Brisbane City elections.

Brisbane City Council, the biggest city council in Australia is now Liberal led with Campbell Newman the new Lord Mayor. That?s the good news. The bad news is Labour still hold a majority in wards and after Jim Soorly’s reign, I can only imagine there is a lot of left wing influence. The Labor councillors, the Labor State Government and the unions are all gearing up to make Campbell’s reign very difficult. If you didn’t know, Campbell is son of Kevin and Jocelyn Newman. Newman won the Bass by-election in June 1975 with a 13.8% swing, giving the first hint of the unpopularity of the Whitlam government and a portent of its eventual electoral fate in December 1975. Kevin was my Commanding Officer in 1972 and after noticing the difficulty I had walking, arranged for a soft posting for me in Army Recruiting to give me time to recover from patrolling in Vietnam. Jocelyn was a competent Senator for many years but, I think, lost some of her zeal when husband Kevin died. Breeding is everything and coming from such a good family I can only imagine Campbell will have plenty of fight in him. He will need it and I wish him well.