The Courier Mail, the ABC and Federal Labour must be devastated. After weeks of Newman bashing the polls are still in favour of the LNP

Tellingly, Mr Newman’s personal approval with voters remains rock solid on 47 per cent — the same as it was going into the state poll on March 24. Dissatisfaction with his performance has actually eased slightly since he took office, from 40 per cent immediately before the election to 38 per cent over the three-month polling period from July to September. When preferences are factored in, the LNP is 20 points clear of state Labor, 60-40 per cent, two-party-preferred. This is broadly in line with the election result that delivered 78 of the 89 state seats in Queensland to the LNP on a two-party-preferred vote of 62.8 per cent, against Labor’s 37.2 per cent.

Queenslanders realize that the state is broke and the public service bloated so they will cut Newman slack as he slashes and burns years of ALP maladministration. I do feel he needs to explain what he is doing in a more proactive manner. It is not good enough to just rely on TV interviews and press reports to get his message across considering the ABC and the Courier Mail will present whatever he says negatively. The ABC is almost begging unions to line up for air time to can him. I’d like to see a weekly time slot devoted to what has been achieved over the last week and why it has been done to remedy the ALP’s stuff-ups. Judith Sloan in the Australian quantifies the bloated public service as she hears Newman is going to cut 1500 jobs in Health;

Gosh, I thought, 1500 jobs sounds quite a lot. So I decided to find out how many people are employed in Queensland Health. The answer is more than 80,000. Annual natural attrition would account for more than double the proposed job cuts of 1500, which represent a mere 1.9 per cent of total employment. But here’s the rub. A decade ago, employment in Queensland Health stood at 49,000. So in 10 years there has been an increase of more than 32,000 employees – an increase of two-thirds. But here’s a further rub. Whereas the number of nurses in effective full-time terms increased by 65 per cent over the decade, the number of managerial and clerical staff rose by 103 per cent during the same period. There are now nearly 15,000 managers and clerical staff in Queensland Health, a fair proportion of whom hang out in the head office in Brisbane.

Federal ALP, unable to campaign on their record of achievements, there being none, only have personal attacks in their magazine. It shouldn’t work and it’s good to see it isn’t. The voters aren’t stupid.

The headlines say the budget has shown a slight improvement. Shouldn’t it be BUDGET DEFICIT $43.7 BILLION!

THE final outcome of the 2011-12 budget has shown a slight improvement on what was forecast in May, with the deficit coming in $661 million smaller than expected. The final underlying cash deficit for 2011/12 was $43.7 billion, compared to the $44.4 billion forecast in the May budget.

Oh, well that’s all right then – I feel a lot better. Swan stands up at a press conference and actually says its a good outcome. He brags about record low inflation, jobs and investment and still turns in a multi billion dollar deficit. What’s going to happen when the remaining wheels fall off the economy and the full effect of the carbon tax, the MRT, the Fair Work Act misdirection of all power to the unions and the fact that mining and business are just waiting for the government to fall rather than risk forking out more money to the socialist aspirations of the ALP. Does anyone really think players in the cattle game are going to invest money while Ludwig and Burke have power, or fishing for that matter? Mining ventures are held ransom to green tape and after years of jumping through hoops and meeting ridiculous preconditions they then have to face the pond life that tie themselves to trees or block traffic to development sites. The Greens run around desperately looking for an endangered species, or inventing one, or, salting the area with stone age pieces of flint they have picked up from elsewhere. Anything to stop the steady march of capitalism with its by-products of wealth for the local and national economy. These low-lives are friends of the government, the Greens, and often are actually Senators and Members and the risk is – the government will suddenly decide that a few green votes are more important than the economy. They have done it twice recently with Ludwig’s killing the live cattle export business and Ludwig and Burke’s brain snap over the super fishing trawler. It’s not just a risk – they actually destroy industries and mining investment. And Swan says it’s a good result!

In the face of Mining companies claiming the ALP are making it to hard to invest in projects Tony Burke has an answer. Make it harder! MINING companies could be forced to invest directly in protecting seagrass meadows thousands of kilometres from their own export facilities as a condition of future port developments. The radical plan to extend seagrass protection will be floated by federal Environment Minister Tony Burke in a landmark speech to the Coast to Coast Conference in Brisbane today. In a speech prepared for the conference, Mr Burke said seagrass covering 95,000sq km, or 1.5 times the size of Tasmania, was under threat and the missing link in coastal protection.

Policy by Twitter seams to be Joe Ludwig’s forte as he ruins another business based on activists from Greenpeace and Getup! running an email and Twitter campaign. Worked well when Joe shattered the live animal export business and sent hundreds of businesses to the wall so why not run it again.

POLITICAL strategists and social media experts have warned governments not to make policy on the run while MPs are under pressure from co-ordinated online campaigns, saying decisions should not be made on the back of “what someone says on Twitter”. The caution comes in the wake of yesterday’s last-minute decision by the Gillard government to stop a super-trawler fishing in Australian waters on the back of a Labor caucus revolt that was influenced by Get Up! and Greenpeace.

Burke and Ludwig looked at the law as it stood and OK’d the enterprise until the Greenpeace/Getup! campaign frightened them. The company involved with the super trawler project had ticked all the boxes but that didn’t worry these pair. They plan to table a new law in the house today just to break the business plan. If you listen carefully you can hear tens of thousands of business plans with associated infrastructure dollars and jobs being put back in the drawers, not to see the sun again until these idiots are well and truly gone. Greenpeace and Getup! running the country – frightening.

Shorten blames Coalition governments for union unrest, Swan thinks the economy is going gangbusters and Gillard lectures the mining community on education. Elsewhere, the Left claim Gina Reinhart wants to pay Australian workers $2 a day. If ever a quantum leap in logic has been presented to the Australian public it is Shorten’s spin on union unrest. The Fair Work Act, based on the premise that unions deserve payback for getting the Rudd/Gillard government onto the treasury benches has started to impact badly on the economy as all of us long time ALP observers expected. Man-hours lost on the increase and industry reluctant to invest let alone employ people – overall, a standard ALP/unions in power result.

WORKING days lost due to industrial disputes have hit an eight-year high, with 101,700 working days lost in the June quarter. The Australian Bureau of Statistics said it was the highest level of working days lost in one three-month period since June 2004.

Victorian Premier, Ted Baillieu, claims the CFMEU should pay damages – I agree.

THE nation’s most militant building union should be made to pay for the damage to business and the economy caused by its actions, according to Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu. “Australians have been appalled to see the CFMEU’s behaviour. Thuggish behaviour, unruly behaviour, unlawful behaviour,” he said. “If they’re going to trash the furniture they’re going to pay the bill. “I also suggest that others who seem to regard unlawful and violent union practices as just part of the so-called industrial ballgame must also start showing proper respect for the law”.

Gina Rinehart’s comment’s drove everyone from the PM down to attack her over “paying people $2 an hour” statement like she was advocating we import African workers and pay them $2 an hour. They so missed the point, or they saw her point and felt they had to distract from the message in case voters also see the sense in her statement. ADAM CREIGHTON in today’s Australian addresses the point;

Far from being loopy, Rinehart’s remarks reflect standard, even boring, economic theory, entwined with a classically liberal philosophy that unwieldy government undermines national and individual prosperity. Rinehart’s observation that Australian wages are high compared with Africa’s prompted fury, but logic points out higher minimum wages and laws hampering businesses hiring and firing decisions bolster unemployment. The Prime Minister’s response that paying people $2 an hour “is not the Australian way” not only grossly misrepresents Rinehart but is pompous, suggesting Africans pay each other miserly sums by choice, and ignorant, implying the costs of goods and services in Africa are similar to here.

Just another day under a reeling, incompetent government.