Anna Bligh will triumph, according to Mackerras: State election prediction

For ideas, energy, thoughtful generosity and intellect, Anna Bligh is hard to fault as our Queensland Premier. There is not a single member of the Labor Government benches who comes near her for warmth and personality. It is too much to assert Anna is beyond the exercise of political cynicism but she does a good job in doing so.

And by comparison, Lawrence Springborg, worthy as he might be and admirable his background, is wooden and pompous. It is simple enough for the newly formed Opposition Liberal National Party to appeal idealogically in harmony. But it will be a dangerous risk for voters to imagine that the old, bitter rivalries which from Bjelke-Petersen’s day made coalition uneasy and jealous, if not unworkable.

Acknowledged national election expert Malcolm Mackerras
last month published his election year Political Pendulum for Queensland – confidently expecting the two-party preferred vote to be tied at about 50-50, a swing against Labor of about 5 per cent.

And that would leave Anna Bligh with an 11 seat majority – 50 seats for Labor with 39 for all the rest.

After the September, 2006 election, the result was 59 seats for Labor, 17 for the Nationals, eight for the Liberals, four Independents and on eof One nation.

Now about Toowoomba: The interesting feature of the pendulum is that the Liberal National Party needs a swing of about 7.6% to win the median seat of Toowoomba North, held by our veteran Attorney General Kerry Shine. So it would appear that Kerry has nothing much to worry about but it would probably help him a lot if he could stop thinking like a lawyer as in his definitions of rape as a crime – and if he could smile a bit.