Bowman covers Brisbane’s coastal outer south from Thorneside through Capalaba and Sheldon to Redland Bay, and extends across the southern part of Moreton Bay to North Stradbroke Island. It has existed in name since 1949, but did not include any of its current territory until 1969, instead being based in Brisbane’s inner south-east. The 1969 redistribution caused the redrawn electorate to extend from the mouths of the Brisbane River in the north to the Logan River in the south, the latter also marking the Bowman’s southern extremity today. The area now covered by Bowman began to acquire its suburban character at around this time. With the redistribution of 1977, the southern part of the electorate came to be accommodated by the newly created electorate of Fadden. Bowman’s present dimensions were established when its northern neighbour Bonner was created to accommodate the Wynnum-Manly area at the 2004 election, setting Thorneside as the northern extremity of Bowman.
Bowman in its various permutations has been a marginal seat for most of its history, having been held by the Liberals throughout the Menzies and Holt years outside of a win by Labor as part of its near-victory at the 1961 election. It next changed hands with the big swing to Labor under Gough Whitlam’s leadership in 1969, and would henceforth go with the government of the day until 1998. Leonard Keogh held the seat for Labor from 1969 to 1975 and again after 1983, and also contested unsuccessfully in 1977 and 1980. Keogh was defeated for preselection in 1987 by Con Sciacca, who lost the seat to Liberal candidate Andrea West in 1996 before winning it back again in 1998. The Liberal member during the Fraser years was David Jull, who re-emerged as member for Fadden in 1984.
The reorganisation caused by the creation of Bonner in 2004 boosted the Liberal margin in Bowman by 4.4%, prompting Sciacca to unsuccessfully try his hand in Bonner. Bowman meanwhile was won by Liberal candidate Andrew Laming, an ophthalmologist and World Bank health consultant who added a solid 5.9% to the notional Liberal margin of 3.0%. Laming spent much of 2007 under the shadow of the “printgate” affair, in which he was investigated for allegedly claiming $67,000 to print campaign material for state election candidates, before being cleared two months before the election. After rumblings that the affair might cost him his preselection, Laming survived an 8.9% swing to Labor at the 2007 election to hold on by 64 votes. He had a much easier time of it in 2010, his 10.4% swing being strong even by the standards of Queensland at that election. There was a correction in Labor’s favour of 1.5% at the 2013 election, going slightly against the trend of a 1.3% statewide swing to the Liberal National Party.
Laming was promoted to the position of shadow parliamentary secretary for regional health services and indigenous health after the 2010 election, but was dropped after the Abbott government came to power.
However, arguing that we shouldn’t ban smoking in prisons -when it is banned in other publically run institutions – because it will create more work for prison authorities is simply silly.
======================================================
I can draw on my 30+ years working in prisons.
It should be recognised that it was a politician that made the statement about it creating more work.
And at some point he is right. Prisons can be a volatile environment. Prisoners with mental health issues or drying out from their drug or alcohol use pose a risk not only to themselves but to the staff who have to manage them.
Just giving a prisoner a smoke in these situations does have a calming effect. It defies logic but it works.
bemused
Delusion?
If you would accept a mere 10% of the history of Rudd’s political life, you would stop living in your love-Rudd bubble. You seem to have refused to accept anything except his perfection in all things. That is not humanly possible.
Boerwar
Posted Monday, November 4, 2013 at 12:10 pm | Permalink
I suppose that (ex-)prisoners with lung cancer are lining up to sue the government, aka the long-suffering taxpayer.
———————————————–
Nope.
The main concern is non-smokers who share a cell with a smoker, or the non-smokers among the staff.
With prisons I think its simple. Have a look at what the US is doing. Then don’t do what they are doing.
AA
If prisoners and staff are routinely subjected to passive smoking then I imagine that they can sue the government for either lack of duty of care or for not maintaining a safe working environment.
lizzie@152
When have I ever argued Rudd is a perfect being?
But Gillard was far worse as a leader. She was an unmitigated disaster as her backers had to eventually admit when they dumped her.
bemused
Posted Monday, November 4, 2013 at 12:12 pm | Permalink
zoomster@141
============================
“Safe Injecting Rooms” were introduced not to contain or “police” drug use. They were introduced to provide a place where clean needles could be available to reduce/stop the needle sharing and reduce the numbers of people contracting HIV and Hep C.
They have been very successful.
Boerwar
Posted Monday, November 4, 2013 at 12:17 pm | Permalink
AA
If prisoners and staff are routinely subjected to passive smoking then I imagine that they can sue the government for either lack of duty of care or for not maintaining a safe working environment.
===================================================
Exactly. That is the main driver for the banning of smoking in prisons.
Oh for FFS. Can we finally drop the leadershit stuff now that neither of the last two PMs is in contention for leadership? Just a thought.
Mauler
I apologise for trying to get bemused to understand how annoying he is. Tried reason. Doesn’t work.
Sorry.
[Jonathan Swan
The former member for Indi, Sophie Mirabella, is back in Parliament House today. Dining – if you could call it that – with Peter Dutton.]
Greg Jericho @jonathanvswan chatting about old times like when they both boycotted Stolen Generation apology?]
MM
It’s going to be like The Dismissal. It’s something that some Labor people will just never get over.
In thirty years time, it will still be going.
MM:
[ Oh for FFS. Can we finally drop the leadershit stuff now that neither of the last two PMs is in contention for leadership? Just a thought.]
I agree with that thought. *yawn*
Have Hockey and Cormann got us up to $500 billion yet?
Whey do they reckon they will get there?
For years medical professionals have advocated for “injecting rooms” to be in prisons along with needle exchange.
I was involved in the discussions regarding the injecting rooms both as a Union Representative and later as a Prison Manager. The position was; if the medical profession want injection rooms, no problem. They provide the drugs and needles, and they supervise the prisoners for at least 24 hours in a medical facility. No meth/crack, only heroine and cannabis.
Needle exchange was a strong NO WAY. We saw one Prison Officer stabbed with a blood filled syringe while working in a NSW prison. He contracted HIV and died within 18 months.
Troy Bramston in his review of Hawker’s book belled the cat this morning onwhat a liar Shorten is.
TP:
[It is insane to imply Rudd had anything to do with destruction of Labor’s vote.]
Yeah he only sabotaged the ALPs 2010 election campaign leading to a hung parliament, white-anted the leader and the party non-stop for 2 and a half years, lied though his teeth (saying that he wouldn’t challenge again) and assisted the party’s enemies (the Murdoch press) against them for his own gain.
The revisionism is astounding.
bemused:
[What drugs are you on?]
Whatever they are they can’t be half as good as what you are taking.
I doubt there are many in jail for taking drugs. It’s the shit they do while on drugs that gets them in jail.
Shorten’s biggest challenge is re-establishing legitimacy in the Labor leadership. If Abbott was able to do that for the Libs then Shorten can as long as he gets some clean air.
CC:
[It’s the shit they do while on drugs that gets them in jail.]
More likely it’s the shit they do whilst trying to obtain enough money to obtain more drugs that gets them in jail.
Imagine if they could just go to their doctor rather than having to steal or mug someone.
lizzie@160
Nice try lizzie, but the facts as recorded in todays posts show it was confessions @45 and her ratbag supporters that kicked it off, including you @47.
@tim_chr: Sigh. RT @NationalTimesAU: Julian Assange would try again for Parliament in event of WA Senate byelection. http://t.co/Emp2BJzShH #auspol
CC
There’s a heap of articles on this, so I’m just using one that popped up early in the google search —
In Portugal, after drugs were decriminalised —
[the number of people arrested for criminal offences related to drugs plummeted from 14,000 to an average of 5,000-5,500 per year.]
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/201111211444824612.html
Tony Abbott’s direct action climate policy bizarre: Ken Henry
FORMER Treasury secretary Ken Henry has described Tony Abbott’s direct action scheme for tackling climate change as “bizarre” and predicted the Coalition will wind up implementing an emissions trading scheme.
– See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/tony-abbotts-direct-action-climate-policy-bizarre-ken-henry/story-e6frg6xf-1226752735032#sthash.hz1M6oRr.dpuf
AussieAchmed@157
That just doesn’t match the facts.
How many “Safe Injecting Rooms” were there? I only recall one in Kings Cross as a trial.
OTOH, needle ‘exchange’ was widespread and I have seen my local pharmacist handing over needles on many occasions.
My reservation about that is that it wasn’t really an ‘exchange’ as I saw few needles returned but they are found littering all sorts of places including parks where kids play.
I have little sympathy for injecting drug users as I have known some, including a close friend, and they invariably were, or became, incredibly self-centred, selfish, and uncaring about others. Nevertheless, I support it being handled as a medical problem, rather than criminal, with a view to rehabilitation.
Bemused @# 129
Posted Monday, November 4, 2013 at 11:40 am | PERMALINK
Ratsars@125
What drugs are you on?
How very immature
Think Big@167
Truth serum! 😀
bemused
Treating it as a medical problem would mean the addiction would not rule all and that self cent redness and selfishness would be dramatically reduced.
bemused autocorrect struck kinda appropriately
Ratsars@176
I was going to offer an alternative explanation but it was less kind to you.
Sadly legalised/decriminalised drugs are just a pipe-dream with our wall-to-wall conservative media who would rapidly crucify any major party who tried.
bemused
[Nice try lizzie, but the facts as recorded in todays posts show it was confessions @45 and her ratbag supporters that kicked it off, including you @47.]
I made a (rather weak) joke in #47. That’s all.
For the record, I do not support the calls for Rudd to be “expelled” from Parl. But his behaviour is part of Labor history, that’s all.
guytaur@178
My former friend explained it to me once, he said you end up either selling drugs, selling yourself or stealing.
He chose stealing, got caught and ended up in Port Phillip Prison where he met some interesting people among the inmates. One was Brian Quinn, former CEO of Coles-Myer. 😀
Why legalize more drugs when governments already spend so much resources trying to reduce the use of legalized drugs?
lizzie@182
You will also notice I was talking about other things before confessions jumped in with her usual idiocy.
BB
It’s a 42″ screen and I’m 4 metres from it.
[It’s going to be like The Dismissal. It’s something that some Labor people will just never get over.]
Blimey, Dio. It took me til 1982 to get over that when Hawkie came in. I’m already over the past 6 years. Life’s far too short to trawl over who did who in constantly. It happened. I was angry about the division, the leaking and the stupidity of tearing your own side down but I’m ready to let history take care of it.
If Bruce Hawker thinks I’m going to waste money on his ranting he’s got another think coming. I’m over hearing about the internals.
The Chifley Inst. ‘do’ on the weekend says so many Laborites feel the same way. Let’s get on with the job of holding Abbott to every word he’s ever said and then some.
Abbott turfed out in 3 years is my meme no matter what the psephies say about the impossibility of that.
[How many “Safe Injecting Rooms” were there?]
There’s one in Canberra.
So what happened in the 12 years since Portugal decriminalized drugs ? Note not legalize , decriminalize.
[Portugal Decriminalized All Drugs Eleven Years Ago And The Results Are Staggering
On July 1st, 2001, Portugal decriminalized every imaginable drug, from marijuana, to cocaine, to heroin. Some thought Lisbon would become a drug tourist haven, others predicted usage rates among youths to surge.Eleven years later, it turns out they were both wrong
…………The resulting effect: a drastic reduction in addicts, with Portuguese officials and reports highlighting that this number, at 100,000 before the new policy was enacted, has been halved in the following 10 years. Portugal’s drug usage rates are now among the lowest of EU member states, according to the same report.]
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/portugal-drug-policy-decriminalization-works-2012-7
From Der Spiegel.
[‘This Is Working’: Portugal, 12 Years after Decriminalizing Drugs ]
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060-2.html
david
because, as the Portugese experiment shows, legalising drugs reduces drug use! – particularly amongst the young, and particularly when it comes to hard drugs.
Legalising drugs to the point where they were prescribed would be even more effective – without a revenue stream coming from luring people on to hard drugs, the ‘push’ to get people addicted reduces, too.
BH@187
I agree with you but I do want to see a serious, objective, review of the 2013 election and the lead up.
And I want the Bracks / Carr / Faulkner review of 2010 released in full.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana
zoomster@190
And what are ‘hard drugs’?
I hope you don’t subscribe to the dangerous idea that marijuana is relatively harmless and a ‘soft drug’.
BH
Was the “refugee problem” discussed at the Chifley do? I would love to see Labor go completely radical and rethink their whole policy on this.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/30/australia-refugees-asylum-immigration?CMP=twt_gu
Another paragon of virtue bites the dust.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-04/sydney-priest-guilty-of-eight-child-sex-offences/5067894
[FORMER Treasury secretary Ken Henry has described Tony Abbott’s direct action scheme for tackling climate change as “bizarre” and predicted the Coalition will wind up implementing an emissions trading scheme.
Dr Henry said the public service had been advising Australian governments for the past decade that an emissions trading scheme was the least economically damaging way to satisfy their emissions reduction commitments.
Although a carbon tax achieved a similar outcome, the policy direction taken after the election was “bizarre”, with the government’s strategy now being to purchase abatement with direct payments from government to industry.
“We’ve been reminded that buying abatement is like buying licences from irrigators in the Murray-Darling Basin for environmental flows,” he told a conference at the Australian National University.]
– See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/tony-abbotts-direct-action-climate-policy-bizarre-ken-henry/story-e6frg6xf-1226752735032#sthash.hz1M6oRr.dpuf?sv=475c3baaed500f847f684b468051910d
BK
Here is a handy dandy calculator to play with viewing distances for various sizes and definitions. Your 42 inch came up with max distance for std def is 4.4 meters, max distance for HDTV is about 2 meters. The distances are based on getting the most bang for the definition buck.
http://myhometheater.homestead.com/viewingdistancecalculator.html
Thanks poroti
lizzie.
Truce? 🙂
[I agree with you but I do want to see a serious, objective, review of the 2013 election and the lead up.]
bemused We’re not going to get it from anybody directly involved or a Labor voting author. Megalogenis might do something and I will read that.
Bramston!!! Enough said.
Lizzie I’m waiting to hear from some Branch members who were there. I’m not sure how it can be reconciled apart from heavy involvement in a Regional solution which could result in many, many more refugees being admitted here.
It has become such a political bunfight that no sensible plan will be listened to atm. I remember the fights over the Vietnamese boat people but they settled down when Labor walked alongside Liberal Fraser. That won’t ever happen while Abbott, Minchin, Bernardi and their ilk are in Parliament.
bemused
Happy to call a truce if that means you accept I am not amongst the “rabid haters (sic)” of any group. I’m just an interested observer.
🙂