Ashgrove

Des Houghton writes in the Courier Mail about the two candidates for Ashgrove in the current Queensland election, ‘CanDo’ Campbell Newman and ALP’s Kate Jones Houghton suggests it’s time to look past the cloud of bulldust and examine their records.

Jones [a Howard hater] arrived in the Queensland Parliament in 2006 aged 27. The seat was previously held for the ALP by Demetrios “Jim” Fouras, a distinguished former Speaker who opposed her candidature. After completing an arts journalism degree at QUT, Jones worked in the office of former state treasurer David Hamill. She was 21. From there she switched to the office of Robert Schwarten, the Works Minister, who was subsequently ousted by Bligh. She was a member of his Labor Unity faction, which got her elected against Fouras’s wishes and later propelled her into cabinet where her achievements were scant. Schwarten admires her greatly and won’t hear a word against her. Nevertheless it has to be said that Jones has been a prisoner of the Labor Party all her adult life and has little experience outside it. At 14, she worked in McDonald’s at the Myer Centre in the Brisbane CBD. Sometimes she would finish at McDonald’s and slip around to Subway in Edward St and do another shift there.

‘CanDo’ comes from a very different background

He joined the Army, gaining a Bachelor of Engineering degree with honours (later earning a Business MBA) and stayed there serving as an Engineer officer for 13 years while serving in Germany, Hawaii, the Solomon Islands and PNG. Later in the private sector, he ran the state’s massive grain handling system with 600 staff and then worked as a management consultant for blue-chip firms BHP, Australia Coal and Telstra. Newman also had seven years in City Hall, becoming one of the most successful lord mayors in Brisbane’s history. He balanced seven budgets while building roads, tunnels, bridges and pools. His CanDo Council team also spearheaded the change to 100% use of green electricity and created the greenest local government authority in Australia. His other green credentials include planting two million trees.

During last years floods Kate Jones organized lots of photo opportunities while Newman was busy mobilising a Mud Army that cleaned up the city. Still, it must be said in all fairness that Kate Jones did work at McDonald’s and Subways