Watching TV last night, I was struck by the deluge of publicly funded government propaganda ads. Today, the reason was revealed as LNP Premier Campbell Newman called an election for 31 January, running several months short of a full term. Most insider comment seems to view this is a clever move, catching the Opposition off-guard and so on. My view would be that they are more likely to lose votes from people who expect a holiday from politics at this time of year.
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John Quiggin 
Be careful what tee shirt you wear if you are anywhere near an LNP candidate out electioneering – you could get arrested
Is there a story to that, Doug?
@BilB
I seem to have been put into moderation. The story is at the Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/08/queensland-man-arrested-waving-lnp-campaigners-im-with-stupid-t-shirt
Every Queenslander should be issued with a T-shirt for when Campbell Newman’s campaign team comes calling:
“Je suis avec Stupide”
or
“We are all with Stupide”
I counted six police in the photo to arrest this one innocuous man. It is certainly part of free speech to say in political debate that “I find this person’s position to be stupid” or “This person is stupid (I deduce from the the stupid things he/she advocates).
If no reasons are given for the charge of political stupidity this does not alter the case. It’s not a crime (or should not be a crime) to say that someone else’s political position is “stupid”. It’s simply an assertion without proof at that stage. It’s not slander as a certain degree of robustness, rhetorical expression and satire in political debate is permitted and even generally expected.
What next? The VLAD laws get used on the May Day parade?
As a lifelong resident of NSW I can’t tell you all how much I enjoy a Qld election. It always breaks new ground in some way or another. I can’t wait to find out what this character was charged with. It’d have to be relatively serious to warrant arrest.
@jungney
I’m pretty sure the charge is “public nuisance”.
That’s how it’s been reported and the guy, @Can_Do_Campbell, has linked to the reporting without saying anything different.
As a lifelong resident of QLD (except for a few 6 month stints O/S and a few 3 month stints in other states), I can’t tell you how embarrassing it is to be a Queenslander. We are the butt of every other state’s jokes and the annoying thing is that it is all deserved.
From Brisbane Times online – “Queensland Election: ‘I’m with stupid’ t-shirt man’s lawyer says arrest unjustified”
“Mr Shields said from public statements reported in the media there did not seem to be any suggestion Mr Fogerty had done anything to “establish to the requisite standard of proof” that he committed a public nuisance offence.”
Meanwhile, in the USA, “Arnold Abbot, 90, arrested for feeding homeless in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.”
So, under late-stage capitalism and neoliberalism expressing a different point of view and feeding the poor are starting to become illegal or at least a prima facie case for arrest. I don’t normally mount “slippery slope” arguments but it seems we are well onto the slippery slope here.
That great champion of our rights, Peter Beattie, introduced the rather draconian “public nuisance” offence as it now stands.
Summary Offences Act 2005, section 6(2) [emphasis added]:
“Disorderly” isn’t defined in the Act, so the police can pretty much charge anyone they like. The Court might not find them guilty but by then nobody really cares anymore. I note that his court appearance isn’t until after the election. Neat.
@ZM
As far as I am able to tell, your argument is that bad things (like corruption) have happened in Queensland, that Queensland has a unicameral parliament, and so the unicameralism must explain the bad things.
My point is that an attribution to unicameralism is not an adequate explanation of the corruption or other bad things you’re talking about, because the same sorts of things happen where there are bicameral parliaments.
The only valid way to support a conclusion about the differential effects of bicameralism and unicameralism would be the systematic collation and comparison of evidence that you have not done. (No, I haven’t done it either, but then I’m not making the mistake of pretending to be able to draw a valid conclusion about the differential effects of bicameralism and unicameralism.)
J-D,
And I was just mulling over making a comment about how Queensland wouldn’t arrest people for “I’m with stupid t-shirts” if they got their missing upper house restored to do the job our Orime Minister told all the world leaders it symbolizes and would do again if only it was restored to proper use.
Look at Ikonoclast’s comment above –
“As a lifelong resident of QLD (except for a few 6 month stints O/S and a few 3 month stints in other states), I can’t tell you how embarrassing it is to be a Queenslander. We are the butt of every other state’s jokes and the annoying thing is that it is all deserved”
I tell you Queensland seems to be very blessed with a wonderful natural environment, s lovely warm climate if you don’t mind humidity, abundant rain, fruitful land, personable people – what it lacks is an Upper House.
PUP has made an election commitment to re-introduce an upper house.
Thanks, Zoot @3. That is really unbelievable. What is the next level, choke holds and tazing for wearing doubtfull clothing?
Funny thing is that I get the QLD government ads when I play games on Facebook. And I live in WA. That means that the QLD government is wasting money by not targeting only QLD internet users.
Megan,
That is good new indeed – I’m very to hear there is the start of an Upper House restoration campaign in Queensland
@ZM
There have been campaigns before for a referendum to re-introduce the upper house. People have been agitating over the last few years quite persistently.
The most recent petition I am aware of was introduced into the parliament early in 2014 by the independent Peter Wellington. The LNP (unicameral rulers of the state) dismissed it out of hand.
Both duopoly parties are against it. Without any further information that should suggest it is probably a good idea to bring it back!
@Megan
The Queensland Legislative Council abolished in 1923 had no connection with democracy. All its members were appointed by the Governor for a lifetime term. Ironically, this feature allowed the chamber’s abolition, when a Labor government appointed enough members to vote for abolition – the so-called ‘suicide squad’.
Other states had property franchises – in South Australia until the 1970s – ensuring that only ‘sound’ people were elected. The notion of an upper chamber elected on proportional representation lines is an innovation. It should also be remembered that Newman would have won a majority in an upper house elected on a single electorate basis at the last election, so there would have been no effective checks and balances at all.
@Hal9000
I’m not advocating an upper house as a silver bullet fix all.
My perspective is that in queensland at present we have a crisis for democracy.
We are ruled absolutely by one of two virtually indistinguishable halves of an ALP/LNP duopoly in a unicameral parliament and with a mono-media fourth estate (the ABC being the broadcast arm of News Ltd.).
If we had more media diversity/less concentration, that would be a good thing to my mind.
If we had four or five ideologically differentiated political parties more reflective of the actual spectrum, that would also be good – even in a unicameral parliament, because it should introduce the sort of balancing, negotiation and compromise I think a functioning democracy needs. As it is we have only seven minor party (KAP) and assorted Independents and they have no actual power whatsoever.
I think there is merit in having an upper house (see Victorian elections) if it can deliver that diversity and balancing effect. Federally, I’m happy that the House of Reps was ‘hung’ in the last term and that the Senate remains so.
According to Antony Green’s election calculator an 11.5% swing against the LNP will deliver us a hung parliament in Queensland. I’d consider that result to be a better outcome for our democracy and good governance than an outright majority for either of the duopoly.
Hal9000
“n. It should also be remembered that Newman would have won a majority in an upper house elected on a single electorate basis at the last election, so there would have been no effective checks and balances at all.”
When Queenslanders get their Upper House restored they could have regional electorates like in the Victorian Upper House – so you always get a somewhat different result from the Lower House. We have 8 regions with 5 councillors each – at the moment 1/4 of the councillors (10) are crossbencheds from various little parties.
This past election you didn’t have to number all the upper house boxes if you voted below the line just 1-5 and further was optional. I thought this was unusual but I can’t recall for sure and it might have been the normal practice.
@ZM
THe last thing Queenslanders need is a Upper House – more politicians with their snouts in the trough.
What the analysts have yet to figure in their calculations is the flow of preferences from minor parties.
I reckon that Palmer will ensure that the LNP are placed last in all the seats that the PUP will contest.
I wouldn’t surprised if the Greens and PUP work out some sort of deal as they did both in the recent Vic election as well as the last federal electiion. After all without Greens and ALP’s prefences Palmer would not be in federal parliament.
It could well be the surprise of the election if Sir Joh’s son wins on the back of preferences.
My gut feeling is that many people are angry at how this State Election has gone about its work in such an aggressive style. However, I sense that, as the ALP is so far behind at present, that the LNP Goverment will live on despite a 8% or so swing against it.
@Megan
Well, I’ll be. As an aside I knew the (now deceased) last man to be charged as an “humbug” in NSW. An old comm by name of George. He’d approve of being a public nuisance.
@Megan
If the object is to have more parties with parliamentary/legislature representation then a comparison of bicameral parliaments/legislatures around the world with unicameral ones shows that bicameralism by itself is not much use in achieving that object. There are bicameral systems with few parties represented and unicameral systems with lots of them.
If the object is to have more ideologically differentiated parties represented in parliaments/legislatures, then it’s harder to evaluate. For example, at the last Greek election seven parties had candidates elected, at the last Portuguese election five, and at the last Finnish election eight–the numbers are easy to tabulate–but I’m not sure how we can compare the extent of ideological differentiation from case to case. One kind of data that can be tabulated easily is the record of parties participating in government coalitions together. Seven of the eight Finnish parties would not be ideologically differentiated if the test we used was to say that two parties which have been in a government coalition together are not ideologically differentiated, but I’m not sure that’s a good test. (If we did use that test in Australia, Labor and the Liberals would be ideologically differentiated because they’ve never been in a government coalition together.)
Leaving aside the question of ideological differentiation, if the object is simply to increase the number of parties with parliamentary representation, the best bet (although not as close to a certainty as some people think) is not bicameralism but change to the electoral system.
@Megan
Yes I take your point, Megan. I suppose what I’m saying is that upper houses are not an unalloyed good. For most of Australian history they have acted primarily to protect the interests of the owners of property and capital against social democratic reforms.
I also wanted to make the point that Queensland had good reason to get rid of its. The real issue is that our democratic institutions are a poor reflection of the electorate’s will. They are also becoming less reflective with each passing year. If the LNP gets back in Queensland it will be because of the resources mobilised by property developers and miners specifically against the objective interests of the Queensland public. The media of course will present the electorate with no analytical tools to make any kind of informed decision. Example: the LNP’s claims of success in health administration are entirely bogus, but are accepted as given truth by those communicating the political debate to the public.
@ZM
Yes I’m in favour of MMP systems myself. Good luck getting the public to understand it enough to want it, though. Such reforms usually take place for base tactical partisan reasons – e.g. compulsory voting, preferential voting, partial MMP in New Zealand.
@ZM
Bicameralism could help if it was done properly. At least one house needs to be selected by proportional representation, probably the lower house. This would mean if Greens got 7% of the state vote they got 7% of the seats. This is good except that it still validates the party politics of bourgeois democracy. I don’t have a solution to this without getting too radical.
The upper house needs to selected on a different principle. Sortition democracy might well be a good idea for the upper house making it a kind of citizens’ house of review.
The Upper Houses are meant to be houses of review – that is why they are the upper houses. I think induction training needs to be quite a good deal better at stressing this than it is presently.
I am not sure about sortition. I think it would be better if people are not allowed to nominate themselves for elections but the community has meetings to decide who are the best candidates and nominates them – with exceptions like as in jury duty exceptions – and then we vote for the candidates nominated in the community meetings. I think this would work a lot better than letting parties nominate people. People could still make it known that they had a great desire to be nominated by the community.
@ZM
I suspect the ancient Athenian method of selecting public officials would be the best – a lottery. Works for juries. Any other way will be dominated by existing party structures, sadly. We’ll end up with a rubber stamp or a roadblock, a la USA.
@ZM
As a matter of historical fact, upper houses (both in Australia and elsewhere, with perhaps a few exceptions) were not created in order to serve as houses of review. That’s an after-the-fact rationalisation for the maintenance of structures most of which were originally created to protect the interests of the wealthy and the powerful (not that they all still serve this function, after the changes they’ve been through — mostly they don’t, which is largely why a new justification was invented for them). If anything, it would be closer to the truth to say that lower houses were created to serve as houses of review.
J-D,
What palpable nonsense. Anybody with the scantiest interest can ascertain that Upoer Houses in Westminster parliaments – such as the House of Lords – are houses of review. That is why they are upper houses in the first place for goodness’ sake.
Lower houses can hardly be houses of review – since they are the ones that develop the bills in the first place – and if a bill gets the support of the majority of the lower house then it proceeds to review in the upper house.
I don’t know where you get your upside down ideas from?
@ZM
It may be more common in modern bicameral parliaments and legislatures for legislative proposals to be introduced in lower houses before being introduced in upper houses — I know that’s true in some instances but I’m not sure it’s true in all — but it’s definitely also possible for them to be introduced in upper houses before they are introduced in lower houses. In any case, although the formal initiation of a piece of legislation may take place in parliament, the substantive origin, in most cases, is not parliament at all but the executive government. At least, that’s the case in parliamentary systems — in presidential systems private members of the legislature may have a larger role (than in parliamentary systems) in developing legislative proposals, although the executive government has a large role still.
And this is not a recent development: it was not an originally designed purpose of the House of Lords to initiate legislative proposals, but it was also not an originally designed purpose of the House of Commons to do so; legislative proposals came from the King.
“legislative proposals came from the King”
This is not right at all – if you think about it one lone king could hardly hope to originate all laws by himself even when England was made of the six or seven kingdoms.
We won’t go back before that because I think this is far enough since we are concerned with kings and law making.
In those days they had witans – councils of wise men. These were usually landholders who had peasants under them. Some accounts say betwixt Roman rule and before 700-800 men were free like yeomen farmers but then Chiefs and lords got bigger estates and then some freemen fell into bondage. I am not sure how good the evidence for this is though – or if it just be supposition.
So landholders formed their own courts of law – but freemen didn’t like them having so much authority do the King was appealed to for some central control and regulation and coordination over these courts – just as we have our Federal parliament over the States, or the States over the Shires and Cities.
By the time of Alfred the Great – who unified the kingdoms of England – there were two courts already – the higher Hundred Court and lower Shire Court.
As you can see – even back so many centuries ago the King did not make all the laws unilaterally himself – because it is too much for one person.
I thought the public nuisance related to offender pushing other people around or that was the reporting at the time!
@ZM
I said that the legislative proposals that were laid before both the House of Lords and the House of Commons came from the King. I didn’t say that he thought all of them up entirely by himself. But they were put to the Houses of Parliament by the King, not put to the King by the Houses of Parliament. Nowadays legislative proposals in the UK are not brought to the Houses of Parliament by the Queen, but by ministers who are still nominally the Queen’s ministers. They also don’t think all of them up entirely by themselves; they have various sources of suggestions and advice. The actual text is prepared by specialists in the drafting of legislation, and those specialists are part of the executive government and get their instructions from ministers, not from Parliament.
I don’t think you’re right J-D and you have not mentioned the period when you say the King brought laws to parliament to consider and the parliamentarians never thought up laws at all.
In Anglo Saxontimes there was also the advising Witenamagote council I think these were wise men too – and there were Folkmots at one time for I guess common folk.
Some while after Alfred – Edward (the confessor I think it was) started allowing people to send him petitions and they could be considered for laws – this was the start of the bill of grace/petition of right procedure that I have mentioned before.
But you will have to say what period you are thinking of when you think the legislation proposals come from the King by himself or maybe with the assistance of his personal assistants. Because i guess you must be thinking of a period between Anglo Saxon times and Edward – but when?
J-D is largely on the money. The sovereign was the source of all laws, perhaps not bodily so but nonetheless they held complete power until magna carta. From then on they were still the font of all laws but they had to get the magnates and later parliament to acquiesce. Most of the time the monarch got their way, until Charles the first anyway. This is all after 1066, before which there wasn’t a common law to speak of.
@ZM
The oldest English laws of which there is any surviving written record are probably those found in a code attributed to Æthelberht of Kent, who reigned in the late sixth and early seventh centuries. The surviving manuscript was written over five hundred years later, but there is an earlier surviving reference (still over a hundred years after Æthelberht) in the works of the historian Bede, who wrote: ‘Among the other benefits which he thoughtfully conferred on his people, he also established enacted judgments for them, following the examples of the Romans, with the council of his wise men.’ Bede’s account doesn’t explicitly state who initiated any proposals for (as he calls them) ‘enacted judgments’, but the statement that the king acted with the council of his wise men creates the appearance that as between the king and this council it was the king who played the primary role and the council an auxiliary one.
In modern times we are accustomed to think of Parliament as an institution established with a continuing existence: the Parliament of Australia, or the Parliament of the United Kingdom. But originally that was not the case: a king would summon a parliament when he wanted one, and when he’d finished with it he would dismiss it — at which point it ceased to exist, and there was no parliament until the king summoned another one. I don’t think there could be a clearer indication that in those times the initiative, as between King and Parliament, lay with the King.
As another illustration, here’s the introductory text of the oldest English legislation of which any part is still considered to be in force, the Statute of Marlborough of 1267:
‘In the Year of Grace, One thousand two hundred sixty–seven, the two–and–fiftieth Year of the Reign of King Henry, Son of King John, in the Utas of Saint Martin, the said King our Lord providing for the better Estate of his Realm of England, and for the more speedy Ministration of Justice, as belongeth to the Office of a King, the more discreet Men of the Realm being called together, as well of the higher as of the lower Estate: It was Provided, agreed, and ordained, that whereas the Realm of England of late had been disquieted with manifold Troubles and Dissensions; for Reformation whereof Statutes and Laws be right necessary, whereby the Peace and Tranquillity of the People must be observed; wherein the King, intending to devise convenient Remedy, hath made these Acts, Ordinances, and Statutes underwritten, which he willeth to be observed for ever firmly and inviolably of all his Subjects, as well high as low.’
Now, what specific examples do you have to show to the contrary?
The ALP/LNP duopoly are terrified of the prospect of a hung parliament.
Good.
Although I find this amusing (from today’s Fairfax rolling coverage):
and from Newman:
I note he didn’t rule out negotiating with the ALP! Another Queensland first in the making, Australia’s first ALP/LNP government?
It would be neater, and would just formalize the current arrangement.
@Megan
Australia’s first ALP/LNP government?
Not quite. The Country Party in Victoria formed government from 1950 to 1952 with the support of the Labor Party.
JQ has in the past been very critical of the Labor Party dynasties – the Fergusons, the Creans, the Beazleys etc. Any comment on the Palaszczuks?
@Uncle Milton
Is there any sense in which the Palaszczuks are a dynasty either in political, oligarchic, wealth or religious senses or in any other senses? A daughter (or son) eventually following a father into an occupation or profession (which the father might well have retired from by any late-ish stage) is scarcely a dynasty. Having some connections through paternal connections does not in and of itself establish a dynasty either.
Just wondering.
@Uncle Milton
I think that was the last time an Australian government nationalised a private business – a bunch of private gas companies became the Gas and Fuel Corporation.
@Ikonoclast
Beats me. Our host once described Martin Ferguson as an hereditary princeling. On the same argument, is Annastacia Palaszczuk an hereditary princessling? She not only followed her father into politics, she inherited his seat.
@kevin1
Neville Wran nationalised coal rights in 1981. Nick Greiner unnationalised them in 1990, and Bob Carr renationalised them in 1997. You can argue about whether what was nationalised was a business.
J-D,
I never said that in the old days Kings were forbidden from being involved in lawmaking – I said they didn’t make all the laws of the kingdom on their lonesome.
Going back before your 13th C example we see the council could make laws without the king, and there was lots of customary laws that the king didn’t make too –
“The legislative functions of Anglo-Saxon England were carried out by the king and his council or, sometimes, by the council alone. Codes of law were produced at regular intervals by kings, and the issue of a new code was an opportunity to add new statutes, modify existing ones, or re-state old laws that were being ignored. Copies of the laws were then made and sent out to the ealdormen, bishops, and reeves who would be responsible for their administration. Many of these law codes still survive, especially in Church archives, but there was also a mass of customary law which was handed on orally. No attempt seems to have been made to codify this until after the Conquest, when much was forgotten or misunderstood. It is mostly this customary law which led to differences between West Saxon law, Mercian law and Danish law. However, it is fair to say that there were just as many differences within, say, West Saxon law as there were between that and Mercian law”
@ZM
You didn’t say that Kings were forbidden from being involved in lawmaking.
I didn’t say Kings made all the laws of the kingdom on their lonesome.
So what is it that you think we are disagreeing about?
Well maybe we have got to an agreement now.
I think we disagreed about the two Houses of Parliament and the role of the upper house – and you said the parliament didn’t use to instigate bills but the King proposed them to the parliament.
@Uncle Milton
Not exactly the same thing, but pretty close!
And I thought I was (half) joking, but maybe we really are being taken back to ’50s.
@ZM
I wrote that the King used to put legislative proposals to Parliament. Do you disagree with that?
@Uncle Milton
I was just noting as an aside to the ‘old left’ in the ALP how far removed its socialisation objective – “expropriation of the means of production, distribution and exchange… to the extent necessary etc.” – is from today’s world.
That’s not to say that legislation still can’t trump property rights, but the irony is that the working class Kerrigan types have more to fear nowadays than the capitalists!
There is a good argument that the best State government Queensland has had was the Labor minority government of 1998-2001 that needed Peter Wellington’s support.