The ACLNP Shows Its Hand - Over and Over

I spent a bit of effort, even though I knew that the Qld Labor Party had used all its rope to hang itself, encouraging people to look carefully at the Queensland Liberal National Party and what it stood for before the last Qld elections.  There was no chance Labor would retain power, and even though they retained less than a mini-van worth of seats, making their trips from the airport rather cost effective, I think most of Qld was surprised by how much of a flogging they copped at the voting booths.

The real issue, however, was how closely aligned the Qld LNP were with people like Clive Palmer and the Australian Christian Lobby.  I've been calling this party the "ACLNP", the "Australian Christian Lobbyral National Party" of late as the influence of the ACL is becoming more publicly visible.  Clive Palmer has changed his mind recently and instead of intending to run for the Federal seat of Lilley (Wayne Swan's seat). I hear he's now intending to contest the Federal seat of Kennedy - Bob Katter's seat. The ACLNP may soon become the "Australian Christian Lobbyral National Palmer" which will be even more disappointing than it is now.

In recent times, Campbell Newman and the ACLNP have been going about dismantling Queensland's public support systems one by one - first it was pulling funding from Healthy Communities, and civilian workers in the Police Force and Department of Community Safety, Public Service job cuts including the Ambulance service), the Tenant Advice and Advisory Service (which is funded by the interest earned on Tenant's own bonds) and the latest is the cutting of Breast Cancer services.  All of this is offset, of course, by the ACLNP's funding of upgrades to the Gold Coast Turf Club as part of its $110m funding commitment of the racing industry.

Yes, it appears that my pre-election warnings to people are coming true - the ACLNP is pulling funding from beneficial public services and funding the redevelopment of their mates' projects.  After all, who needs to look into the development of solar power when we can continue to keep Clive Palmer's Mineralogy afloat instead?  Of course, we can add to this interesting look at our energy future the fact that the LNP wants to remove climate change education from Queensland schools. The LNP Noosa delegate Richard Pearson claims that the climate change discussion is politically focused as the science isn't set - a position clearly promoted by the climate change deniers who are generally funded by people and companies who have massive investments in the current energy technologies (mainly oil and mining) even though the vast, vast majority of climate scientists agree that not only is the climate getting warmer, but that anthropogenic global warming is increasing the level of warming that we're seeing.

So, the LNP is clearly siding with the fundamentalist christian right lobby group (who represents very, very few people outside the ACL itself) and people like Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart who will deny climate science with a vengeance in order to protect their personal investments.

Welcome to the Theocratic State of Queensland! :(


Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie