There is a common view that Australia is an over-governed country and it’s usually the state government that critics point to as an unnecessary tier. It’s doubtful that there are many people in Queensland with that view now. Throughout the continuous snafus that mother nature kept hurling at us, the Premier and the government has done a stellar job of keeping the public informed and managing the situation. And this is from an unpopular Premier that just a few months ago was expected to be destroyed at the next election if her own party didnt knife her first.
Compare this with the performances of the Federal leaders and I don’t think anyone would be thinking that we would be better off if Canberra was calling all the shots during the drama.
Yesterday Julia Gillard was the invisible woman. Tourists must have presumed that Anna Bligh was this nations leader if they compared the performances between the two. Whilst Anna Bligh gave hourly, informative press conferences, Gillard only popped in once that I saw and just spoke some generalities and cliches about mateship. Over-prepared and with all the sincerity of a hallmark greeting card. There was nothing particularly wrong with her performance but she lacks the empathy and common touch that Kevin Rudd and John Howard used to connect with the public during previous national tragedies. She comes off as more of an auditor in chief as she pushes her cuts and flood levy to rebuild Queensland rather than something higher that a national leader should be.
But Julia comes off pretty well compared to the woeful performance of Tony Abbott over the last few weeks. The problem with Abbott is that he is an attack dog who can’t take off his partisan hat no matter what the occasion. Tony has fine form, back when Kevin Rudd got the Labor leadership Abbott thought he would have a go at Rudd over the conflicting reports over just how long childhood Rudd spent in a car after his family was kicked off his farm. During the floods, before the peak hit Abbott thought it was a good idea to use the floods to have a go at the NBN and then after that launch a full scale assault on the flood levy. I’m not suggesting that a natural disaster means the opposition should automatically support everything the government does in response to the disaster, but Tony has clearly been more interested in using the disaster to trash the government than supporting the rebuilding and recovery.
Instead of doing the right thing and urging his supporters to give generously to the Premiers flood appeal, he pushed the line that you may as well not bother with charity as the government is gonna tax you anyway. And whilst North Queensland was bracing itself for the worst yesterday, Tony thought it a good time to ask for donations. Donations not for Queensland but for his campaign to stop a levy designed to rebuild Queensland. His entire performance can be summed up as more ass than class.
And then there is the Greens. Since Black Saturday their standard reaction to natural disasters is to try and link it to climate change. First Bob Brown comes out after being quiet during the floods and makes a spurious link between the floods and coal mining. And then yesterday Christine Milne links the cyclone to climate change. Its fair enough to say their is a link between the natural disasters and climate change, but it looks unsympathetic when that is the only thing you talk about. People who have lost everything and have seen their towns destroyed are more interested in the here and now, the rebuilding and relief rather than arguments about how much effect climate change may have on these natural disasters. It makes the Greens look like one trick ponies who aren’t all that interested in the day to day troubles of flood and cyclone victims.
They say we get the politicians we deserve, but I don’t see what we did to deserve these woeful leaders.
