apology.
It was ironic to see that, after the last Kyle Sandilands episode, the radio station 2Day issued a statement where they said “We’ve all learned a lot from this.” Not enough, apparently.
We have here a perfectly normal woman, doing her job, making a mistake to which there was no great opprobrium attached. The hospital didn’t have appropriate measures in place to field calls. So, a staff member picked up the fatal phone. It was a prank that went – at first appearances – spectacularly well, from a “gotcha” point of view.
What happened shouldn’t have happened. But it did.
We’ve seen our Prime Minister told her father died of shame. And then that grub Abbott repeated the phrase so soon after the first occurrence that his protestations of innocence of intent fell on appropriately deaf ears.
But Gillard got her own back. She got onto the front foot and blasted Abbott to kingdom come. His leering grin at the start turned into a stoney-faced silence by the end of her speech.
The poor nurse didn’t have that opportunity, or perhaps didn’t possess Gillard’s inner strength, but on the other hand her embarrassment, on the surface of things, didn’t warrant suicide either.
It’s probably a vain hope, but let’s hope anyway that someone, somewhere will learn the lesson that things you say, especially on public media outlets, DO have consequences and that you never know when you’re going to break an egg-shell heart and trigger a tragedy.
Gillard should make a speech on this. She should roundly condemn the bullying that she and others have to put up with from the media, the constant “testing” of “toughness” that seems to be directed at the easiest target, and which is celebrated by our media as them “just doing our job.”
Haveachat
The ABC reports
[“We extend our deepest sympathies to her family and all that have been affected by this situation around the world.”
The statement said both presenters are shocked and will not be returning to air “until further notice”.
“Chief Executive Officer Rhys Holleran has spoken with the presenters – they are both deeply shocked and at this time we have agreed that they not comment about the circumstances,” the statement said.]
Gigi, HaveAchat and others – what are you suggesting, that prank calls should be banned or self censored or prevented in some way on the off chance the recipient might not be in a healthy mental state?
This is a tragic situation, but life throws all kinds of nonsense at all of us – suicide is not the foreseeable choice. Someone answering a phone for an institution needs to be able to deal with scammers, frauds, kooks of all kinds including those of the radio host persuasion – it’s part of life.
The fact that this particular individual couldn’t cope with the situation is more about the support networks available to her and whether she should have had the responsibility to take phone calls in that situation.
This wa not a prank call or an hoax. What it boils down to is these radio jocks told a blatant lie to get what they wanted.
I tried installing Musrum’s magical programs on the Mac but they would not run.
http://mattcowgill.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/high-cost-low-productivity-nation/
[A high-cost, low-productivity nation?
December 7, 2012
You might remember that in late 2010, we were warned repeatedly that Australia was facing a ‘wages breakout’. The Australian, in the typically calm and measured tones of its editorial page, warned that “the economy, unfortunately, is facing an economically irrational assault on a scale we have not witnessed for a quarter of a century.”
……….
This week, the ABS released the quarterly national accounts, showing that productivity had grown at a pretty solid pace in the September quarter – in fact, the rate of growth over the past year has been around its highest in a decade. In what must be an oversight, neither newspaper chose to highlight this fact. When I search on the AFR’s website, I can find six articles in yesterday’s paper that mention productivity – not one of them mentions the new figures. Laura Tingle noted the pick-up in productivity growth in her column today, but unless I’ve missed something that remains the only reference. At The Australian, I can find two relevant articles – one a piece from the AAP, one a piece from Dow Jones Newswires. I’m not sure if either ran in the actual newspaper.]
worth reading through
Hartcher seems to be in a despondent mood.
He knows something unexpected has happened and realised that Tones is nearly broken.
He knows not what to write or what comes next but knows his employers require something from him.
Drivel is not an unexpected result.
“and that you never know when you’re going to break an egg-shell heart and trigger a tragedy.”
BB
Put so poignantly.
BB
Point well made. Unfortunately, it is impossible to understand the frame of mind someone is in at any given time or situation. Let us hope some lessons are indeed learned
Jackol @ 88
Yes, Jackol, these prank calls SHOULD BE BANNED!
CTar1
I suspect you are correct about Hartcher.
My say, 44 years married is amazing. Congratulations, and I hope there will be many more. I’m amazed that my wife can still put up with me after a mere 4 years.
I personally don’t hold those radio clowns responsible for the tragic suicide, but surely this tragedy will make such presenters think twice about stunts like this.
Morning all.
Truly awful news about the nurse. I wonder how much pressure was put on her by hospital management. A spokesperson for the hospital had made some pretty strong statements in the report I read yesterday.
AJ – 4 yrs. It’s definitely because you’re spending all your time studying.
The hardest bits await.
👿
Puff, the Magic Dragon.@90
Works fine on my Mac.
Do you have Firefox browser installed? Musrum’s program doesn’t work on the native Mac browser, Safari.